“The Kajias would slay me,” in affright. “The guards are asleep.”
“Much good they are! But what do the Kajias want to do with us? We’d be no good to them to steal.”
“Are they not taking us to their camp?” he suggested doubtfully.
“Well, they won’t, then. Tell them to go back and leave us on the island, and take the boat if they want it.”
“They say the water will soon be rising, and we should all be drowned. They refuse to leave us.”
“Sure they’re very considerate! Well, tell them we won’t go to their camp—or if we do, there’ll be precious few of them will take us there. I have plenty of shots here, and I’ll use them all first.”
“What does the Beebee please to desire?” was the question asked after some interchange of conversation between Mr Firozji and the captors. Eveleen had employed the interval in thinking hard. She did not believe the Kajias meant to take their victims to their camp—or if they did, it was merely for the sake of killing them more at their leisure. It was in the highest degree unlikely that they would leave witnesses alive to testify against them, or provoke Sir Harry further by attempting to hold them to ransom. No, what they had no doubt intended was to tow the boat out of earshot of the sleepy guards on the island, and then cut the throats of all on board, and gut the vessel and send her adrift, in the comfortable conviction that nothing but unrecognisable fragments would survive the storm. This seemed the more certain from their bringing with them the means of getting to shore again, for the mysterious shapes—on one of which Mr Firozji was uncomfortably poised, like a river-god in difficult circumstances—were obviously the mashaks, or inflated skins, with the help of which the tribes on the banks were in the habit of making such short voyages as they found necessary. How they had managed to abstract the poor little man from his own boat, under the eyes of his servants, was a mystery, but everything was mysterious to-night.
He repeated his question as Eveleen hesitated a moment.
“Why, let them take us over to the other side,” she answered—the desire to be as far as possible from the Kajias conquering all other considerations. “I’d rather choose the desert than their camp.”
“There is no time. They are afraid of the storm.” Mr Firozji’s voice sounded as if he was frightened himself.