"O my friend, was this well done—to endanger your own life and the child's, and cause all my people to believe you a murderer, for the sake of a moment's jest?" asked the old man.
"Maharaj-ji, there was no jest. The child lay on the ground, in the path of the charging boar, and I could save him in no other way——"
"He caught me up on his spear, as a kite snatches up a kitten!" cried Kharrak Singh proudly. "I felt the breath of the unclean beast on my leg!"
Partab Singh turned to his guards. "Bring hither the heads of the liars who spake evil of my friend Jirad Sahib, and lay them before him." Then to Gerrard, "My face is black, O my friend. When justice has been done, I shall be less abashed, and able to speak to you."
"I entreat your Highness to pardon the men. Their eyes deceived them, and they thought they spoke the truth. If I am indeed your friend——"
"They shall live. Their eyes alone shall pay the forfeit, for I have no use for eyes that deceive their owners."
"Nay, let them go free. I ask nothing else of your Highness."
"This is in very deed my friend's will?"
"In very deed."
"I had sooner you had asked for half my treasury, but the wretches shall go free," grumbled Partab Singh, and two very badly frightened men were ignominiously sped with kicks and cuffs to the rear. The nearest cultivators were then summoned, and forced to break down the canal-banks, and make a temporary causeway for Gerrard to cross, in the midst of which the Rajah met him and embraced him, and insisted that he should forthwith mount his own splendid horse, with its gold-encrusted trappings, and saddle-cloth flashing with gems. Thus they rode back, the Rajah on a humble pony, with Gerrard on the great horse on his right, and Kharrak Singh, extremely discontented with Gerrard's plain saddle, relegated to his left. In the course of the ride, Gerrard learned that he was immediately to visit the Rajah at the city of Agpur, that the inestimable service he had rendered the state might be properly acknowledged and proclaimed, and that if he desired the life or property of any man in the province, he had only to ask for it. Colonel Antony's ambassador could have desired no better proof of the complete success of his mission.