"You're right, Sam," said Bob Burton with grim emphasis. "He's a thunderin' old tyrant, he is, and I hate him worse than Old Nick—and when I git another chance to pay him out, I won't let it slip so easy—but, curse him, he's a man every inch of him!"
Note.—This supposed desertion of British soldiers to join the ranks of Eastern marauders has, unhappily (as I have already shown in "The Boy Slave in Bokhara") only too much foundation in fact. During my first journey through Central Asia, not so many years ago, I was told of several Englishmen (my informants said seven) who were then serving in the so-called "army" of the Khan of Kokan; and all of these were deserters from British India.—D. K.
CHAPTER III
HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT
A year had gone by since that memorable night, and had brought great events in its train.
The power at which all India had so lately trembled was now broken at once and for ever. At Delhi, at Laswaree, at Assaye, at Argaum, the Mahratta conquerors of Central India, with all odds of numbers and artillery in their favour, had fought gallantly to maintain their well-won renown; but numbers and artillery alike, and the utmost efforts of reckless valour, were all vain against the unconquerable "white faces from the West." From the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal, not one native army was left that could look the soldiers of England in the face; and, both at home and throughout India, all men were full of the marvellous exploits of a promising young British commander, then known only as General Wellesley, but ere long to fill the whole world with the fame of the Duke of Wellington.
The East India Company's army had been increased by the formation of several new regiments; and one of the best of these was now commanded by Colonel Hardman, who had been transferred to a newly-built fort about a day's march from his former post at Huttee-Ghur.
Freddy was by this time quite well and strong again; but his father—from whose mind the haunting terror of that fearful summer was never wholly absent—had fully made up his mind to deprive himself of his son's company altogether, rather than take the risk of keeping him any longer in the fatal climate of India; and it had been settled that as soon as the country was quiet enough to make travelling safe, the boy should be sent down to Calcutta, and put on board of the first ship for England.
Evening was just beginning to darken into night, when a gaunt, haggard, wild-looking man in native dress, with a long gun on his shoulder, dragged his weary limbs heavily out of the matted thickets that fringed both sides of the road leading north-eastward to the border of Oude, and threw himself on the ground with a surly oath, which was hoarsely echoed by two other figures, as ragged and dusty as himself, that came creeping out after him.