‘I must be off sharp to Colombo,’ said he, addressing me as he entered my room. ‘I have had awfully bad news: it is a question of life or death with a very dear friend there. I can’t lose a moment over my departure. But get leave from the Commandant, and keep me company as far as Attempyttia—it is only a dozen miles away—and we will talk over things as we go along.’
‘All right,’ I said; ‘I’m your man.’
In a very few minutes the required permission was obtained; after which my pony was saddled and we were off. After leaving me at the travellers’ bungalow at Attempyttia, my companion would have to proceed to Kandy, to catch the downward coach, leaving at daylight next morning for Colombo. To accomplish this—some eighty odd miles—he would be forced to ride all night, assisted stage by stage with fresh mounts, which the kind-hearted coffee-planters, whether known or unknown to him, would willingly place at his disposal.
‘Let’s see,’ said the judge. ‘I’ve a good fourteen or fifteen hours before me to find that highly respectable rattle-trap of a royal mail-coach drawn up at the post-office at gun-fire to-morrow morning. Fourteen hours, six miles an hour, including stoppages—eighty-four miles! A snail’s pace; but I won’t calculate upon more speed. Bar accidents, I’m safe to do it, and do it I must.’
So on we galloped, little heeding the romantic scenery through which we were hurrying, and the faster too, as the sun was becoming obscured by thick, heavy, black rain-clouds, which were gathering over it and all around.
‘We are in for a drenching,’ I remarked.
‘If a drenching were all,’ was the reply, ‘it would not much matter; but’——
‘Well! But what?’
‘The Badulla Oya, the river which runs through the deep gorge between the spurs of the hills you see yonder—I know that river well. In dry weather, it is little more than a shallow streamlet, over the stones of which an inch or two of water trickles. But when these sudden monsoon downpours come on, it has the unpleasant knack of swelling, swelling, until it becomes a large, wide, deep mountain torrent, tearing like mad to empty itself somewhere. And you have no idea of the rapidity with which this metamorphosis is accomplished. Let’s push on, for the river crosses the highway; and by Jove, here is the rain and no mistake!’
A vivid flash of lightning, a loud clap of thunder right overhead, and before its reverberations were half ended among the echoing mountains, a deluge of rain was upon us. We were soaked to the skin in a few seconds.