by G. A. Henty
“She won’t be able to ride again, tonight,” Surajah said, as they sat down, while Ibrahim took out the provisions that he had, on the previous day, carried across to the farm.
“No, I must carry her before me. We will shift my saddle a little farther back, and strap a couple of rugs in front of it, so as to make a comfortable seat for her. There is no doubt she will not be able to ride again, by herself. I am sure that, after my first day’s riding, I could not have gone on again for anything.
“We won’t start until it begins to get dusk. Of course, she ought to have a good twenty-four hours’ rest, before she goes on, but we dare not risk that. I don’t think there is any chance of pursuit for days; or, indeed, of any pursuit at all, for by the time they begin to suspect that we have really deserted, they will know that we have had time to get to the frontier. Still, I don’t want to run the slightest risk, and at any rate, if we have to halt, it would be better to do so fifty miles farther on than here.
“When we mount again, we will put the saddlebags from my horse on to hers, and Ibrahim must lead it. Her weight won’t make much difference to my horse, and if I find it tiring, I will change with you. You may as well put your saddlebags on to her horse, also.”
“It would be better, would it not,” Surajah said, “if you change to her horse, which will have carried nothing?”
“Yes, of course that would be best, so you had better not shift your saddlebags.”
After they had had their meal, they stretched themselves out for a sleep, and when they woke it was already becoming dusk. The horses had had a good feed, and were now given a drink of water, from the skin. They were then saddled again, the blankets carefully arranged for Annie’s use, and then they went back to the place where she was lying, still asleep.
“Put the provisions into the wallet again, Ibrahim. We will see if we can get her up without waking her. She is so dead beat that, perhaps, we may do so. I don’t suppose she would be able to eat anything, if we woke her.
“I had better mount first. Then you, Surajah, can lift her up to me. I can stoop down, and take her from your arms, and put her in front of me. She is no weight to speak of.”
Very gently, Surajah put his arms under the sleeping girl, and lifted her.
“That is right,” Dick said, as he placed her on the blankets before him, and held her with his right arm, with her head against his shoulder. “She is dead asleep.”
The blankets were strapped on to the horses again, the others mounted, and they started, at a walk, out of the wood. As soon as they were on the road, the horses broke into a canter again. Annie moaned uneasily, but did not open her eyes. Dick drew her still more closely to him.
“She will do now, Surajah,” he said, in a low voice. “I hope that she will sleep till morning.”
Half an hour later, they rode through Sultanpetta. It was quite dark now, and although there were people in the streets, Dick knew that at the rate they were riding, in the darkness, the fact that he was carrying a lad in front of him would scarce be noticed. Nor would it be of any consequence if it were, as, even if they met any officer who should stop and question them, it would suffice to say that the lad had been taken ill; and that, their business being urgent, they were taking him on with them.
Four hours later they passed through Conkanelly, and crossed the bridge over a branch of the Cauvery. Here Dick felt that his horse was flagging. Halting, he dismounted, and lifted Annie down. This time the movement woke her; she gave a little cry.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“You are quite safe, child,” Dick said cheerfully. “Just lie quiet in my arms. We have come five hours’ journey, and as my horse is getting tired, I am changing to yours. Ibrahim is shifting the rugs that you have been sitting on.”
“I can go on by myself,” she said, making a little struggle to get down.
“You must be good, and do what you are told,” he said, with a laugh. “Remember that you are a slave, and I am your master, at present.”
She said nothing more until they were seated afresh, and had got into motion.
“Oh, you are good, Dick!” she sighed softly. “Only to think of your carrying me like this, for five hours, without waking me!”
“Well, it was much better for us both that you should sleep,” he said, “and it is the horse that is carrying you, not I. I have been very comfortable, I can assure you.
“We shall go on for another four hours. After that we shall hide up in a wood, and sleep till the afternoon. Then it will depend upon you. If you can sit your horse, we shall ride on through Anicull. If not, we must wait till it gets dark again, and then go on as we are now. Are you comfortable, child?”
“Very comfortable, Dick.”
They were talking in English now, for the first time since they started.
“I have almost forgotten how to talk English,” she said. “We white girls always used to talk it, when we were together, so as not to forget it; and since the last one went, three years ago, I have always talked it to myself, for a bit, before going to sleep, so as to keep it up; but it does not come anything like so easy as the other. Still, I like talking it to you. It almost seems as if I were at home again. You see, I have never heard a man talk English, since I was carried away. Even now, I can hardly believe this is not a happy dream, and that I shall not wake up, presently, and find myself a slave girl in the harem.”
“It is pleasant to me to talk English, too,” Dick said, “though it is only a few months since I last spoke it. Now, the best thing you can do is to try and get off to sleep again. When we stop you shall have breakfast. I am sure you must want something. You have had nothing since you ate a mouthful or two, in my room, before starting.”
“Oh, I have slept hours and hours!” she said. “I shall not want to sleep any more.”
However, before long the easy motion lulled her off again, and she did not wake until, at about four o’clock in the morning, they entered a wood that was, as Dick supposed, some three or four miles from Anicull.
“Well, how do you feel now?” Dick asked, as he set her on her feet.
“I feel stiff,” she said; “but that will soon wear off, when I have run about a little. Oh, how tired you must be, after carrying me all these hours!”
“There has not been much to hold,” Dick said with a laugh, “especially since we started the last time. Before that, you were so dead asleep that I did have to hold you; but, you see, you nestled up more comfortably when we changed horses, and needed very little support since then.”
“Now, what can I do?” she asked, with a little laugh. “Please order me to do something. I am your slave, you know, and I want to be helping you.”
“Well, then, I command you to aid me to gather some sticks for a fire. We have nothing to cook, but it will be cheerful, and the air is cool.”
They picked up sticks, while Surajah and Ibrahim loosened the girths of the horses, took off their bridles, and poured out another feed from the bag of grain they had brought with them. In a few minutes a fire was blazing, and the wallet of provisions brought out.
“I wish I had a cup of coffee to offer you, Annie,” Dick said, as he poured her out some wine and water, “but we must wait, for that, until we get down to Tripataly.”
“I have forgotten all about coffee, Dick, and what it tastes like. The white girls used to talk about it, and say how they longed for a cup. It seems, to me, funny to drink anything hot. I have never tasted anything but water, that I can remember, until you gave me that wine yesterday.”
“It is very nice, and very refreshing. There is another drink that is coming into fashion. It is called tea. I have tasted it a few times, but I don’t like it as well as coffee, and it is much more expensive.”
“The sultan says that all the English get drunk, and there used to be pictures of them on the walls. They used to make me so angry.”
“I don’t say that no English get drunk, Annie, because there is no doubt that some do
. But it is very far from being true of the great proportion of them. Tippoo only says it to excite the people against us, because, now that he has made them all Mohammedans, they cannot drink wine—at any rate, openly. When I bought these two bottles, the trader made a great mystery over it, and if I had not given him a sign he understood, and which made him believe that I was a Hindoo and not a Mussulman, he would not have admitted that he kept it at all. He did say so, at first, for I have no doubt he thought that, as I was an officer of the Palace, it was a snare, and that if he had admitted he had wine I should have reported him, and it would have served as an excuse for his being fined, and perhaps having all his goods confiscated. When I made the sign that an old Hindoo had taught me, his manner changed directly, and he took me to the back of his little shop, and produced the wine. I told him I wanted it for medicine, and that was quite true, for I thought it was a drug you were very likely to need, on your journey.”
“How much farther have we to ride?” she asked, after a pause.
“Only about thirty-five miles—that is to say, it is only that distance to the frontier. There is a road that is rather more direct, but it passes through Oussoor, a large town, which we had better avoid. It is not more than fifty miles from the frontier to Tripataly, but once across the line we can take matters easily, and stop whenever you get tired.”
“It will be all very strange to me, Dick. I sha’n’t mind it, as long as you are with me, but it will be dreadful when you go. I am afraid your mother won’t like me. You see, I know nothing of English ways, and I am oh! so ignorant. I cannot even read—at least, very little. One of the girls used to teach me, from a book she had when she was carried off. It was a Bible—she used to tell me stories out of it. But one day they found it, and she was beaten, very much, for venturing to have it. I am afraid I have quite forgotten even my letters; but she and the other girls used to teach me about religion, and told me I must never forget that I was a Christian, whatever they might do to me, and I was to say my prayers every night after I lay down, and every morning before I got up. Of course, I have always done it.”
“You need not be afraid of my mother, Annie. She is very kind, and I am sure she will take to you very much, and will be very glad that I have brought you to Tripataly; for, you see, she has no girls of her own. She will teach you to read and write, and if we go back to England, I dare say you will go to school for a time, so as to learn things like other girls.”
“I can work very nicely,” she said. “The ladies of the harem all used to say that.”
“Well, you will find that very useful, no doubt.”
“And what else is there to learn?” she asked.
“No end of things, Annie—at least, there are no end of things for boys to learn. I do not know anything about girls. But, of course, you will have to get to know something of history and geography.”
“What is geography, Dick?”
“Well, geography is where countries and places are. For instance, you know something of the geography of India, without ever having learnt it. You know that Madras and the Carnatic lie to the east, and Travancore to the southwest, and Malabar to the west, and the Mahratta country and the Nizam’s dominions to the north. Well, that is the geography of this part of the country—that and the names of the towns and rivers. In the same way, there are a lot of nations in Europe, and you want to know all about them, and where they lie with respect to each other, and the names of their principal towns. Then there are America, and Africa, and Asia, and all the countries in them. If you don’t know about these things, you can’t follow what people are talking about.”
“And did you like learning geography, Dick?” she asked, a little anxiously.
“Well no, I can’t say that I did, Annie. I think I used to hate geography. It was very hard to remember where all the places were, and what rivers they stood on. I know very little about it now, except the principal towns and places. But then, I never was very fond of learning anything. I was a very stupid boy, at school.”
“Oh, I am sure you could not have been that, Dick,” she said confidently.
“I was indeed, Annie. I think the only thing I could do well was fighting. I was a beggar to fight—not because I used to quarrel with fellows, but because it made me hard and tough, and my mother thought that it would make me more fit to carry out this search for my father.”
“What did you fight with—swords?” Annie asked.
Dick laughed.
“No, no, Annie, when we quarrel in England we fight with our fists.”
“What is a fist? I never heard of that weapon.”
“That is a fist, Annie. You see, it is hard enough to knock a fellow down, though it does not very often do that; but it hurts him a bit, without doing him any harm, except that it may black his eyes or puff up his face for a day or two—and no boy minds that. It accustoms one to bear pain, and is a splendid thing for teaching a boy to keep his temper, and I believe it is one reason why the English make such good soldiers. It is a sort of science, you see, and one learns it just as people here learn to be good swordsmen. I had lessons, when I was twelve years old, from a little man who used to be a champion lightweight—that is, a man of not more than a certain weight.”
Annie looked doubtful for a minute, and then exclaimed:
“Ah, yes, I understand now. That is how it is you came to our help so quickly and bravely, when the tiger burst in.”
“I daresay it had something to do with it,” Dick said, with a smile. “There is no doubt that boxing, as we call it, does make you quick. There is not much time to waste in thinking how you are to stop a blow, and to return it at the same moment. One gets into the habit of deciding at once what is the best thing to be done; and I have no doubt that I should not have seen, at once, that one must cut through the netting, run to the window, jump on to Surajah’s shoulders, and fire at the tiger, unless I had been sharpened up by boxing. I only say I suppose that, because there were, no doubt, hundreds of men looking on who had pluck enough to face the tiger, and who would have gladly done the thing that we did, if the idea had occurred to them. The idea did not occur to them, you see, and I have no doubt that it was just owing to that boxing that I thought of it. So you see, Annie, it was, in a way, the fights I had with boys at Shadwell—which is the part of London where I lived—that saved you, and perhaps half a dozen ladies of the sultan’s harem, from being killed by that tiger.
“Now, I should advise you to walk about the wood for at least an hour, to get rid of your stiffness. The longer you walk, the better. When you have tired yourself, come back here. By that time, I daresay you will be ready for another sleep. We will start about three o’clock, and shall cross the frontier before it gets quite dark. Once across, we can camp comfortably where we like, or put up at a village, if we should light upon one.
“I should not go far away from here,” he went on, as the girl at once rose and prepared to start. “Very likely the wood may get thicker, farther in, and you might lose your way, or come across a snake; so I should not go far out of sight. The great thing is to keep moving. It is getting broad daylight, now.”
As soon as Annie had started, Dick lay down.
“I feel dog tired, Surajah. This right arm of mine is so stiff that I can hardly lift it. I did not feel it at the time, and her weight was nothing, but I certainly feel it now.”
“You have a good sleep, Dick. Ibrahim and I will keep watch, by turns.”
“I don’t think there is any occasion for that,” Dick said. “No one is likely to come into the wood.”
“Not very likely,” Surajah agreed; “but a body of travellers might turn in here, for a halt in the middle of the day, and it would look strange were they to find two of the Palace officers, and their attendants, all fast asleep.”
“They would only think we came in for a rest, a short time before they did,” Dick said drowsily. “Still, if you don’t mind, perhaps it would be best.”
In two minutes, Dick was
sound asleep.
“‘Now, Ibrahim, you lie down,” Surajah said. “I will call you in three hours.”
In half an hour Annie returned. She looked pitifully at Dick, and then seated herself by Surajah.
“He must be tired,” she said. “It was too bad of me, letting him carry me like that all night. I thought so, over and over again, when he believed I was fast asleep, but I knew that it was of no use asking him to let me ride for a bit.
“You don’t mind my sitting here for a little, do you? I am going away again, presently. I only came back, so soon, because I thought he might wonder what had become of me, if I did not. I could have gone on walking for a long time. It was very hard work at first, for my back ached dreadfully, and every step hurt me so, it was as much as I could do to keep on walking; but gradually it got better, and at last I had a long run, and after that I scarcely felt it.
“How long have you known him, Surajah?” and she nodded towards Dick.
“It is about two years and a half since he came to Tripataly, and I have seen a great deal of him, ever since. I love him very much. He is always the same. He never seems to get angry, and is kind to everyone.”
“Did he fight when he was with the army?”
“Not much. He was one of the general’s own officers, and used to ride with the others behind him. He fought in the battle before Seringapatam, for the general and every one else had to fight, then.”
“How is it you come to be always with him?” she asked.
“It first began when we went out on a scouting expedition together, before the English army went up the ghauts. We volunteered to find out, if we could, which way the sultan’s army was going. We went through a good deal of danger together, and some hard fighting, and the Sahib was pleased with me; and since then we have always been together.”
“Tell me about that, Surajah?”
Surajah related the story of their capture and escape, of their making their way through the fort, and the subsequent pursuit, and their defence of the ruined hut. Annie listened almost breathlessly.