In these awful circumstances, with the night air whistling past me,
and with my beloved CHUDDAH and her nurse hurtling upwards beside me,
it is scarcely necessary for me to say that I never for an instant
lost my coolness and my perfect self-possession. That the situation
was dangerous, nay, almost desperate, I fully realised, but it is in
these very situations that true courage and resourcefulness are always
of the highest value. Again and again in the course of my long life
have I plucked safety, aye, and that which is higher and better than
all safety, namely, reputation, from the nettle danger. Let fools
prate as they will; the brave man must always rise triumphant above
the stormy waves of envy and detraction.
These thoughts, I admit, did not occur to me at the moment. Our flight
was too perilous and too swift to allow me to think of aught save what
concerned the immediate necessities of this truly fearful crisis. Poor
little CHUDDAH, I observed, being made of lighter material, was
gradually outstripping me in this dreadful and involuntary race. First
her head topped me; then her shoulders soared beyond me; at last her
feet were on a level with my face. As one of them (I forget which)
passed upwards, I was just able by leaning slightly forward, to
imprint a kiss upon it. "Farewell, CHUDDAH," I sighed, as the lovely
foot left my lips. "Farewell, ORLANDO," she murmured all but
inaudibly, and fled up, up, up into the dismal night. I never saw her
again.
The Ayah, however, a stout and heavy woman, was still beside me,
rising inch for inch as I rose. By turning slightly round I could look
at her. I did so. Judge of my horror when I realised by the faint
light of the stars that the Ayah was no longer alive! The shock of the
sudden ascent must have proved too much for one accustomed to the
sedate and comfortable life of an eastern palace, and enfeebled,
moreover, by advancing age. The explosion acting on such a
constitution had snapped the cords that kept life in her faithful
body. The Ayah was dead, and I who tell this tale was alone with a
corpse in the encircling atmosphere! As I realised this horrible
situation, I confess that for the first and last time in my life I
turned faint with a feeling almost amounting to fear. In imagination I
saw myself speeding for ever, as the æons revolved in their courses,
with only a dead Indian nurse to keep me company. Then, by an
instantaneous revulsion, the grim humour of the situation struck me.
With only my knapsack of provisions and my brandy-flask, it was
unlikely, even under the most favourable circumstances, that I should
be able to prolong life for more than a week. At the end of a week,
then, I too should be a corpse. I laughed aloud as I thought of the
last scion of the WILBRAHAMS, the unconquerable ORLANDO, mated in
mid-air to the dusky Ayah, a skeleton to a skeleton, and my sepulchral
"Ha, ha," went reverberating through the dim spaces of night. The
sound roused me once more. Why, after all, should I die? Life was
sweet; much remained to be done; there were wrongs still to be
redressed in the world below; millions of the oppressed still waited
for a deliverer; countless herds of big game still roamed the prairies
or made their lairs in the forests of earth. No, I would live if I
could, and prove once more the unquenchable fortitude of my race.
At this moment I looked down.
(_To be continued._)
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