Dick was much pleased with the governor. He was evidently an outspoken
old soldier and, though rough, his bearded face had an honest and
kindly expression, and he thought to himself, "If my father fell into
his hands, I don't think he would be treated with any unnecessary
hardship, though no doubt the sultan's orders would be obeyed."
When a soldier came in, to say that the horses were at the door, they
went out. An officer was standing beside them, and the governor
presented him as his chief artillery officer.
"You have not brought your horse," he said.
"No, your Excellency. The distance is not great, and we should need to
dismount so many times, to get a view from the walls, that it would
not be worthwhile to ride."
"In that case, we may as well walk, also," Dick said.
"I would rather do so, too," the governor said. "I proposed riding,
because I thought you might be tired. As Bakir Meeram says, the
distance is not great. The walls themselves, with the exception of
those of the two forts, are not more than half a mile in extent; for
in most places the rocks go sheer down, and there defences are, of
course, unnecessary. We will inspect this fort, first."
They went the round of the walls, Dick and his companion listening to
the suggestions of the two officers. The principal one was that a wall
should be raised, inside the gate.
"The English, last time, got in here by rushing in at the tail of the
fugitives from below. They were in before the gates could be closed,
and took our men so completely by surprise that they were seized with
a panic. Were we to raise a semicircular wall behind the gateway, such
a thing could not occur again," the governor said. "Of course, there
would be a gate in the inner wall, but not immediately behind the
outer gateway as, if so placed, it might be destroyed by the cannon
shots that battered the outer gate in. I should, therefore, put it at
one end of the inner wall. This gate would be generally open, but in
case of a siege I should have it blocked up with stones piled behind
it, placing a number of ladders by which men, running in, could get on
to the walls, and, however closely they were pursued, could make a
stand there until the ladders were pulled up."
"That would be an excellent idea," Surajah said gravely, "and I will
certainly lay it before the sultan. I suppose you would propose the
same for the other fort?"
"Just the same."
"The only thing that I would observe," Dick said, "is that, if an
enemy once got a footing on the top here, you could not hope to make a
long defence of these forts."
"That is so," the governor agreed. "The strength of the defence is not
here, but on the upward road, and if the English once gained the top
the forts must fall; but at least it shall not be said, as long as I
am governor, that Savandroog fell almost bloodlessly. In these forts
we can at least die bravely, and sell our lives to the last. It is for
that reason I desire that they shall be so defended that they cannot
be carried, as they were before, by a sudden rush."
The other fort was then visited, and a tour made round the walls. The
suggestions offered by the governor and the officers were all noted
down and approved.
Then they made what was, to Dick, the most important part of the
inspection; namely, an examination of the undefended portion of the
rock. The result showed him that the builders of the defences had not
acted unwisely in trusting solely to nature. At many points the rock
fell away in precipices, hundreds of feet deep. At other points,
although the descent was less steep, it was, as far as he could see
from above, altogether unclimbable; but this he thought he would be
able to judge better, from below.
"Do you have sentries round here at night?" he asked the governor.
"No. It would not be necessary, even if an enemy were encamped below.
If you will ride round the foot of the hill when you leave, you will
see for yourself that, save from the side you came up, the place is
absolutely inaccessible."
The view from the top of the hill was superb. Away to the northeast,
the governor pointed out the pagodas of Bangalore, twenty-two miles
away; the distance, in the clear air, seeming comparatively trifling.
"Are there many troops there?" Dick asked.
"There are about five battalions of the regular troops, and three
Chelah battalions. These can hardly be counted as troops. They have
never been of the slightest use. In the last war they ran like sheep.
It is a fancy of the sultan's. But, indeed, he can hardly expect men
to fight who have been forced into the ranks, and made to accept
Mohammedanism against their will. Naturally they regard an invader,
not as an enemy, but as a deliverer.
"Of course the sultan's idea was, that since the native troops,
drilled and led by Englishmen, fought so well; the Chelahs, who were
also drilled and led by Englishmen, would do the same. But the
Company's troops are willing soldiers, and it is the English leading,
more than the English drill, that makes them fight. If the Chelahs
were divided among the hill fortresses they might do good service; and
I could, as far as fighting goes, do with a battalion of them here;
for, mixed up with my men, they would have to do their duty. But, of
course, they will never be placed in the hill forts, for one would
never be safe from treachery. Even if all the lower walls were in the
hands of my own men, some of the Chelahs would be sure to manage to
desert, and give information as to all the defences."
A considerable portion of the upper plateau of the rock was occupied
by the huts of the troops, for the forts were much too small to
contain them and their families. On their way back, they passed
through these. Dick looked anxiously about for white faces, but could
see none, nor any building that seemed to him likely to be used as a
prison.
When they returned to the governor's quarters, they found that a room
had been placed at their disposal, and they presently sat down to
dinner with him.
"I suppose you have no English prisoners here?" Dick said carelessly,
when the meal was over.
The governor paused a moment, before he replied.
"I don't want any of them here," he said shortly. "Batches are sent
up, sometimes, from Bangalore; but it is only for execution. I am a
loyal subject of the sultan, but I would that this work could be done
elsewhere. Almost all the executions take place in the hill forts; in
order, I suppose, that they may be done secretly. I obey orders, but I
never see them carried out. I never even see the captives. They have
done no harm, or, at most, one of their number has tried to escape,
for which they are not to be blamed. I always have them shot, whether
that is the mode of execution ordered or not. It is a soldier's death,
and the one I should choose myself, and so that they are dead it can
matter little to the sultan how they die. If they were all shot, as
soon as they were taken, I should not think so much of it; but after
being held captive for years, and compelled to work, it seems to me
that their lives should be spared. As far as giving up my own life is
concerned, I would willingly do it at the orders of the sultan, but
these executions make me ill. I lose my appetite for weeks afterwards.
Let us talk of something else."
And the governor puffed furiously away at the hookah he had just
lighted. Then the conversation turned to the forts again.
"No, I do not find the life dull," he said, in answer to a remark of
Dick's. "I did so at first, but one soon becomes accustomed to it. I
have my wife and two daughters, and there are ten officers, so that I
can have company when I choose. All the officers are married, and that
gives society. Up here, we do not observe strictly the rules of the
plains, and although the ladies, of course, wear veils when they go
beyond the house, they put them aside indoors, and the families mix
freely with each other, so that we get on very well. You see, there
are very few changes ever made, and as many of the ladies are, like my
wife, no longer young, we treat them as comrades."
In the morning Dick and Surajah mounted their horses, took a hearty
farewell of the governor, and rode down to the gate. A soldier had
been sent down, half an hour before, and they found their escort in
readiness to move. They had decided that, before going to the next
fort, they would ride round the foot of the hill of Savandroog. This
they did, going at a foot pace, and scanning the cliffs and slopes as
they passed. Sometimes they reined up their horses and rode a little
farther back, so as to have a view to the very summit.
When they completed the round, they agreed that there were but two
spots where it seemed to them that an ascent was barely possible, and
they were very doubtful whether the difficulties, when examined more
closely, would not prove to be absolutely insurmountable.
"That is not a satisfactory outlook," Dick said, "but fortunately
there is, now, no motive for climbing the precipice. Certainly those
places would be of no use to a party wanting to make an attack. In the
first place, though you and I might get up, with soft shoes on, I am
sure that English soldiers, with muskets and ammunition pouches, could
never do it, especially at night; and in the daytime, even if a body
of troops strong enough to be of any use could get up, those who first
arrived at the top would be killed before the others could come to
their assistance, and a few stones rolled down would sweep all behind
them to the bottom.
"I don't like turning my back on the place," he went on, as they
turned their horses' heads to the south; for Savandroog was the
farthest north of the forts they were to visit. "It seems to me that,
even now, my father may be there."
"How can that be, Dick?" Surajah said in surprise. "Nothing could be
more straightforward than the governor seemed to be. I thought that he
was even rash, in speaking as frankly as he did to us."
"I think he saw there was no fear of our repeating what he said,
Surajah. He is a frank, outspoken old soldier, and has evidently been
so disgusted at the treatment of the prisoners that he could not mince
his words; and yet, you know, he did not absolutely say that he had no
prisoners."
"No; I noticed that he did not reply directly to your question."
"On the contrary, he distinctly hesitated before he spoke. Now, why
should he have done that? He might just as well have said, 'No, I have
no prisoners. They are only sent up here for execution.' That would
have been his natural answer. Instead of that he hesitated, and then
began, 'I don't want any of them here; batches are sent up sometimes
from Bangalore.' Now, why did he shirk the question? If it had been
any other subject, I might not have noticed that he had not really
answered it, but of course, as it was so important a one, I was
listening most anxiously for his reply, and noticed his hesitation at
once, and that he gave no direct answer at all.
"Now, think it over, Surajah. Why should he have hesitated, and why
should he have turned the question off without answering it, unless
there had been some reason? And if so, what could the reason be?"
Surajah had no suggestion to make, and they rode on for some distance
in silence.
"It is quite evident," Dick went on, after a long pause, "that he is a
kind-hearted man, and that he objects altogether to Tippoo's cruelty
to the prisoners. Therefore, if he had any captives, his reason for
not answering was most likely a kindly one."
"Yes, I should think so."
"You see, he would consider that we should report, to the sultan, all
particulars we had gathered about the fortress. His remarks about the
execution of the prisoners, and the worthlessness of the Chelah
battalions, and so on, was a private conversation, and was only a
matter of opinion. But, supposing he had had some prisoners, and had
said so, we might, for anything he knew, have had orders to inspect
them, and to report about them, as well as about the garrisons and
defences."
"Yes, he might have thought that," Surajah agreed; "but after all, why
should he mind that?"
Dick did not answer for some time. He was trying to think it out.
Presently, he reined in his horse suddenly.
"This might be the reason," he said, excitedly. This governor may be
the very one who we heard had taken my father with him, when he was
moved from that fort up in the north. He was in command at
Kistnagherry before he came here, after the war, and he may have gone
to Kistnagherry from that fort in the north. You see there have been
executions, but they have been those of fresh batches sent up, and the
governor would not include the captive he had brought with him. In
time, his very existence may have been forgotten, and he may still be
living there. That would account for the governor's objection to
answering the question, as he would be sure that, did Tippoo hear
there was a prisoner there, he would send orders for him to be
executed at once.
"This may be all fancy, Surajah, but I cannot think of any other
reason why he should have shirked my question."
He took up the reins again, and the horse at once started forward.
They rode for some little time in silence, Dick thinking the matter
over, again and again, and becoming more and more convinced he was
right; except that, as he admitted to himself, the prisoner whom the
governor wished to shield might not be his father.
He was roused, at last, by Surajah asking the question, "Is there
anything that you would like us to do?"
"Not now," Dick replied. "We could not go back again. We must visit
the other forts on our list, and see what we can find out there. When
we have quite assured ourselves that my father is not in any of them,
we can think this over again; but at present we must put it aside.
However, I sha'n't rest until I get to the bottom of it."
During the next ten days, they inspected the forts of Navandroog,
Sundradroog, Outradroog, and Chitteldroog. Few of these were as
extensive, and none so strong, as Savandroog. They did the official
part of their business, and assured themselves that no English
captives were contained in any of them. The governors all said that
prisoners were never kept there many days, and that it was only when
Tippoo wished to get rid of them that they were sent there. None of
the governors made any objection to answering Dick's questions on the
subject, generally adding an expression of satisfaction that prisoners
were never left long under their charge.
"It entails a lot of trouble," the governor of Outradroog said. "They
have to be watched incessantly, and one never feels certain they may
not slip away. Look at this place. You would think that no one could
make his escape; and yet, some ten years ago, fourteen of them got
away from here. They slid down a precipice, where no one would have
thought a human being could have got down alive. They were all of them
retaken, except one, and executed the following day; but the sultan
was so furious that, although it was no fault of the governor, who had
sentries placed everywhere, he sent for him to Seringapatam, and threw
him to the tigers, declaring that there must have been treachery at
work. You may be sure that I have no desire to hold English prisoners,
after that; and when they have been sent here have been glad, indeed,
when orders came for their execution.
"A good many were ordered to be starved to death. But I never waited
for that. It took too long. Do what I could, the guards would smuggle
in pieces of bread, and they lingered on for weeks; so that it was
more merciful to finish with them at once, besides making me feel
comfortable at the knowledge that there was no chance of their making
their escape. There were sentries at their doors, as well as on the
walls, when the fourteen I have told you about escaped; but they dug a
passage out at the back of their hut, chose a very dark night, and it
was only when the sound of some stones, that they dislodged as they
scrambled down the precipice, gave the alarm to the sentries, that
their escape was discovered.
"No, I do not want any prisoners up here, and when they do come, there
is no sleep for me until I get the order to execute them. But they do
not often come now. Most of the prisoners who were not given up have
been killed since, and there are not many of them left."
Upon finishing their round, they returned to Seringapatam, where Dick
drew up a full report of the result of their investigations. The
sultan himself went through it with them, questioned them closely, cut
off a good many of the items, and gave orders that the other demands
should be complied with, and the guns and ammunition sent off at once
to the various forts, from the great arsenal at the capital.
Dick was depressed at the result of their journey. His hopes had
fallen lower and lower, as, at each fort they visited, he heard the
same story--that all prisoners sent up to the mountain fortresses had,
in a short time, been put to death. It was possible, of course, that
his father might still be at one of the towns where new levies had
been drilled; but he had not, from the first, thought it likely that a
merchant sailor would be put to this work; and had it not been that he
clung to the belief that there was a prisoner at Savandroog, and that
that prisoner was his father, he would have begun to despair.
It was true that there were still many hill forts scattered about the
country, unvisited, but there seemed no reason why any of the
prisoners should have been allowed to survive in these forts, when
they had all been put to death in those they had visited, among which
were the places that had been most used as prisons.
"I would give it up," he said to Surajah, "were it not that, in the
first place, it would almost break my mother's heart. Her conviction
that my father is still alive has never been shaken. It has supported
her all these years, and I believe that, were I to return and tell her
that it was no longer possible to hope, her faith would still be
unshaken. She would still think of him as pining in some dungeon, and
would consider that I had given up the search from faint heartedness.
That is my chief reason. But I own that I am almost as much influenced
by my own conviction that he is in Savandroog. I quite admit that I
can give no reason whatever why, if there is a prisoner there, it
should be my father, and yet I cannot get it out of my mind that it is
he. I suppose it is because I have the conviction that I believe in
it. Why should I have that impression so strongly, if it were not a
true one? I tell myself that it is absurd, that I have no real grounds
to go upon, and yet that does not shake my faith in the slightest. It
is perhaps because we have been so fortunate. Altogether everything
has turned out so favourably, that I can't help thinking he is alive,
and that I shall find him.
"What do you think, Surajah? Ought we to give it up?"
"Why should we?" Surajah replied stoutly. "I think you are right, and
that we are destined to find your father. There is no hurry. We have
not been anything like so long a time as we expected to be, and
Fortune has, as you say, befriended us wonderfully. We are well off
here. We have positions of honour. For myself, I could wish for
nothing better."
"Well, at any rate we will wait for a time," Dick said. "We may be
sent to Savandroog again, and if so, I will not leave the place until
I find out from the governor whether he has still a prisoner; and if
so, manage to obtain a sight of him."
The next day, Dick was informed by the chamberlain that the officer
who was in charge of the wild beasts had fallen into disgrace, and
that the sultan had appointed him to the charge. Dick was well
pleased, in some respects. The work would suit him much better than
examining stores, and seeing that the servants of the Palace did their
duty; but, on the other hand, it lessened his chance of being sent to
Savandroog again. However, there was no choice in the matter, and
Surajah cheered him by saying:
"You must not mind, Dick. Has not everything turned out for the best?
And you may be sure that this will turn out so, also."
It was, indeed, but two days later that Dick congratulated himself
upon the change, for Surajah was sent by Tippoo with an order for the
execution of four English prisoners. Dick knew nothing of the matter
until Surajah, on his return, told him that he had been obliged to
stop and see the orders carried out, by poison being forced down the
unfortunate officers' throats.
"It was horrible," he said, with tears in his eyes.
"Horrible!" Dick repeated. "Thank God I have been put to other work,
for I feel that I could not have done it. And yet, to have refused to
carry out the tyrant's orders would have meant death to us both, while
it would not have saved the lives of these poor fellows. Anyhow, I
would not have done it. As soon as I had received the order I would
have come to you, and we would have mounted and ridden off together,
and taken our chance."
"Let us talk of something else," Surajah said. "Are the beasts all in
good health?"
"As well as they can be, when they are fed so badly, and so miserably
cooped up. I made a great row this morning, and have kept the men at
work all day in cleaning out the places. They were all in a horrible
state, and before I could get the work done, I had to threaten to
report the whole of them to Tippoo, and they knew what would come of
that. I told Fazli, last night, that the beasts must have more flesh,
and got an order from him that all the bones from the kitchens should
be given to them."
That evening when Dick, on his way to the apartments of one of the
officers, was going along a corridor that skirted the portion of the
Palace occupied by the zenana; a figure came out suddenly from behind
the drapery of a door, dropped on her knees beside him, and, seizing
his hand, pressed it to her forehead. It was, to all appearance, an
Indian girl in the dress of one of the attendants of the zenana.
"What is it, child?" he said. "You must have mistaken me for someone
else."
"No, Bahador," she said, "it is yourself I wanted to thank. One of the
other attendants saw you go along this corridor, some time ago, and
ever since I have watched here of an evening, whenever I could get
away unobserved, in hopes of seeing you. It was I, my lord, whom the
tiger was standing over when you came to our rescue. I was not greatly
hurt, for I was pushed down when the tiger burst in, and, save that it
seized me with one of its paws, and tore my shoulder, I was unhurt.
Ever since I have been hoping that the time would come when I could
thank you for saving my life."
"I am glad to have done so, child. But you had best retire into the
zenana. It would not be good for you, or me, were I found talking to
you."
The girl rose to her feet submissively, and he now saw her face,
which, in the dim light that burnt in the corridor, he had not
hitherto noticed.
"Why," he exclaimed, with a start, "you are English!"
"Yes, Sahib. I was brought here eight years ago. I am fourteen now.
There were other English girls here then, but they were all older than
me, and have been given away to officers of the sultan. I am afraid I
shall be, too, ere long. I have dreaded it so much! But oh, Sahib, you
are a favourite of the sultan. If he would but give me to you, I
should not mind so much."
Dick was about to reply, when he heard a distant footfall.
"Go in," he exclaimed. "Someone is coming. I will speak to you again,
in a day or two."
When he returned to his room, he told Surajah what had happened.
"It will, at any rate, give me a fresh interest here," he said. "It is
terrible to think that a young English girl should be in Tippoo's
power, and that he can give her, whenever he likes, to one of his
creatures. Of course, according to our English notions, she is still
but a young girl, but as your people out here marry when the girls are
but of the age of this child, it is different altogether."
"She does not suspect that you are English?"
"No. As I told you, I had only just discovered that she was so, when I
heard a footstep in the distance. But I shall see her again, tomorrow
or next day."
"You will be running a great risk," Surajah said gravely.
"Not much risk, I think," Dick replied. "She is only a little slave
girl, and as the tiger was standing over her when I fired, no doubt I
did save her life, and it would be natural enough that she would, on
meeting me, speak to me and express her thanks."
"That would be a good excuse," Surajah agreed. "But a suspicious
tyrant, like Tippoo, might well insist that this was only a pretence,
and that the girl was really giving you a letter or message from one
of the inmates of the zenana."
Dick was silent for a time.
"I will be very careful," he said. "I must certainly see her again,
and it seems to me, at present, that whatever risk there may be, I
must try to save this poor girl from the fate that awaits her. I
cannot conceal from myself that, however much I may refuse to admit
it, the hopes of my finding and saving my father are faint indeed; and
although this girl is nothing to me, I should feel that my mission had
not been an entire failure, if we could take her home with us and
restore her to her friends.
"No, I don't think," he went on, in answer to a grave shake of
Surajah's head, "that it would add to our danger in getting away. We
know that, if we try to escape and are caught, our lives will be
forfeited in any case; and if she were disguised as a boy, we could
travel with her without attracting any more observation than we should
alone. She would not be missed for hours after she had left, and there
would be no reason, whatever, for connecting her departure with ours.
I don't say, Surajah, that I have made up my mind about it--of course
it has all come fresh to me, and I have not had time to think it over
in any way. Still, it does seem to me that when the time for our
leaving comes, whether we ride off openly as Tippoo's officers, or
whether we go off in disguise, there ought to be no very great
difficulty in taking her away with us. You see that yourself, don't
you?"
"I can't give any opinion about it, at present," Surajah replied. "I
do think that it will add to our difficulties, however we may go, but
I don't say it cannot be managed."
"I should think not, Surajah, and it would be worth doing, however
great the difficulties might be. Just think of the grief that her
parents must feel, at her loss, and the joy when she is restored to
them. You see, it would be no great loss of time, if we were obliged
to take her down to Tripataly first, and then come back again to renew
our search. It would take but a week, going and returning, and now
that the passes are all open to us, the difficulties would be nothing
to what they were when we went back after our scouting expedition.
Besides, at that time they were more vigilant, all along the frontier,
than they will be now, because there was war between the two
countries, and Tippoo was anxious that no news of his movements should
be taken down. There is no talk of war now, for though Tippoo makes no
disguise of his fury at his losses, especially at Coorg being taken
from him, and is evidently bent upon fighting again, it will take a
very long time to get his army into an efficient state, to repair his
fortresses, to complete all the new works of defence he is getting up
here, and to restore the confidence of his soldiers.
"I should think it will be fully four or five years before he is ready
to fight again. At any rate, if we once get well away from here with
the girl, we ought to have no difficulty in getting across the
frontier. It would mean but a fortnight lost in the search for my
father, and, anyhow, we are not making any progress that way as long
as we stop here. The only drawback would be, so far as I can see, that
we should lose the benefit of our official positions, but unless we
happen to be sent off with orders to other hill forts, that position
will only hamper our movements. Besides, we should still have our
badges of office, and Tippoo's official orders to the governors.
Possibly, the news that we had disappeared might reach the governors
of some of the forts in this neighbourhood, but it would not be likely
to travel very far. His officers so frequently fall into disgrace, and
are either killed or thrown to the tigers, that the fact of our being
missing would scarce excite a remark, and those who heard of it would
suppose that we had either been secretly made away with, or that,
having learned that Tippoo was displeased with us, we had fled."
Surajah nodded. His confidence in his leader was complete, and he was
always ready to follow unquestioningly.
"There is one thing, Surajah," Dick concluded. "This state of things
cannot last much longer, anyhow, for next time it might be me he
ordered to see to the execution of an English prisoner, and that would
mean that I should, as soon as I received the command, make a bolt for
it. So you see our stay here, in any case, may not last many days. I
would rather run any risks than carry out such an order."
Two evenings later, Dick went down the corridor at the same hour as
that on which he had before met the English girl. She came out from
behind the hangings at once, when he passed.
"I knew you would come, Bahador!" she said joyfully. "I could see that
you were as kind as you were brave, and would have pity upon a poor
little white slave!"
"I have much that I want to say to you, child. This is not a good
place for speaking. Someone might come along at any moment. How long
can you be away, without fear of your absence being noticed?"
"Not long now," she said. "In the morning I am sent out on messages,
and could meet you anywhere."
"Very well. I will remain in my room all the morning, tomorrow, and if
you do not come then, I will stay in next day."
"I will come," the girl said unhesitatingly.
He then gave her full instructions how to find his room, and made her
repeat them to him, in order to be sure that she had them correctly.
"Do you know my companion by sight?" he asked.
"Oh, yes. I have seen him often."
"Well, either he or I will be standing at my door. It is as well that
you should look carefully round, before you enter, so as to be sure
there is no one in the corridor, and that you can slip in unobserved.
You may be sure that I am asking you to come for no idle freak, but
because I have something very important to say to you.
"I fancy I hear footsteps. Good night."
Dick was sure that he and Surajah would both be at liberty next day,
for Tippoo had that morning started for Bangalore, where a large
number of men were at work, repairing the fortifications and removing
all signs of the British occupation from the fort and palace. He was
likely to be away for at least a fortnight. As soon as Ibrahim had
swept the room, after their early breakfast, Dick gave him a number of
small commissions to be executed in the town, and told him that he
should not require him again until it was time to bring up their meal
from the kitchen. Then he and Surajah, by turns, watched at the door.
An hour later Surajah, who was upon the watch, said:
"The girl is coming."
There was no one else in sight, and when Surajah beckoned to her, she
hurried on, and, passing through the curtains at the door, entered the
room. It had been arranged that Surajah should remain on watch, so
that should, by any chance, one of the officials of their acquaintance
come along, he might go out and talk with him in the corridor, and, on
some excuse or other, prevent his entering the room, if he showed any
intention of doing so.
"Now, in the first place," Dick said, as he led the girl to the divan
and seated her there, "what is your name?"
"My name is Goorla."
"No; I mean your proper name?"
"My name used to be Annie--Annie Mansfield, Bahador."
"And my name is Dick Holland," he said, in English.
She gave a start of surprise.
"Yes, Annie, I am a countryman of yours."
She looked at him almost incredulously, and then an expression of
aversion succeeded that of confidence in her face. She sprang from the
divan, and drew herself up indignantly.
"Please let me go," she said haughtily. "You have saved my life, but
if you had saved it twenty times, I could not like a man who is a
deserter!"
Dick had at first been speechless with astonishment at the girl's
change of manner, and at her reception of the news he had thought
would have been very pleasant to her. As her last words threw a light
upon the matter, he burst into a merry laugh.
"I am no deserter, Annie. Save my friend at the door and yourself,
there is no one here who knows that I am English. Sit down again, and
I will tell you how I come to be here.
"My father was the captain of an English ship. She was wrecked on the
west coast, and he was seized and brought up here a prisoner, eight
years ago. My mother, who is a daughter of the late Rajah of
Tripataly, who married an English lady, taught me to speak Hindustani,
so that when I got old enough I could come out here and try to find
out if my father was still alive, and if so, to help him to escape. I
had only just come up here, with my friend, who is an officer of the
Rajah's, when that affair with the tiger took place. Then, as you
know, Tippoo made us both officers in the Palace. Of course, while we
are here we can do nothing towards finding out about my father, and we
should not have remained here much longer anyway, and may have to
leave at any moment. Since you met me, and I found that there was an
English girl captive here, it has of course changed my plans, and I
feel that I could not go away and leave you to the fate you told me
of, and that if possible, I must take you away with me. That is, of
course, if you are willing to go with us, and prepared to run a
certain amount of risk.
"Do not take on so," he continued, as the girl threw herself on her
knees, and, clinging to him, burst into a passion of tears. "Do not
cry like that;" and, stooping down, he lifted her, and placed her in a
corner of the divan. "There," he said, patting her on the shoulder, as
she sobbed almost convulsively; "try and compose yourself. We may be
disturbed at any moment, and may not have an opportunity of talking
again, so we must make our arrangements, in readiness to leave
suddenly. I may find it necessary to go at an hour's notice. You may,
as you said, be given by Tippoo to one of his favourites at any time.
Fortunately he has gone away for a fortnight, so we have, at any rate,
that time before us to make our plans. Still, it is better that we
should arrange, now, as much as we can."