Annie's lips moved, as Dick announced that they had crossed the Mysore
boundary, but no sound came from them. He saw her eyes close, and she
reeled in the saddle.
"Hold her, Surajah," Dick exclaimed, "or she will fall."
Leaning over, Surajah caught her by the shoulder; and Dick, leaping to
the ground, stopped her horse, and, lifting her from the saddle,
seated her upon a bank and supported her.
"Some water, Surajah!" he exclaimed.
Surajah poured a little water from the skin into the hollow of Dick's
hand, and the latter sprinkled the girl's face with it.
"I have not fainted," she murmured, opening her eyes, "but I turned
giddy. I shall be better, directly."
"Drink a little wine," Dick said.
Surajah poured some into a cup, but with an effort she sat up, and
pushed it from her.
"There is nothing the matter," she said. "Only, only" and she burst
suddenly into a passion of sobbing.
The spirit that she had shown, so long as there was danger, had
deserted her now that the peril had passed, and she was safe.
Dick looked at her, helplessly. A girl in tears was a creature wholly
beyond his experience, and he had no idea what he ought to do in such
an emergency. He therefore adopted what was, doubtless, the best
course, had he but known it, of letting her alone. After a time, the
violence of her crying abated, and only short sobs broke from her, as
she sat with her face hidden in her hands.
"That is right, Annie," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "It
is quite natural for you to cry, after the excitement and fatigue you
have gone through. You have been very brave, and have not said a word
of complaint today about your fatigue, although you must be
desperately tired. Now, try and pull yourself together. It is getting
dark already, and we ought to be moving on to Ryacotta, which cannot
be much more than a mile away. You shall ride in front of me, when we
get there."
"I would rather not," she said, getting up with a painful effort. "I
am awfully foolish, and I am so sorry that I broke down, but I felt so
delighted that I could not help it. You said we could camp, safely,
when we once got across the frontier. Would you mind doing so? For I
don't think I could go much farther."
"Certainly we can camp," Dick said cheerfully. "But we must get a
little bit farther from that post we passed. If they were to see a
fire, here, they would be sure to suspect something. I see a clump of
trees a quarter of a mile on. We can make our camp there, and I would
rather do that, myself, than go on to Ryacotta, where our appearance
in the Mysore uniform would excite a stir, and we should have no end
of questions to answer.
"But I am sure that you are not fit to walk, even that distance. Now,
I will lift you on my saddle, and you can sit sideways. There, I will
walk by your side, and you can put your hand to my shoulder to steady
yourself. Surajah can lead your horse and his own, and Ibrahim can
take mine."
In this way they performed the journey to the trees, and then halted.
Annie was lifted down, and laid on a rug. Dick insisted on her
drinking some wine, and then, covering her with another rug, they left
her and lighted a fire, fifty yards away.
"Look here, Ibrahim, put that whole chicken into the pan, cover it
with water, and let it stew. Don't let it boil fast, but just simmer
until it falls all to pieces. Then I will wake her, if she has gone to
sleep, and make her drink the broth. It will do her ever so much more
good than wine, and she will be all right in the morning, though no
doubt she will be desperately stiff again. Still, it has not been a
longer ride than she had yesterday. I expect it is the excitement,
more than the fatigue, that has upset her. Tomorrow she must ride in
front of me, again."
An hour and a half later, Dick went across with the cup full of strong
broth.
"Are you asleep, Annie?" he said, when he reached her side.
"No, I am not asleep. There is so much to think of, and it is such
happiness to know that I am free, that I feel quite wide awake.
Besides, you know, I have been asleep for hours today, and I slept all
night, as I was riding before you."
"Then sit up, and drink this hot broth. It will do you good. And after
that, I hope you will go off. You won't be fit for anything, tomorrow,
if you don't have a good night. You will have plenty of time to think,
as we ride along."
The girl did as she was told.
"It is very nice," she said, as she handed the cup back to him. "Oh,
Dick, I do hope that we shall find my father and mother. I don't want
to, for some things, but I do for others, and most of all that they
may thank you for all your goodness to me, which I shall never be able
to do, myself."
"Nonsense, child!" he said cheerfully. "I have done what every one
would do, if they found a little countrywoman in distress. I should
have gone away from Seringapatam anyhow, if I had not met you, and
getting you down is a good excuse for me to go back and spend a
fortnight with my mother.
"Now get off to sleep, as quickly as you can. We will see what we can
do to make things comfortable for your ride, tomorrow."
It was late when Annie awoke. The sun was some distance above the
horizon, and she saw her companions occupied with the horses. In a few
minutes she joined them.
"I am ashamed at sleeping so long," she said.
"We were glad to find that you did," Dick replied. "If you went to
sleep soon after I brought you the broth, you have had ten hours of
it, and ought to feel all the better."
"I do," she said. "I am very stiff, but not so stiff as I was
yesterday morning. How you are both altered!"
"Yes. It would never have done to have gone on in our gay dresses, and
Tippoo's badges. These are the clothes we came up in, and we shall
attract no attention whatever. You won't have to ride far, today. It
will be as well for you to keep to your own horse, until we have
passed through Ryacotta, which is not much more than half a mile away.
After that, you must sit on this pad I have fastened behind my saddle.
You can sit sideways, you know, and put your arm around me, just as
ladies used to ride in England, a couple of hundred years ago."
As soon as they had eaten something they started, and rode at a good
pace to the little town. People looked at them somewhat curiously as
they passed through the street, wondering that they should have come
from Mysore; but as they did not halt, no one asked any questions. The
population were, at present, a good deal divided. The great majority
by no means regretted their change of masters. Some of the Mohammedans
had left, when the place was taken over by the English, and had
crossed into Mysore. Others had remained, and hoped that, ere long,
Tippoo would drive back the British, and regain his former dominions.
Before mounting, the rich housings and the silver work on the bridles
had been removed, and hidden among the rugs, and there was nothing
beyond the excellence of two of the horses, and the direction from
which they came, to attract attention.
When well beyond the town, they halted. The saddlebags were all packed
upon Annie's horse. Dick lifted the girl on to the pad behind his
saddle, and then mounted.
"Now hold tight by me," he said, "and mind, whenever you are tired, we
will halt for an hour's rest. We will not go more than twenty miles
today, and then it will only be as much more down to Tripataly,
tomorrow. We will walk for a bit, until you get quite accustomed to
your seat."
After a while, the horses broke into a gentle canter. For a time,
Annie felt very doubtful as to whether she could retain her seat, and
so held tight with one arm to Dick, while with the other hand she kept
a firm hold of the crupper. Presently, however, she was able to
release her hold of the latter, and it was not long before she was
able, honestly, to assure Dick that she felt quite comfortable, and
had no fear of falling off.
In two hours they passed near the hill on which stood the fortress of
Kistnagherry, which had successfully resisted the attack of the
English, but above which now flew the British flag. Skirting round the
foot, they came, in the course of an hour and a half's ride, on to the
direct road which they had left at Anicull, in order to avoid passing
through the town of Oussoor. Here they came upon a large village, and
Dick found no difficulty in hiring a light native cart to take Annie,
who was, as he felt by the relaxation of her hold, unable to proceed
farther on horseback, or continue straight through to Tripataly.
A thick layer of straw was placed at the bottom of the cart, a couple
of rugs spread over it, and on this Annie was enabled to lie down at
her ease. The horses were fed and watered, and had an hour's rest, and
then they started for the last twenty miles of their journey.
Annie had, while the horses were resting, a chat with a native woman,
and had gone into her house with her. When they were ready for the
start, she returned, dressed in the costume she had worn in the
Palace. It had originally been intended to get rid of the clothes,
after starting, but Annie had asked for them to be taken on.
"I can change again, before I get to Tripataly," she said. "I should
not like to appear before your mother, for the first time, dressed as
a boy."
And Dick had at once fallen in with her wishes.
The turban was gone, and her head was covered in the fashion of native
women, with a long cotton cloth of a deep red colour.
Where the road was good, the cart proceeded at a fair pace, but in the
pass down the ghauts they could go only at a walk, and the sun had set
before they reached Tripataly. Dick, seeing that Annie was growing
very nervous, as they neared their destination, had ridden all the way
by the side of the cart, chatting cheerfully with her.
"Why, Annie," he said, "you look as solemn as if you were just going
into slavery, instead of having escaped from it."
"It is not that I feel solemn, Dick. It is that everything is so new
and strange. Of course, after your saving my life, I have never felt
that you were a stranger, and as long as there were only you and
Surajah, I did not mind, and I have felt quite at home with you. But
now that I am going to a new place, where I don't know anyone, I can't
help feeling desolate."
"You will feel quite as much at home with them, in twenty-four hours,
as you have done with me, Annie. You are tired now, and quite worn out
with your journey, and so you take a gloomy view of things. I will
guarantee that, before I go away again, you will be good friends with
everyone, and will wonder how you could have thought it to be anything
dreadful to come among them."
When they got within a mile of Tripataly, Dick said:
"Now I will ride on ahead, Annie, and prepare my mother for your
coming. It will be pleasant to have no questions or explanations when
you arrive, and I am sure she will carry you straight off to bed, and
keep you there, until you have quite got over the effects of your
journey."
He did not wait to hear Annie's faint protest against his leaving her,
but telling Surajah to take his place beside the cart, and to keep
talking to the girl, he galloped on ahead. He sprang from his horse in
the courtyard, threw the reins to a servant, and ran in. The party had
just sat down to their evening meal, and as he entered he was greeted
by exclamations of astonishment and welcome.
His mother had received two letters, sent through Pertaub by traders
going down from Seringapatam. In these he had told her, first, of his
arrival and of the adventure with the tiger, and of his obtaining the
post in the Palace; and in the second of the non-success that had
attended his visits to the hill forts. He had told her that he should
probably leave Seringapatam shortly, and continue the search, but that
she must not anticipate any result, for a long time.
"Well, Mother," he said, after the first embrace and greetings were
over, "I have left Tippoo's service, you see, and am no longer a
colonel, or an officer of the Palace. I have come down to spend a
fortnight with you, before I set out again on my travels."
"Has Surajah come back with you, Dick?" the Rajah asked.
"Yes. He will be here in a few minutes, with a cart. That is one of
the reasons why I came down here. I found, among the slaves of the
harem, a white girl about fourteen years old. She is the daughter of a
British officer named Mansfield, and was carried away from her
parents, eight years ago. She was the only white captive left in the
Palace. There have been other girls, in a similar position, but they
have all, at about fourteen or fifteen, been given by Tippoo to his
officers; as would have been her fate, before long, so I determined to
carry her off with me, and bring her to you, until we could find her
parents. She is a very plucky girl, and, although she had never been
on a horse before, rode all the way down, until we got this side of
Kistnagherry. But as you may imagine, the poor little thing is
completely knocked up, so we brought her down from there in a cart.
"It is something, Mother, to have saved one captive from Tippoo's
grasp, even though it is not the dear one that I was looking for; and
I promised that you would be a mother to her, until we could restore
her to her friends."
"Certainly I will, Dick," Mrs. Holland said warmly.
"Will you tell the girls, Gholla," she said to her sister-in-law, "to
have a bed made up for her, in my room?"
"I will do so at once," the ranee said. "Poor little thing, she must
have had a journey, indeed."
"She will be here directly, Mother," Dick said, as his aunt gave the
necessary directions for the bed to be prepared, and a dish of rice
and strong gravy. "She is very nervous, and I am sure it will be best
if you will meet her, when she arrives, and take her straight to her
room."
"That is what I was going to do, Dick," his mother said, with a smile.
"Well, I will go down with you, at once."
Two or three minutes later, the cart entered the courtyard. Mrs.
Holland was on the steps. Dick ran down, and helped Annie from the
cart. The girl was trembling violently.
"Don't be afraid, Annie," Dick whispered, as he lifted her down. "Here
is my mother, waiting to receive you.
"This is the young lady," he went on cheerfully, as he turned to his
mother. "I promised her a warm welcome, in your name."
Mrs. Holland had already come down the steps, and as the girl turned
towards her, she took her in her arms, and kissed her in motherly
fashion.
"Welcome, indeed," she said. "I will be a mother to you, poor child,
till I can hand you over to your own. I thank God for sending you to
me. It will be a comfort to me to know that, even if my son should
never bring my husband back to me, he has at least succeeded in
rescuing one victim from Tippoo, and in making one family happy."
The girl clung to her, crying softly.
"Oh, how good you all are!" she sobbed. "It seems too much happiness
to be true."
"It is quite true, dear. Come with me. We will go up the private
stairs, and I will put you straight to bed in my room, and no one else
shall see you, or question you, until you are quite recovered from
your fatigue."
"I am afraid," Annie began faintly.
She did not need to say more. Mrs. Holland interrupted her.
"Dick, you must lift her up, and carry her into my room. Poor child,
she is utterly exhausted, and no wonder."
A couple of minutes later, Dick returned to the dining room. He had
run down, first, to tell Surajah to come up with him, but found that
he had already gone to his father's apartments.
"Well, Dick," the Rajah said, as he entered, "I was prepared, after
hearing of that tiger adventure, and of you and Surajah being colonels
in Tippoo's household, for almost anything; but I certainly never
dreamt of your returning here with an English girl."
"I suppose not, Uncle. Such a thing certainly never entered into my
calculations. I did not even know there was a white girl in the
Palace, until one day she stopped me, as I was passing along the
corridor near the harem, to thank me for saving her life--for it was
this girl that the tiger had struck down, and was standing upon, when
I fired at him. Of course, she had no idea that I was English. We only
said a few words then, for if I had been seen talking to a slave girl
belonging to the harem, I might have got into a scrape. However, I saw
her afterwards, and she told me about herself, and how she was afraid
that she would be given away to one of Tippoo's officers. Of course, I
could not leave her to such a fate as that.
"There was really no difficulty in getting her away. She was dressed
as a boy, and only had to ride, with our servant, after us. We had
arranged so that our absence would not be noticed, until we had been
away for at least twenty-four hours, and of course, as officers of the
Palace, no one questioned us on the journey, so that it is a very
simple affair altogether, and the only difficulty there was, rose from
her being completely tired out and exhausted by the journey, as she
was utterly unaccustomed to travelling. I had to carry her one night,
in front of me on my saddle, for she was scarce able to stand."
"I am not surprised at that. A journey of a hundred and fifty miles,
to anyone who has never been on horseback, would be a terrible trial,
especially to a young girl. I really wonder that she did not break
down altogether. Why, you can remember how stiff you were, yourself,
the first day or two you were here, and that after riding only an hour
or two."
"I know, Uncle, and I should not have been in the least surprised, if
she had collapsed. I talked it over with Surajah, and we agreed that,
if she could not go on, we must hire a vehicle of some sort, and let
her travel, every day, in front of us with Ibrahim, and that if it
delayed us so much that there was any possibility of our being
overtaken, we would have put on our peasant's dresses, got rid of our
horses, and have gone forward on foot.
"However, she kept up wonderfully well, and always made the best of
things."
"We won't ask you to tell us anything more, Dick, till your mother
joins us, or you will have to go over the story twice."
"No, Uncle; and I can assure you I don't want to tell the story until
I have had my supper, for our meals have not been very comfortable on
the road, and I have not eaten anything since early this morning."
"What is Tippoo doing, Dick?"
"Well, as far as I can see, Uncle, he is preparing for war again. He
is strengthening all his forts, building fresh defences to
Seringapatam, and drilling numbers of fresh troops."
"The English general made a great mistake, in not finishing with him
when he was there. We ought to have taken the city, sent Tippoo down a
prisoner to Madras, and there tried him for the murder of scores of
Englishmen, and hung him over the ramparts. We shall have all our work
to do over again, in another four or five years. However, it will not
be such a difficult business as it was last time, now that we have the
passes in our hands."
"There is no doubt, Uncle, that a considerable part of the population
will be heartily glad when Tippoo's power is at an end. You see, he
and Hyder were both usurpers, and had no more right to the throne than
you had."
"Quite so, Dick, and that makes our letting him off, when we could
have taken the capital easily, all the more foolish. If he had been
the lawful ruler of Mysore, it might not have been good policy to push
him too hard, for he would have had sympathy from all the native
princes of India. But, as being only the son of an adventurer, who had
deposed and ill-treated the lawful ruler of Mysore, it would seem to
them but a mere act of justice, if the English had dethroned him and
punished him--provided, of course, they put a native prince on the
throne, and did not annex all his dominions.
"It has all got to come some day. I can see that, in time, the English
will be the rulers of all India, but at present they are not strong
enough to face a general coalition of the native states against them;
and any very high-handed action, in Mysore, might well alarm the
native princes, throughout India, into laying aside their quarrels
with each other, and combining in an attempt to drive them out."
Just as they had finished their meal, Mrs. Holland entered.
"The poor child is asleep," she said. "She wanted to talk at first,
and to tell me how grateful she was to you, Dick; but of course I
insisted on her being quiet, and said that she should tell me all
about it, in the morning. She ate a few mouthfuls of the rice, and not
long after she lay down, she fell asleep. I have left Sundra sitting
there, in case she should wake up again, but I don't think it is
likely that she will do so.
"Now, Dick, you must tell us all about it."
Dick was not a great hand at writing letters, so he had not entered,
with any fullness, into the details of what he was doing, the
principal point being to let his mother know that he was alive and
well.
"Before he begins," the Rajah said, "I will send for Rajbullub and
Surajah. Master Dick is rather fond of cutting his stories short, and
we must have Surajah here to fill up details."
Surajah and his father soon appeared. The former was warmly greeted by
the Rajah, and when they had seated themselves on a divan, Dick
proceeded to tell the story. He was not interrupted, until he came to
the incident of the killing of the tiger, and here Surajah was called
upon to supplement the story, which he did, doing full credit to the
quickness with which Dick had, without a moment's loss of time, cut
the netting and ascended to the window.
When Dick came to the incident of the ladies of the harem presenting
them, in Tippoo's presence, with the two caskets, Mrs. Holland broke
in:
"You did not say anything about that in your letter, Dick. Let me see
your casket. Where is it?"
"It is in one of the saddlebags," Dick said.
"They are in my room," Rajbullub corrected. "Surajah brought them up
at once."
"Then he had better get them," the Rajah said.
"What do they contain, Dick?" he asked, as Surajah left the room.
"All sorts of things--necklaces and rings. Some of them are stones, as
if they had been taken out of their settings. Pertaub said they had
done this because they thought, perhaps, that Tippoo would not allow
the jewels they had worn to be sold, or worn by anyone else."
"Then I should think that they must be valuable," the ranee said.
"Pertaub said they were worth a good deal, but I don't know whether he
really knew about the cost of precious stones. Some of the things were
of small value, being, I suppose, the trinkets of the slave girls. All
gave something, and there is a little cross there that belonged to
Annie. It has her initials on it, and she had it on her neck, when she
was captured. It was the thing she valued most, and therefore she gave
it. I don't suppose she had anything else, except the usual trinkets
she would wear, when she went out on special occasions with the ladies
of the harem. I thought it would be useful to us, to prove who she
was."
Surajah now returned with the casket.
"You had better look at Surajah's first," Dick said. "I don't know
anything about it, but it looks as if mine were the more valuable. I
wanted Surajah to put them all together, and divide fairly, but he
would not."
"My son was perfectly right," Rajbullub said. "If it had not been for
the young lord, the deed would never have been done at all. Surajah
aided in killing the tiger, but that was nothing more than he has done
on the hills, here. It is to you the merit is entirely due. The purse
that the Sultan gave my son was, in itself, an ample reward for the
share he took in it.
"Now, Surajah, open your casket. The ladies are waiting to see the
contents."
The whole of the little packets, some fifty in number, were opened and
examined; many of them eliciting exclamations of admiration from the
ranee and Mrs. Holland.
"There is no doubt that many of them are worth a good deal of money,"
the Rajah said. "It is certain that Tippoo's treasuries are full of
the spoils he has carried off, from the states he has overrun, and the
ladies of the harem, no doubt, possess a store of the jewels, and
could afford to be liberal to those whom they considered had saved
their lives. Those seven, which you put together as the best, must
alone be worth a large sum. I should think that the total value of the
whole cannot be less than forty or fifty thousand rupees, so that, if
those in your casket are handsomer than these, Dick, they must be
valuable, indeed."
Dick's casket was next examined.
"Some of these stones are magnificent, Dick. Those three great
diamonds could only be valued by a jeweller accustomed to such things,
for their value depends upon their being of good lustre, and free from
all flaws; but, according to my judgment, I should say that, at the
very least, they must be worth ten thousand rupees each. That pearl
necklace is worth at least as much. Those rubies are superb. I should
say, lad, that the value of the whole cannot be less than fifteen
thousand pounds.
"The harem must be rich in jewels, indeed, to be able to make such
gifts. Not that I am surprised at that. Tippoo had all the jewels
belonging to the lawful rulers of Mysore. He has captured all those of
Coorg, Travancore, and the other states on the Malabar coast. He and
his father have looted all the Carnatic, from Cape Comorin to the
north of Madras. He has captured many of the Nizam's cities, and
several Mahratta provinces.
"In fact, he has accumulated, at Seringapatam, the spoils of the whole
of southern India, and those of the Hindoo portion of his own people.
The value of the jewels, alone, must be millions of pounds; and as he
himself, as they say, dresses simply, and only wears one or two gems,
of immense value, he may well have bestowed large quantities upon his
harem, especially as these would be, in fact, only loans, as at the
death of their wearers they would revert to him, or, indeed, could be
reclaimed at any moment, in a freak of bad temper.
"I have no doubt they had to ask his permission to give you the
presents, and as you, at the moment, were in high favour with him, I
daresay he suffered them to give what they chose, without inquiring at
all into their value. The gold he gave you was simply to procure your
outfits, and he left it to the harem to reward you, as they chose, for
the service you had rendered.
"Well, Dick, I congratulate you heartily. It places your future beyond
doubt, and leaves you free to choose any mode of life that you may
prefer.
"I congratulate you, too, Margaret, on the lad's good fortune; which
he has well deserved by his conduct.
"See this, my sons. Here you have a proof of the advantages of the
training your cousin has had. The quickness and coolness he has
acquired, by it, enabled him to make his way down through the fort at
the top of the pass, and to defend the ruined hut against fifty
enemies. Now it has enabled him to seize the opportunity, opened by
the attack of the tiger on Tippoo's harem, thereby gaining the
Sultan's favour, his appointment to the rank of colonel in the Mysore
army, a post in his Palace, and this magnificent collection of gems.
Without that quickness and decision, his courage alone would have done
little for him. We in India have courage; but it is because our
princes and nobles are brought up in indolence and luxury that the
English, though but a handful in point of numbers, have become masters
of such wide territories. Surajah is as brave as Dick, but he would be
the first to tell you that it is to Dick he owes it that, on their
first excursion together, he escaped with his life; and that, in this
last adventure, he attained rank and position, and has returned with
these valuable gifts."
"It is indeed, my lord," Surajah said. "The young lord has been my
leader, and I have tried to carry out his orders. Alone, I could never
have got through the gate in the fort, and should no more have thought
of going to the assistance of the ladies of the Sultan's harem than
did any other of the thousands of men who were there, looking on."
"So you see, boys," the Rajah went on, "that though, when he came out
here, your cousin was able neither to shoot nor to ride, and can
neither shoot nor ride as well, now, as can tens of thousands of
natives; he has acquired, from his training in rough exercises,
qualities of infinitely greater value than these accomplishments; and
I do hope that his example will stir you up to take much greater
interest than, in spite of my advice, you have hitherto done in active
sports and exercises. Your grandmother was an Englishwoman, and I want
to see that, with the white blood in your veins, you have some of the
vigour and energy of Englishmen."
It was some days before Annie Mansfield left her room. For the first
two she had been completely prostrated. After that, she rapidly gained
strength; but Mrs. Holland thought it best to insist upon her
remaining perfectly quiet, until she had quite recovered. Either she
or the ranee were constantly with her, so that when, at the end of a
week, she made her first appearance at the breakfast table, she was
already at home with three of the party.
Before long her shyness completely wore off, and she seemed to have
become really a member of the family. Mrs. Holland had altered two of
her own dresses to fit her, but she preferred, for a time, to dress in
Indian costume, to which she was accustomed; and which was, indeed,
much better suited to the climate than the more closely-fitting
European dress. Mrs. Holland, however, bargained that she should, of
an evening, wear the frocks she had made for her.
"You must get accustomed to them, my dear, so that when you find your
own people, you will not be stiff and awkward; as you certainly will
be, when you dress in English fashion for the first time."
The day after his arrival, Dick had written to the military secretary
of the governor of Madras, with whom he was well acquainted, to tell
him that, having gone up in disguise to Seringapatam, to endeavour to
ascertain the fate of his father, he had discovered a young English
girl, detained as a slave in Tippoo's harem, and that he had enabled
her to effect her escape, and had placed her in the charge of his
mother. He then repeated the account Annie had given of her capture,
and asked if the circumstances could be identified, and if the
officer, of the name of Mansfield, concerned in it was still alive;
and if so, was he still in India?
Annie was secretly dreading the arrival of the answer. After her life
as a slave, her present existence seemed to her so perfectly happy
that she shrank from the idea of any fresh change. She had no memory,
whatever, of her parents, and had already a very strong affection for
Mrs. Holland. She liked the ranee very much also, and the absence of
all state and ceremony, in the household of the Rajah, was to her
delightful. She was already on good terms with the boys; and as to
Dick, she was always ready to go out with him, if he would take her,
to run messages for him, or to do anything in her power; and, indeed,
watched him anxiously, as if she would discover and forestall his
slightest wish.
"One would think, Annie," he said one day, "that you were still a
slave, and that I was your master. I don't want you to wait on me,
child, as you waited on the ladies of the harem. However, as I shall
be going away in a few days now, it does not matter; but I should grow
as lazy as a young rajah, if this were to go on long."
"What shall I do when you go away, Dick?"
"Well, I hope that you will set to work, hard, to learn to read and
write, and other things my mother will teach you. You would not like,
when you find your own people, to be regarded by girls of your own age
as an ignorant little savage; and I want you to set to, and make up
for lost time; so that, if you are still here when I come back, I
shall find you have made wonderful progress."
"Oh, I do hope I sha'n't be gone before that, Dick!"
"I am afraid you must make up your mind to it, Annie, for there is no
saying how long I may be away next time. You see, there is not much
chance of my lighting upon another white slave girl, and having to
bring her down here; and I shall go in for a long, steady search for
my father."
"I don't want you to find another slave girl, Dick," she said
earnestly, "not even if it brought you down here again. I should not
like that at all."
"Why not, Annie?"
"Oh, you might like her ever so much better than me. I should like you
to do all sorts of brave things, Dick, and to save people as you have
saved me, but I would rather there was not another girl."
Dick laughed.
"Well, I don't suppose that there is much chance of it. Besides, I
can't turn my uncle's palace into a Home for Lost Girls."
Two days before Dick and Surajah started again, the reply from the
military secretary arrived. It stated that the time and circumstances
pointed out that the place besieged and forced to surrender, eight
years before, was Corsepan; and this was indeed rendered a certainty,
by the fact that the officer in command was Captain Mansfield. He had
with him a half company of Europeans, and three companies of Sepoys.
On looking through the official papers at the time, he had found
Captain Mansfield's report, in which he stated that, on the night
after leaving the fort, the troops, which had been reduced to half
their original strength, had been attacked by a party either of
dacoits or irregular troops. Fearing that some such act of treachery
might be attempted, he had told his men to conceal a few cartridges
under their clothes, when they marched out with empty cartridge
pouches. They had, on arriving at their halting place, loaded; and,
when the dacoits fell upon them, had opened fire.
The robbers doubtless expected to find them defenceless, and speedily
fled. In the confusion, some of them had penetrated far into the camp,
and had carried off the captain's daughter, a child of six years old.
When peace was signed with Tippoo, three weeks afterwards, the
commissioners were ordered to make special inquiries as to this child,
and to demand her restoration. They reported that Tippoo denied all
knowledge of the affair, and neither she, nor any of the other girls
there, were ever given up. The letter went on:
"There can be no doubt that the young lady you rescued is the child
who was carried off, and the initials you speak of, on the cross, may
certainly be taken as proof of her identity. Her father retired from
the Service last year, with the rank of colonel. I am, of course,
ignorant of his address. As you say that Mrs. Holland will gladly
continue in charge of her, I would suggest that you should write a
letter to Colonel Mansfield, stating the circumstances of the case,
and saying that, as soon as you are informed of his address, the young
lady will be sent to England. I will enclose the letter in one to the
Board of Directors, briefly stating the circumstances, and requesting
them to forward the enclosure to Colonel Mansfield."
To Annie, the letter came as a relief. It would be nearly a year
before a letter could be received from her father. Until then she
would be able to remain in her new home.