Part 3 (1/2)

He took a bra.s.s dish, placed a few pieces of wood and charcoal in it, struck a match, and set the wood on fire, and then fanned it until the wood had burned out, and the charcoal was in a glow; then he sprinkled some powder upon it, and a dense white smoke rose.

”Now turn out the lamp, sahib.”

Bathurst did so. The glow of the charcoal enabled him still to see the light smoke; this seemed to him to become clearer and clearer.

”Now for the past!” Rujub said. The smoke grew brighter and brighter, and mixed with flashes of color; presently Bathurst saw clearly an Indian scene. A village stood on a crest, jets of smoke darted up from between the houses, and then a line of troops in scarlet uniform advanced against the village, firing as they went. They paused for a moment, and then with a rush went at the village and disappeared in the smoke over the crest.

”Good Heavens,” Bathurst muttered, ”it is the battle of Chillianwalla!”

”The future!” Rujub said, and the colors on the smoke changed. Bathurst saw a wall surrounding a courtyard. On one side was a house. It had evidently been besieged, for in the upper part were many ragged holes, and two of the windows were knocked into one. On the roof were men firing, and there were one or two women among them. He could see their faces and features distinctly. In the courtyard wall there was a gap, and through this a crowd of Sepoys were making their way, while a handful of whites were defending a breastwork. Among them he recognized his own figure. He saw himself club his rifle and leap down into the middle of the Sepoys, fighting furiously there. The colors faded away, and the room was in darkness again. There was the crack of a match, and then Rujub said quietly, ”If you will lift off the globe again, I will light the lamp, sahib.”

Bathurst almost mechanically did as he was told.

”Well, sahib, what do you think of the pictures?”

”The first was true,” Bathurst said quietly, ”though, how you knew I was with the regiment that stormed the village at Chillianwalla I know not.

The second is certainly not true.”

”You can never know what the future will be, sahib,” the juggler said gravely.

”That is so,” Bathurst said; ”but I know enough of myself to say that it cannot be true. I do not say that the Sepoys can never be fighting against whites, improbable as it seems, but that I was doing what that figure did is, I know, impossible.”

”Time will show, sahib,” the juggler said; ”the pictures never lie.

Shall I show you other things?”

”No, Rujub, you have shown me enough; you have astounded me. I want to see no more tonight.”

”Then farewell, sahib; we shall meet again, I doubt not, and mayhap I may be able to repay the debt I owe you;” and Rujub, lifting his basket, went out through the window without another word.

CHAPTER III.

Some seven or eight officers were sitting round the table in the messroom of the 103d Bengal Infantry at Cawnpore. It had been a guest night, but the strangers had left, the lights had been turned out in the billiard room overhead, the whist party had broken up, and the players had rejoined three officers who had remained at table smoking and talking quietly.

Outside, through the open French windows, the ground looked as if sprinkled with snow beneath the white light of the full moon. Two or three of the mess servants were squatting in the veranda, talking in low voices. A sentry walked backwards and forwards by the gate leading into the mess house compound; beyond, the maidan stretched away flat and level to the low huts of the native lines on the other side.

”So the Doctor comes back tomorrow, Major,” the Adjutant, who had been one of the whist party, said. ”I shall be very glad to have him back.

In the first place, he is a capital fellow, and keeps us all alive; secondly, he is a good deal better doctor than the station surgeon who has been looking after the men since we have been here; and lastly, if I had got anything the matter with me myself, I would rather be in his hands than those of anyone else I know.”

”Yes, I agree with you, Prothero; the Doctor is as good a fellow as ever stepped. There is no doubt about his talent in his profession; and there are a good many of us who owed our lives to him when we were down with cholera, in that bad attack three years ago. He is good all round; he is just as keen a s.h.i.+kari as he was when he joined the regiment, twenty years ago; he is a good billiard player, and one of the best storytellers I ever came across; but his best point is that he is such a thoroughly good fellow--always ready to do a good turn to anyone, and to help a lame dog over a stile. I could name a dozen men in India who owe their commissions to him. I don't know what the regiment would do without him.”

”He went home on leave just after I joined,” one of the subalterns said.

”Of course, I know, from all I have heard of him, that he is an awfully good fellow, but from the little I saw of him myself, he seemed always growling and snapping.”

There was a general laugh from the others.

”Yes, that is his way, Thompson,” the Major said; ”he believes himself to be one of the most cynical and morose of men.”

”He was married, wasn't he, Major?”