Part 57 (1/2)
”But they were only your instruments, Mr. Bathurst; they had no interest in saving me. You had bought their services at the risk of your life, and in saving me they were paying that debt to you.”
At three o'clock they prepared for the start. Bathurst had exchanged the warder's dress for one of a peasant, which they had brought with them.
The woods were of no great width, and Rujub said they had better follow the road now.
”No one will suspect us of being anything but what we seem,” he said.
”Should we meet any peasants, their talk will be with you and me. They will ask no questions about the women; but if there is a woman among them, and she speaks, Rabda will answer her.”
For hours they had heard dull sounds in the air, which Bathurst had recognized at once as distant artillery, showing that the fight was going on near Dong.
”The Sepoys are making a stout resistance, or the firing would not last so long,” he said to Rujub, as they walked through the wood towards the road.
”They have two positions to defend, sahib. The Nana's men will fight first at a strong village two miles beyond Dong; if they are beaten there, they will fight again at the bridge I told you of.”
”That would partly account for it; but the Sepoys must be fighting much better than they did at Futtehpore, for there, as you said, the white troops swept the Sepoys before them.”
When they reached the edge of the wood Bathurst said, ”I will see that the road is clear before we go out. If anyone saw us issuing out of the wood they might wonder what we had been after.”
He went to the edge of the bushes and looked down the long straight road. There was only a solitary figure in sight. It seemed to be an old man walking lame with a stick. Bathurst was about to turn and tell the others to come out, when he saw the man stop suddenly, turn round to look back along the road, stand with his head bent as if listening, then run across the road with much more agility than he had before seemed to possess, and plunge in among the trees.
”Wait,” he said to those behind him, ”something is going on. A peasant I saw in the road has suddenly dived into the wood as if he was afraid of being pursued. Ah!” he exclaimed a minute later, ”there is a party of hors.e.m.e.n coming along at a gallop--get farther back into the wood.”
Presently they heard the rapid trampling of horses, and looking through the bushes they saw some twenty sowars of one of the native cavalry regiments dash past.
Bathurst went to the edge of the wood again, and looked out. Then he turned suddenly to Isobel.
”You remember those pictures on the smoke?” he said excitedly.
”No, I do not remember them,” she said, in surprise. ”I have often wondered at it, but I have never been able to recollect what they were since that evening. I have often thought they were just like dreams, where one sees everything just as plainly as if it were a reality, and then go out of your mind altogether as soon as you are awake.”
”It has been just the same with me,” replied Bathurst, ”except that once or twice they have come back for a moment quite vividly. One of them I have not thought of for some days, but now I see it again. Don't you remember there was a wood, and a Hindoo man and woman stepped out of it, and a third native came up to them?”
”Yes, I remember now,” she said eagerly; ”it was just as we are here; but what of that, Mr. Bathurst?”
”Did you recognize any of them?”
”Yes, yes, it all comes back to me now. It was you and the Doctor, certainly, and I thought the woman was myself. I spoke to the Doctor next day about it, but he laughed at it all, and I have never thought of it since.”
”The Doctor and I agreed, when we talked it over that evening, that the Hindoo who stepped out of the wood was myself, and thought that you were the Hindoo girl, but of that we were not so sure, for your face seemed not only darkened, but blotched and altered--it was just as you are now--and the third native was the Doctor himself; we both felt certain of that. It has come true, and I feel absolutely certain that the native I saw along the road will turn out to be the Doctor.”
”Oh, I hope so, I hope so!” the girl cried, and pressed forward with Bathurst to the edge of the wood.
The old native was coming along on the road again. As he approached, his eye fell on the two figures, and with a Hindoo salutation he was pa.s.sing on, when Isobel cried, ”It is the Doctor!” and rus.h.i.+ng forward she threw her arms round his neck.
”Isobel Hannay!” he cried in delight and amazement; ”my dear little girl, my dear little girl, thank G.o.d you are saved; but what have you been doing with yourself, and who is this with you?”
”You knew me when you saw me in the picture on the smoke, Doctor,”
Bathurst said, grasping his hand, ”though you do not know me in life.”
”You, too, Bathurst!” the Doctor exclaimed, as he wrung his hand; ”thank G.o.d for that, my dear boy; to think that both of you should have been saved--it seems a miracle. The picture on the smoke? Yes, we were speaking of it that last night at Deennugghur, and I never have thought of it since. Is there anyone else?”