Henty George Alfred
Rujub, the Juggler
“Yes, so far as we know.”
“Only we four, and all the others gone—Uncle and Mary and Amy and the Doolans and the dear Doctor, all the children. Why, if the door had been open, and I had had a weapon, I would have rushed out to help you kill. I shudder at myself sometimes.”
After a pause she went on. “Then none of those in the other boat came to shore, Mr. Bathurst, except Mr. Wilson?”
“I fear not. The other boat sank directly. Wilson told me it was sinking as he sprang over. You had better not talk any more, Miss Hannay, for you are out of breath now, and will need all your strength.”
“Yes, but tell me why you have taken me away; you said there was great danger?”
“Our troops are coming up,” he said, “and I had reason to fear that when the rebels are defeated the mob may break open the prison.”
“They surely could not murder women and children who have done them no harm!”
“There is no saying what they might do, Miss Hannay, but that was the reason why I dared not leave you where you were. I will tell you more about it afterwards. Now, please take my arm, we must be miles away from here before morning. They will find out then that you have escaped, and will no doubt scour the country.”
They had left the road and were passing through the fields. Isobel’s strength failed rapidly, as soon as the excitement that had at first kept her up subsided. Rujub several times urged Bathurst to go faster, but the girl hung more and more heavily on his arm.
“I can’t go any farther,” she said at last; “it is so long since I walked, and I suppose I have got weak. I have tried very hard, but I can scarcely drag my feet along. You had better leave me; you have done all you could to save me. I thank you so much. Only please leave a pistol with me. I am not at all afraid of dying, but I will not fall into their hands again.”
“We must carry her, Rujub,” Bathurst said; “she is utterly exhausted and worn out, and no wonder. If we could make a sort of stretcher, it would be easy enough.”
Rujub took the cloth from his shoulders, and laid it on the ground by the side of Isobel, who had now sunk down and was lying helpless.
“Lift her onto this, sahib, then we will take the four corners and carry her; it will be no weight.”
Bathurst lifted Isobel, in spite of her feeble protest, and laid her on the cloth.
“I will take the two corners by her head,” Bathurst said, “if you will each take one of the others.”
“No, sahib, the weight is all at the head; you take one corner, and I will take the other. Rabda can take the two corners at the feet. We can change about when we like.”
Isobel had lost greatly in weight since the siege of Deennugghur began, and she was but a light burden for her three bearers, who started with her at a speed considerably greater than that at which she had walked.
“Which way are you taking us, Rujub?” Bathurst asked presently; “I have lost my bearings altogether.”
“I am keeping near the river, sahib. I know the country well. We cannot follow the road, for there the Rajah’s troops and the Sepoys and the Oude men are gathered to oppose your people. They will fight tomorrow at Dong, as I told you, but the main body is not far from here. We must keep far away from them, and if your people take Dong we can then join them if we like. This road keeps near the river all the way, and we are not likely to meet Sepoys here, as it is by the other road the white troops are coming up.”
After four hours’ walking, Rujub said, “There is a large wood just ahead. We will go in there. We are far enough off Cawnpore to be safe from any parties they may send out to search. If your people take Dong tomorrow, they will have enough to think of in Cawnpore without troubling about an escaped prisoner. Besides,” he added, “if the Rajah’s orders are carried out, at daybreak they will not know that a prisoner has escaped; they will not trouble to count.”
“I cannot believe it possible they will carry out such a butchery, Rujub.”
“We shall see, sahib. I did not tell you all I knew lest we should fail to carry off the lady, but I know the orders that have been given. Word has been sent round to the butchers of the town, and tomorrow morning soon after daybreak it will be done.”
Bathurst gave an exclamation of horror, for until now he had hardly believed it was possible that even Nana Sahib could perpetrate so atrocious a massacre. Not another word was spoken until they entered the wood.
“Where is the river, Rujub?”
“A few hundred yards to the left, sahib; the road is half a mile to the right. We shall be quite safe here.”
They made their way for some little distance into the wood, and then laid down their burden.
They had taken to the spot where Rabda remained when the others went forward towards the prison a basket containing food and three bottles of wine, and this Rujub had carried since they started together. As soon as the hammock was lowered to the ground, Isobel moved and sat up.
“I am rested now. Oh, how good you have all been! I was just going to tell you that I could walk again. I am quite ready to go on now.”
“We are going to halt here till tomorrow evening, Miss Hannay; Rujub thinks we are quite beyond any risk of pursuit now. You must first eat and drink something, and then sleep as long as you can. Rabda has brought a native dress for you and dye for staining your skin, but there is no occasion for doing that till tomorrow; the river is only a short distance away, and in the morning you will be able to enjoy a wash.”
The neck was knocked off a bottle. Rabda had brought in the basket a small silver cup, and Isobel, after drinking some wine and eating a few mouthfuls of food, lay down by her and was soon fast asleep. Bathurst ate a much more hearty meal. Rujub and his daughter said that they did not want anything before morning.
The sun was high before Bathurst woke. Rujub had lighted a fire, and was boiling some rice in a lota.
“Where is Miss Hannay?” Bathurst asked, as he sat up.
“She has gone down to the river with Rabda. The trees hang down well over the water, and they can wash without fear of being seen on the opposite shore. I was going to wake you when the lady got up, but she made signs that you were to be allowed to sleep on.”
In half an hour the two girls returned. Isobel was attired in a native dress, and her face, neck, arms, feet, and ankles had been stained to the same color as Rabda’s. She came forward a little timidly, for she felt strange and uncomfortable in her scanty attire. Bathurst gave an exclamation of pain as he saw her face.
“How dreadfully, you have burnt yourself, Miss Hannay; surely you cannot have followed the instructions I gave you.”
“No; it is not your fault at all, Mr. Bathurst; I put a great deal more on than you said, but I was so anxious to disfigure myself that I was determined to do it thoroughly; but it is nothing to what it was. As you see, my lips are getting all right again, and the sores are a good deal better than they were; I suppose they will leave scars, but that won’t trouble me.”
“It is the pain you must have suffered that I am thinking of,” he replied. “As to the scars, I hope they will wear out in time; you must indeed have suffered horribly.”
“They burnt dreadfully for a time,” the girl answered; “but for the last two or three days I have hardly felt it, though, of course, it is very sore still.”
“Do you feel ready for breakfast, Miss Hannay?”
“Quite ready, and for a walk as long as you like afterwards. I feel quite another creature after my dip. That was one of the worst things in the prison. We had scarcely water enough to drink, and none to wash with, and, of course, no combs nor anything.”
They sat down together and ate the cold food they had brought, while Rabda and her father made their breakfast of rice.
“What has become of Mr. Wilson?” Isobel asked suddenly. “I wondered about him as I was being carried along last night, but I was too tired to talk afterwards.”
“I hope he is either safe at Allahabad by this time, or is with the troops marching up. The Zemindar’s son, who came down with us as an escort, and one of his men got safely to shore also, and they went on with Wilson. When he found I was going to stay at Cawnpore to try and rescue you, he pleaded very hard that I should keep him with me in order that he might share in the attempt, but his ignorance of the language might have been fatal, and his being with me would have greatly added to the difficulty, so I was obliged to refuse him. It was only because I told him that instead of adding to, he would lessen your chance of escape, that he consented to go, for I am sure he would willingly have laid down his life to save yours.”
“I am very glad he is safe; he is very kind hearted and nice, Mr. Bathurst, and a thoroughly natural, unaffected young fellow, very loyal and stanch. I am quite sure he would have done anything he could, even at the risk of his life.”
“I like him very much, too, Miss Hannay. Before the siege I thought him a careless, happy go lucky lad, but as I got to know him well, I found he was much more than that, and he will make a good man and an excellent officer one of these days if he is spared. He is thoroughly brave without the slightest brag—an excellent specimen of the best class of public school boy.”
“And who are the troops coming up, Mr. Bathurst? How strong are they? I have heard nothing about them.”
“About twelve hundred white troops and four or five hundred Sikhs; at least that is what the natives put them at.”
“But surely they will never be able to fight their way to Cawnpore, where there are the mutineers and Nana Sahib’s troops and the Oude men and the people of the town. Why, there must be ten to one against them.”
“Not far short of that, I think, but I feel sure our men will do it. They know of the treachery of the Nana, they know of the massacre by the river, and they know that the women and children are prisoners in his hands, and do you think that men who know these things can be beaten? The Sepoys met them in superior force and in a strong position at Futtehpore, and they drove them before them like chaff. They will have harder work next time, but I have no shadow of fear of the result.”
Then their talk went back to Deennugghur and of their friends there—the Doolans, the Hunters, the Rintouls, and others—and Isobel wept freely over their fate.
“Next to my uncle I shall miss the Doctor,” she said.
“He was an awfully good fellow,” Bathurst said, “and was the only real friend I have had since I came to India, I would have done anything for him.”
“When shall we start?” Isobel asked presently.
“Directly the sun goes down a little. You would find it terribly hot now. I have been talking it over with Rujub, and he says it is better not to make a long journey today. We are not more than twenty miles from Dong, and it would not do to move in that direction until we know how things have gone; therefore, if we start at three o’clock and walk till seven or eight, it will be quite far enough.”
“He seems a wonderful man,” said Isobel. “You remember that talk we had at dinner, before we went to see him at the Hunters!”
“Yes,” he said. “As you know, I was a believer then, and so was the Doctor. I need not say that I believe still more now that these men do wholly unaccountable feats. He put the sentry outside the walls of your prison and five out of your eight warders so sound asleep that they did not wake during the struggle I had with the others. That, of course, was mesmerism. His messages to you were actually sent by means of his daughter. She was put in a sort of trance, in which she saw you and told us what you were doing, and communicated the message her father gave her to you. He could not send you a message nor tell me about you when you were first at Bithoor, because he said Rabda was not in sympathy with you, but after she had seen you and touched you and you had kissed her, she was able to do so. There does not appear to me to be anything beyond the powers of nature in that, though doubtless powers were called into play of which at present we know nothing. But we do know that minds act upon each other. Possibly certain persons in sympathy with each other may be able to act upon each other from a distance, especially when thrown into the sort of trance which is known as the clairvoyant state. I always used to look upon that as humbug, but I need hardly say I shall in future be ready to believe almost anything. He professes to have other and even greater powers than what we have seen. At any rate, he can have no motive in deceiving me when he has risked his life to help me. Do you know, Rabda offered to go into the prison—her father could have got her an order to pass in—and then to let you go out in her dress while she remained in your stead. I could not accept the sacrifice even to save you, and I was sure had I done so you yourself would have refused to leave.”
“Of course. But how good of her. Please tell her that you have told me, and how grateful I am for her offer.”
Bathurst called Rabda, who was sitting a short distance away.
She took the hand that Isobel held out to her and placed it against her forehead.
“My life is yours, sahib,” she said simply to Bathurst. “It was right that I should give it for this lady you love.”
“What does she say?” Isobel asked.
“She says that she owed me her life for that tiger business, you know, and was ready to give it for you because I had set my mind on saving you.”
“Is that what she really said, Mr. Bathurst?” Isobel asked quietly, for he had hesitated a little in changing its wording.
“That was the sense of it, I can assure you. Not only was she ready to make the sacrifice, but her father consented to her doing so. These Hindoos are capable of gratitude, you see. There are not many English who would be ready thus to sacrifice themselves for a man who had accidentally, as I may say, saved their lives.”
“Not accidentally, Mr. Bathurst. Why do you always try to run yourself down? I suppose you will say next you saved my life by an accident.”
“The saving of your life is due chiefly to these natives.”
“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 horsemen 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 passing on, when Isobel cried, “It is the Doctor!” and rushing 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 God 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 God 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?”
“My friend the juggler and his daughter are with us, Doctor.”
“Then I can understand the miracle,” the Doctor said, “for I believe that fellow could take you through the air and carry you through stone walls with a wave of his hand.”
“Well, he has not exactly done that, but he and his daughter have rendered us immense service. I could have done nothing without them.”
The two natives, seeing through the bushes the recognition that had taken place, had now stepped forward and salaamed as the Doctor spoke a few hearty words to them.
“But where have you sprung from, Doctor? How were you saved?”
“I jumped overboard when those scoundrels opened fire,” the Doctor said. “I kept my wits about me, and said to myself that if I were to swim for the opposite shore the chances were that I should get shot down, so I made a long dive, came up for air, and then went down again, and came up the next time under some bushes by the bank; there I remained all night. The villains were only a few yards away, and I could hear every word they said. I heard the boat come ashore, and although I could have done no good by rushing out, I think I should have done so if I had had any weapon about me, and have tried to kill one or two of them before I went down. As it was, I waited until morning. Then I heard the rumble of the guns and the wagons, and knew that they were off. I waited for another hour to make sure, and then stepped ashore. I went to the boat lying by the bank. When I saw that Isobel and the other two ladies were not there, I knew that they must have been carried off into Cawnpore. I waited there until night, and then made my way to a peasant’s house a mile out of the town. I had operated upon him for elephantiasis two years ago, and the man had shown himself grateful, and had occasionally sent me in little presents of fowls and so on. He received me well, gave me food, which I wanted horribly, stained my skin, and rigged me out in this disguise. The next morning I went into the town, and for the last four or five days have wandered about there. There was nothing I could do, and yet I felt that I could not go away, but must stay within sight of the prison where you were all confined till our column arrived. But this morning I determined to come down to join our people who are fighting their way up, little thinking that I should light upon you by the way.”
“We were just going to push on, Doctor; but as you have had a good long tramp already, we will stop here until tomorrow morning, if you like.”
“No, no, let us go on, Bathurst. I would rather be on the move, and you can tell me your story as we go.”
