Rujub, the Juggler

It was not for a quarter of an hour that Bathurst was conscious of what was going on around him. Someone was rubbing his chest and hands.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Oh, it is you, Bathurst!” he heard Wilson’s voice exclaim. “I thought it was you, but it is so dark now we are off that white sand that I could not see. Where are you hit?”

“I don’t know,” Bathurst said. “I felt a sort of shock as I got out of the water, but I don’t know that I am hurt at all.”

“Oh, you must be hit somewhere. Try and move your arms and legs.”

Bathurst moved.

“No, I don’t think I am hit; if I am, it is on the head. I feel something warm round the back of my neck.”

“By Jove, yes!” Wilson said; “here is where it is; there is a cut all along the top of your head; the bullet seems to have hit you at the back, and gone right along over the top. It can’t have gone in, or else you would not be able to talk.”

“Help me up,” Bathurst said, and he was soon on his feet. He felt giddy and confused. “Who have you with you?” he asked.

“Two natives. I think one is the young chief, and the other is one of his followers.”

Bathurst spoke to them in their native language, and found that Wilson was not mistaken. As soon as he found that he was understood, the young chief poured out a volley of curses upon those who had attacked them.

Bathurst stopped him. “We shall have time for that afterwards, Murad,” he said; “the first thing is to see what had best be done. What has happened since I landed, Wilson?”

“Our boat was pretty nearly cut in two,” Wilson said, “and was sinking when I jumped over; the other boat has been rowed ashore.”

“What did you hear, Wilson?”

“I heard the women scream,” Wilson said reluctantly, “and five or six shots were fired. There has been no sound since then.”

Bathurst stood silent for a minute.

“I do not think they will have killed the women,” he said; “they did not do so at Cawnpore. They will take them there. No doubt they killed the men. Let me think for a moment. Now,” he said after a long pause, “we must be doing. Murad, your father and friends have given their word for the safety of those you took prisoners; that they have been massacred is no fault of your father or of you. This gentleman and myself are the only ones saved, as far as we know. Are you sure that none others came ashore?”

“The others were all killed, we alone remaining,” Murad said. “I will go back to my father, and he will go to Cawnpore and demand vengeance.”

“You can do that afterwards, Murad; the first thing is to fulfill your promise, and I charge you to take this sahib in safety down to Allahabad. You must push on at once, for they may be sending out from Cawnpore at daylight to search the bushes here to see if any have escaped. You must go on with him tonight as far as you can, and in the morning enter some village, buy native clothes, and disguise him, and then journey on to Allahabad.”

“I will do that,” the young Rajah said; “but what about yourself?”

“I shall go into Cawnpore and try to rescue any they may have taken. I have a native cloth round me under my other clothes, as I thought it might be necessary for me to land before we got to Cawnpore to see if danger threatened us. So I have everything I want for a disguise about me.”

“What are you saying, Bathurst?” Wilson asked.

“I am arranging for Murad and his follower to take you down to Allahabad, Wilson. I shall stop at Cawnpore.”

“Stop at Cawnpore! Are you mad, Bathurst?”

“No, I am not mad. I shall stop to see if any of the ladies have been taken prisoners, and if so, try to rescue them. Rujub, the juggler, is there, and I am confident he will help me.”

“But if you can stay, I can, Bathurst. If Miss Hannay has been made prisoner, I would willingly be killed to rescue her.”

“I know you would, Wilson, but you would be killed without being able to rescue her; and as I should share your fate, you would render her rescue impossible. I can speak the native language perfectly, and know native ways. I can move about among them without fear of exciting their suspicion. If you were with me this would be impossible; the first time you were addressed by a native you would be detected; your presence would add to my difficulties a hundredfold. It is not now a question of fighting. Were it only that, I should be delighted to have you with me. As it is, the thing is impossible. If anything is done, I must do it alone. If I ever reach Miss Hannay, she shall know that you were ready to run all risks to save her. No, no, you must go on to Allahabad, and if you cannot save her now, you will be with the force that will save her, if I should fail to do so, and which will avenge us both if it should arrive too late to rescue her. Now I must get you to bandage my head, for I feel faint with loss of blood. I will take off my shirt and tear it in strips. I have got a native disguise next to the skin. We may as well leave my clothes behind me here.”

As soon as Wilson, with the assistance of Murad, had bandaged the wound, the party struck off from the river, and after four hours’ walking came down upon it again two miles below Cawnpore. Here Bathurst said he would stop, stain his skin, and complete his disguise.

“I hate leaving you,” Wilson said, in a broken voice. “There are only you and I left of all our party at Deennugghur. It is awful to think they have all gone—the good old chief, the Doctor, and Richards, and the ladies. There are only we two left. It does seem such a dirty, cowardly thing for me to be making off and leaving you here alone.”

“It is not cowardly, Wilson, for I know you would willingly stay if you could be of the slightest use; but, as, on the contrary, you would only add to the danger, it must be as I have arranged. Goodby, lad; don’t stay; it has to be done. God bless you! Goodby, Murad. Tell your father when you see him that I know no shadow of broken faith rests on him.”

So saying, he turned and went into a clump of bushes, while Wilson, too overpowered to speak, started on his way down country with the two natives.

CHAPTER XIX

Now alone, Bathurst threw himself down among the bashes in an attitude of utter depression.

“Why wasn’t I killed with the others?” he groaned. “Why was I not killed when I sat there by her side?”

So he lay for an hour, and then slowly rose and looked round. There was a faint light in the sky.

“It will be light in another hour,” he said to himself, and he again sat down. Suddenly he started. Had someone spoken, or had he fancied it?

“Wait till I come.”

He seemed to hear the words plainly, just as he had heard Rujub’s summons before.

“That’s it; it is Rujub. How is it that he can make me hear in this way? I am sure it was his voice. Anyhow, I will wait. It shows he is thinking of me, and I am sure he will help me. I know well enough I could do nothing by myself.”

Bathurst assumed with unquestioning faith that Isobel Hannay was alive. He had no reason for his confidence. That first shower of grape might have killed her as it killed others, but he would not admit the doubt in his mind. Wilson’s description of what had happened while he was insensible was one of the grounds of this confidence.

He had heard women scream. Mrs. Hunter and her daughter were the only other women in the boat. Isobel would not have screamed had those muskets been pointed at her, nor did he think the others would have done so. They screamed when they saw the natives about to murder those who were with them. The three women were sitting together, and if one had fallen by the grape shot all would probably have been killed. He felt confident, therefore, that she had escaped; he believed he would have known it had she been killed.

“If I can be influenced by this juggler, surely I should have felt it had Isobel died,” he argued, and was satisfied that she was still alive.

What, however, more than anything else gave him hope was the picture on the smoke. “Everything else has come true,” he said to himself; “why should not that? Wilson spoke of the Doctor as dead. I will not believe it; for if he is dead, the picture is false. Why should that thing of all others have been shown to me unless it had been true? What seemed impossible to me—that I should be fighting like a brave man—has been verified. Why should not this? I should have laughed at such superstition six months ago; now I cling to it as my one ground for hope. Well, I will wait if I have to stay here until tomorrow night.”

Noiselessly he moved about in the little wood, going to the edge and looking out, pacing to and fro with quick steps, his face set in a frown, occasionally muttering to himself. He was in a fever of impatience. He longed to be doing something, even if that something led to his detention and death. He said to himself that he should not care so that Isobel Hannay did but know that he had died in trying to rescue her.

The sun rose, and he saw the peasants in the fields, and caught the note of a bugle sounding from the lines at Cawnpore. At last—it had seemed to him an age, but the sun had been up only an hour—he saw a figure coming along the river bank. As it approached he told himself that it was the juggler; if so, he had laid aside the garments in which he last saw him, and was now attired as when they first met. When he saw him turn off from the river bank and advance straight towards the wood, he had no doubt that it was the man he expected.

“Thanks be to the holy ones that you have escaped, sahib,” Rujub said, as soon as he came within speaking distance of Bathurst. “I was in an agony last night. I was with you in thought, and saw the boats approaching the ambuscade. I saw you leap over and swim to shore. I saw you fall, and I cried out. For a moment I thought you were killed. Then I saw you go on and fall again, and saw your friends carry you in. I watched you recover and come on here, and then I willed it that you should wait here till I came for you. I have brought you a disguise, for I did not know that you had one with you. But, first of all, sit down and let me dress your wound afresh. I have brought all that is necessary for it.”

“You are a true fried, Rujub. I relied upon you for aid; do you know why I waited here instead of going down with the others?”

“I know, sahib. I can tell your thoughts as easily when you are away from me as I can when we are together.”

“Can you do this with all people?”

“No, my lord; to be able to read another’s thoughts it is necessary there should be a mystic relation established between them. As I walked beside your horse when you carried my daughter before you after saving her life, I felt that this relation had commenced, and that henceforward our fates were connected. It was necessary that you should have confidence in me, and it was for that reason that I showed you some of the feats that we rarely exhibit, and proved to you that I possessed powers with which you were unacquainted. But in thought reading my daughter has greater powers than I have, and it was she who last night followed you on your journey, sitting with her hand in mine, so that my mind followed hers.”