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Gil the Gunner; or, The Youngest Officer in the East, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 29 |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. He crossed at once to my couch, and stood looking down at me, his handsome, thoughtful face, with its dark eyes, being wonderfully familiar, as he bent over me; and as he gazed, a smile crossed his lips, and there was a look of sympathy in his countenance which was unmistakable. But there was no smile on mine, for as I met his eyes I saw in him, in spite of his gallant bearing and gorgeous dress, the bloodthirsty traitor and schemer who had risen against us and headed the mad savages who had cut down my brother-officers and friends. He was the man, too, who held me prisoner, and my resentment was growing when, in an indistinct dreamy way, the scene in the desperate charge came back, and those moments when, half-stunned by the bullet which had struck my helmet, and of which I was not conscious then, I had been galloping away surrounded by sowars, one of whom was about to cut me down, giving me a second blow sufficient to destroy the little life left in me. And I saw it clearly now; it was this man who bent over me--this chief, all gorgeous in gold and gems, whose arm had been stretched out to save me, and had undoubtedly brought me where I was, and had me carefully tended back to life. And with these thoughts filling my mind, I lay looking up at him angry, and yet grateful, wondering, too, at the change from the slightly clothed syce whom I had so often seen ill-used by his master, Barton; and as he watched me, I shuddered slightly, for I seemed to know that he had taken deadly vengeance upon my brother-officer in return for months of harsh treatment, insult, and wrong. We neither of us spoke, he evidently contenting himself with watching me, and enjoying the surprise I felt at recognising him as the disguised chief--the groom no longer, but as the powerful leader of a large native force; I, in my weak state, fascinated by his peculiar smiling eyes, that were one moment haughty and fierce and full of triumph, the next beaming with friendliness. At last he bent down on one knee, and as he did so his magnificently jewelled tulwar fell forward naturally enough from the point of the scabbard touching the carpet right between us, and he started as if the sword between us had come as a strange portent to show that we were enemies, always to be kept apart by the deadly blade. I saw that he changed colour and hesitated, influenced by his superstitious eastern nature and education; but the next moment he laughed contemptuously, and unbuckled his jewelled belt, and threw it and the sword two or three yards away, before going down on one knee by my pillow, laying his hand upon my head and gazing intently in my eyes. "Hah!" he ejaculated, speaking for the first time, and in excellent English. "You are getting well fast now. You are weak, but you will live and soon be well. I thought once you would die. You know me?" he added, with a smile. I spoke now for the first time, and my voice sounded feeble, I felt, compared to his. "Yes, I know you again, Ny Deen." His eyes flashed, and his face lit up strangely as he exclaimed-- "Yes; Ny Deen, the syce, beaten, kicked, trampled upon; Ny Deen, the dog--the--" He paused for a moment or two, and then with an emphasis that would have made the term of reproach sound absurd, but for the fierce revengeful look in his countenance, he added-- "Nigger!" There was an intensity of scorn in his utterance of the word that was tragic; and as I lay back there on my cushion I read in it the fierce turning at last of the trampled worm--the worm as represented by the venomous serpent of the conquered land, and I knew from my own experience what endless cases there were of patient, humbled, and crushed-down men, no higher in position than slaves, ill-used, and treated with contempt by my insolent, overbearing countrymen of that self-assertive class who cannot hold power without turning it to abuse. The silence in the tent as my captor knelt by me was intense, and I could hear his hard breathing, and see how he was striving to master the fierce emotion in his breast. His eyes were mostly fixed on me with a savage scowl, and for a moment or so I fancied that he must have saved my life so as to take it himself in some way which would add torture and throw dismay amongst the English ranks. But I was ready to smile at my own vanity as I thought to myself of what a little consequence the life of a young artillery subaltern would be in the great revolt now in progress. Then I felt a strong desire to speak, to make some great utterance such as would impress him and raise me in his estimation sufficiently to make him treat me with the respect due to an English officer; but no such utterance would come. I felt that I was only a poor, weak, wounded lad, lying there at the mercy of this fierce rajah, and when at last my lips parted, as if forced to say something in answer to his searching gaze, I writhed within myself and felt ashamed of the contemptible words. For his utterance of that term of contumely so liberally used toward one of a race of people who had been for countless generations great chiefs in their own land, and whose cities were centres of a civilisation, barbaric, perhaps, but whose products we were only too glad to welcome in England. "Nigger" still seemed to ring in my ears, as I gazed still as if fascinated in the handsome pale-brown eastern face, and I said feebly, just about in the tone of voice in which some contemptible young found-out sneak of a schoolboy, who was trying to hide a fault with a miserable lie, might say, "Please, sir, it wasn't me--" "I never insulted you, or called you so." His face changed like magic, and he bent low over my pillow, as he cried excitedly, and with a passionate fervour in his voice, which almost startled me-- "Never! never, sahib." He paused, frowned, and then his face lit up again, and he uttered a merry laugh. "You see," he cried, "I am one of the conquered race. You have been our masters so long that it comes natural to say _sahib_. But that is at an end now; we are the masters, and the reign of the great Koompanni is at an end." A pang of misery ran through me at these words, which were uttered with so much conviction that I felt they must be true. After a few moments, and from a desire to say something less weak than my last poor feeble utterance, I said-- "Was it not you who saved my life when that sowar was going to cut me down?" "Yes," he cried excitedly. "If he had killed you, he should not have lived another hour." "Why?" I said, with a smile. "I was his enemy fighting against him." "But you were my friend," he said, in a soft low voice, full of emotion; "almost the only one who treated me as if I were something more than a pariah dog. Yes, always my friend, who softened those bitter hours of misery and despair when I was suffering for my people, that some day we might cast off the heel which held us crushed down into the earth. My friend, whom I would have died to save." "Ny Deen!" I cried, for his words moved me, and I stretched out my hand to him. "Hah!" he cried, seizing it tightly between his own. "I could not ask you to give me the hand of friendship, but it has come from you." "And yet how can I shake hands with you, rajah?" I said sadly; "we are enemies." His eyes flashed with pride as I called him rajah, and he retained my hand firmly. "Enemies?" he said. "Yes, in the field, when face to face; but you are wounded, and there is a truce between you and me. We can be friends, and eat salt together. You are my guest, my honoured guest. This tent is yours; the servants are yours; order them, and they will obey you. As soon as you are well enough, there is a palanquin waiting with willing men to bear you. When you are better still, there is your elephant and a horse." "My horse, my Arab?" I cried. "Is he safe?" He smiled. "Yes, quite safe, with two syces to care for him; the horse of their rajah's friend. What can I get you? Ask for anything. I am _very_ rich, and it shall be yours." "You can only give me one thing," I cried. "No; two things." "The first, then?" he said, smiling. "News of my troop, of Captain Brace, and our men; of the officers of the foot regiment. Tell me," I cried excitedly, "how did the fight end?" "How could it end?" he replied, with a smile full of pride. "What could that poor handful of men do against my thousands?" "Defeated?" I cried excitedly. "Yes; they were defeated; they fled." My countenance fell, and there must have been a look of despair in my eyes, which he read, for he said more quietly-- "Captain Brace is a brave man, and he did everything he could; but he had to flee--and you were left in my hands a prisoner," he added, with a smile. "He had to flee," I said to myself; and that means that he had escaped uninjured from a desperate encounter. There was something consoling in that; and I wanted to ask a score of questions about Haynes and the infantry officers, but I could not. For one thing, I felt that it would be like writing a long account of a list of disasters; for another, I was not sure that I could trust an enemy's account of the engagement. So I remained silent, and the rajah asked me a few questions about my symptoms, and whether there was anything he could get for me. I shook my head, for, though gratified by the warm liking and esteem he had displayed, my spirits had sunk very low indeed, and I wanted to be alone to think. Seeing that I was weak and troubled, the rajah soon after rose, and moved to the doorway of the tent, where he summoned one of the attendants, and uttered a few words, the result being that a few minutes after the tall, grave, eastern physician appeared at the doorway, and salaamed in the most lowly way before his prince. "Go to him," said the rajah in their own tongue, and the doctor came across to me and began examining my injuries, while the rajah stood looking on, watching everything attentively. I could not help noticing how nervous and troubled the doctor seemed, performing his task with trembling hands, as if in great awe of the chief his master. He ended by rising and salaaming again. "Well?" said the rajah quickly; and I knew enough Hindustani now to be able to snatch at the meaning of their words. "You must make him well quickly." "I will try, your highness." "No, sir; you will do," said the rajah, sternly. "He must be made strong and well soon. I want him; he is my friend." He turned from the doctor, who took this as his dismissal, and bowed and left the tent, while the rajah seated himself on the carpet by his sword, and stayed there in one position as if deep in thought, making probably more plans. I lay watching him wonderingly, asking myself whether he had ever grasped the fact of how much I had had to do with the recovery of the guns, and if he did not, what would be his feelings toward one who had utterly baulked him, and robbed him of the prize he went through so much to win. I certainly did not feel disposed to enlighten him, but by watching his troubled face, and thinking of how valuable, if he had succeeded in well training his men, a troop of horse artillery would be, and how different our position would have been during that encounter if he had had half a dozen six-pounders well-served. "But he has no guns," I ended by saying to myself; "and we--I mean our people--have, and I cannot believe in our--I mean their--being swept away, so long as they hold such a supremacy as the guns afford to them." I was stopped short by the rajah re-buckling his sword-belt, and a minute later he was bending over me. "Make haste," he said in Hindustani. "I shall not be at peace till you are well once more." He pressed my hand warmly, and bade me order anything I wished, for I was in my own tent, and then, after smiling at me, and telling me to grow strong, he strode to the purdah, drew it aside, turned to look back, and then the curtain fell between us, and I was alone once more. I lay listening to the stamping and plunging of horses, and in imagination could picture the whole scene with the restless, excitable animals, shrinking from being backed, and pretending to bite, but calming down the moment they felt a strong hand at the bit. Then came an order, followed by the jingling of weapons and the snorting of the horses and their heavy trampling upon the soft earth, the sound gradually growing fainter, till it was like a distant murmur, one which had the effect of sending me, tired as I was, off into a heavy sleep. _ |
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