The G.A. Henty

by G. A. Henty

  “The outburst came from the mouth of the ravine, and we felt at once that he had escaped. We hurried back to find, as we had expected, that the tiger was gone. He had burst out suddenly from his hiding place, had seized a native, torn him horribly, and had made across the open plain.

  “This was terribly provoking, but we had nothing to do but follow him. This was easy enough, and we traced him to a detached patch of wood and jungle, two miles distant. This wood was four or five hundred yards across, and the exclamations of the people at once told us that it was the one in which stood the ruined temple of the fakir of whom I have been telling you. I forgot to say that as the tiger broke out one of the village shikarees had fired at and, he declared, wounded him.

  “It was already getting late in the afternoon, and it was hopeless to attempt to beat the jungle that night. We therefore sent off a runner with a note to the colonel, asking him to send the work elephants, and to allow a party of volunteers to march over at night, to help surround the jungle when we commenced beating it in the morning.

  “We based our request upon the fact that the tiger was a notorious man eater, and had been doing immense damage. We then had a talk with our shikaree, sent a man off to bring provisions for the people out with us, and then set them to work cutting dry sticks and grass to make a circle of fires.

  “We both felt much uneasiness respecting the fakir, who might be seized at any moment by the enraged tiger. The natives would not allow that there was any cause for fear, as the tiger would not dare to touch so holy a man. Our belief in the respect of the tiger for sanctity was by no means strong, and we determined to go in and warn him of the presence of the brute in the wood. It was a mission which we could not intrust to anyone else, for no native would have entered the jungle for untold gold; so we mounted the Begaum again, and started. The path leading towards the temple was pretty wide, and as we went along almost noiselessly, for the elephant was too well trained to tread upon fallen sticks, it was just possible we might come upon the tiger suddenly, so we kept our rifles in readiness in our hands.

  “Presently we came in sight of the ruins. No one was at first visible; but at that very moment the fakir came out from the temple. He could not see or hear us, for we were rather behind him and still among the trees, but at once proceeded in a high voice to break into a singsong prayer. He had not said two words before his voice was drowned in a terrific roar, and in an instant the tiger had sprung upon him, struck him to the ground, seized him as a cat would a mouse, and started off with him at a trot. The brute evidently had not detected our presence, for he came right towards us. We halted the Begaum, and, with our fingers on the triggers, awaited the favorable moment. He was a hundred yards from us when he struck down his victim; he was not more than fifty when he caught sight of us. He stopped for an instant in surprise. Charley muttered, ‘Both barrels, Harley,’ and as the beast turned to plunge into the jungle, and so showed us his side, we sent four bullets crashing into him, and he rolled over lifeless.

  “We went up to the spot, made the Begaum give him a kick, to be sure that he was dead, and then got down to examine the unfortunate fakir. The tiger had seized him by the shoulder, which was terribly torn, and the bone broken. He was still perfectly conscious.

  “We at once fired three shots, our usual signal that the tiger was dead, and in a few minutes were surrounded by the villagers, who hardly knew whether to be delighted at the death of their enemy, or to grieve over the injury to the fakir. We proposed taking the latter to our hospital at Jubbalpore, but this he positively refused to listen to. However, we finally persuaded him to allow his arm to be set and the wounds dressed in the first place by our regimental surgeon, after which he could go to one of the native villages and have his arm dressed in accordance with his own notions. A litter was soon improvised, and away we went to Jubbalpore, which we reached about eight in the evening.

  “The fakir refused to enter the hospital, so we brought out a couple of trestles, laid the litter upon them, and the surgeon set his arm and dressed his wounds by torchlight, when he was lifted into a dhoolie, and his bearers again prepared to start for the village.

  “Hitherto he had only spoken a few words; but he now briefly expressed his deep gratitude to Simmonds and myself. We told him that we would ride over to see him shortly, and hoped to find him getting on rapidly. Another minute and he was gone.

  “It happened that we had three or four fellows away on leave or on staff duty, and several others laid up with fever just about this time, so that the duty fell very heavily upon the rest of us, and it was over a month before we had time to ride over to see the fakir.

  “We had heard he was going on well; but we were surprised, on reaching the village, to find that he had already returned to his old abode in the jungle. However, we had made up our minds to see him, especially as we had agreed that we would endeavor to persuade him to do a prediction for us; so we turned our horses’ heads towards the jungle. We found the fakir sitting on a rock in front of the temple, just where he had been seized by the tiger. He rose as we rode up.

  “‘I knew that you would come today, sahibs, and was joyful in the thought of seeing those who have preserved my life.’

  “‘We are glad to see you looking pretty strong again, though your arm is still in a sling,’ I said, for Simmonds was not strong in Hindustani.

  “‘How did you know that we were coming?’ I asked, when we had tied up our horses.

  “‘Siva has given to his servant to know many things,’ he said quietly.

  “‘Did you know beforehand that the tiger was going to seize you?’ I asked.

  “‘I knew that a great danger threatened, and that Siva would not let me die before my time had come.’

  “‘Could you see into our future?’ I asked.

  “The fakir hesitated, looked at me for a moment earnestly to see if I was speaking in mockery, and then said:

  “‘The sahibs do not believe in the power of Siva or of his servants.. They call his messengers imposters, and scoff at them when they speak of the events of the future.’

  “‘No indeed,’ I said. ‘My friend and I have no idea of scoffing. We have heard of so many of your predictions coming true, that we are really anxious that you should tell us something of the future.’

  “The fakir nodded his head, went into the temple, and returned in a minute or two with two small pipes used by the natives for opium smoking, and a brazier of burning charcoal. The pipes were already charged. He made signs to us to sit down, and took his place in front of us. Then he began singing in a low voice, rocking himself to and fro, and waving a staff which he held in his hand. Gradually his voice rose, and his gesticulations and actions became more violent. So far as I could make out, it was a prayer to Siva that he would give some glimpse of the future which might benefit the sahibs who had saved the life of his servant. Presently he darted forward, gave us each a pipe, took two pieces of red hot charcoal from the brazier in his fingers, without seeming to know that they were warm, and placed them in the pipes; then he recommenced his singing and gesticulations.

  “A glance at Charley, to see if, like myself, he was ready to carry the thing through, and then I put the pipe to my lips. I felt at once that it was opium, of which I had before made experiment, but mixed with some other substance, which was, I imagine, hasheesh, a preparation of hemp. A few puffs, and I felt a drowsiness creeping over me. I saw, as through a mist, the fakir swaying himself backwards and forwards, his arms waving and his face distorted. Another minute, and the pipe slipped from my fingers, and I fell back insensible.

  “How long I lay there I do not know. I woke with a strange and not unpleasant sensation, and presently became conscious that the fakir was gently pressing, with a sort of shampooing action, my temples and head. When he saw that I opened my eyes he left me, and performed the same process upon Charley. In a few minutes he rose from his stooping position, waved his hand in token of adieu, and walked slowly back into the templ
e.

  “As he disappeared I sat up; Charley did the same.

  “We stared at each other for a minute without speaking, and then Charley said:

  “‘This is a rum go, and no mistake, old man.’

  “‘You’re right, Charley. My opinion is, we’ve made fools of ourselves. Let’s be off out of this.’

  “We staggered to our feet, for we both felt like drunken men, made our way to our horses, poured a mussuk of water over our heads, took a drink of brandy from our flasks, and then, feeling more like ourselves, mounted and rode out of the jungle.

  “‘Well, Harley, if the glimpse of futurity which I had is true, all I can say is that it was extremely unpleasant.’

  “‘That was just my case, Charley.’

  “‘My dream, or whatever you like to call it, was about a mutiny of the men.’

  “‘You don’t say so, Charley; so was mine. This is monstrously strange, to say the least of it. However, you tell your story first, and then I will tell mine.’

  “‘It was very short,’ Charley said. ‘We were at mess—not in our present mess room—we were dining with the fellows of some other regiment. Suddenly, without any warning, the windows were filled with a crowd of Sepoys, who opened fire right and left into us. Half the fellows were shot down at once; the rest of us made a rush to our swords just as the negroes came swarming into the room. There was a desperate fight for a moment. I remember that Subadar Piran—one of the best native officers in the regiment, by the way—made a rush at me, and I shot him through the head with a revolver. At the same moment a ball hit me, and down I went. At the moment a Sepoy fell dead across me, hiding me partly from sight. The fight lasted a minute or two longer. I fancy a few fellows escaped, for I heard shots outside. Then the place became quiet. In another minute I heard a crackling, and saw that the devils had set the mess room on fire. One of our men, who was lying close by me, got up and crawled to the window, but he was shot down the moment he showed himself. I was hesitating whether to do the same or to lie still and be smothered, when suddenly I rolled the dead Sepoy off, crawled into the anteroom half suffocated by smoke, raised the lid of a very heavy trapdoor, and stumbled down some steps into a place, half storehouse half cellar, under the mess room. How I knew about it being there I don’t know. The trap closed over my head with a bang. That is all I remember.’

  “‘Well, Charley, curiously enough my dream was also about an extraordinary escape from danger, lasting, like yours, only a minute or two. The first thing I remember—there seems to have been some thing before, but what, I don’t know—I was on horseback, holding a very pretty but awfully pale girl in front of me. We were pursued by a whole troop of Sepoy cavalry, who were firing pistol shots at us. We were not more than seventy or eighty yards in front, and they were gaining fast, just as I rode into a large deserted temple. In the center was a huge stone figure. I jumped off my horse with the lady, and as I did so she said, ‘blow out my brains, Edward; don’t let me fall into their hands.’

  “Instead of answering, I hurried her round behind the idol, pushed against one of the leaves of a flower in the carving, and the stone swung back, and showed a hole just large enough to get through, with a stone staircase inside the body of the idol, made, no doubt, for the priest to go up and give responses through the mouth. I hurried the girl through, crept in after her, and closed the stone, just as our pursuers came clattering into the courtyard. That is all I remember.’

  “‘Well, it is monstrously rum,’ Charley said after a pause. ‘Did you understand what the old fellow was singing about before he gave us the pipes?’

  “‘Yes; I caught the general drift. It was an entreaty to Siva to give us some glimpse of futurity which might benefit us.’

  “We lit our cheroots and rode for some miles at a brisk canter without remark. When we were within a short distance of home we reined up.

  “‘I feel ever so much better,’ Charley said. ‘We have got that opium out of our heads now. How do you account for it all, Harley?’

  “‘I account for it in this way, Charley. The opium naturally had the effect of making us both dream, and as we took similar doses of the same mixture, under similar circumstances, it is scarcely extraordinary that it should have effected the same portion of the brain, and caused a certain similarity in our dreams. In all nightmares something terrible happens, or is on the point of happening; and so it was here. Not unnaturally in both our cases our thoughts turned to soldiers. If you remember, there was a talk at mess some little time since as to what would happen in the extremely unlikely event of the Sepoys mutinying in a body. I have no doubt that was the foundation of both our dreams. It is all natural enough when we come to think it over calmly. I think, by the way, we had better agree to say nothing at all about it in the regiment.’

  “‘I should think not,’ Charley said. ‘We should never hear the end of it; they would chaff us out of our lives.’

  “We kept our secret, and came at last to laugh over it heartily when we were together. Then the subject dropped, and by the end of a year had as much escaped our minds as any other dream would have done. Three months after the affair the regiment was ordered down to Allahabad, and the change of place no doubt helped to erase all memory of the dream. Four years after we had left Jubbalpore we went to Beerapore. The time is very marked in my memory, because, the very week we arrived there, your aunt, then Miss Gardiner, came out from England, to her father, our colonel. The instant I saw her I was impressed with the idea that I knew her intimately. I recollected her face, her figure, and the very tone of her voice, but wherever I had met her I could not conceive. Upon the occasion of my first introduction to her I could not help telling her that I was convinced that we had met, and asking her if she did not remember it. No, she did not remember, but very likely she might have done so, and she suggested the names of several people at whose houses we might have met. I did not know any of them. Presently she asked how long I had been out in India?

  “‘Six years,’ I said.

  “‘And how old, Mr. Harley,’ she said, ‘do you take me to be?’

  “I saw in one instant my stupidity, and was stammering out an apology, when she went on:

  “‘I am very little over eighteen, Mr. Harley, although I evidently look ever so many years older; but papa can certify to my age; so I was only twelve when you left England.’

  “I tried in vain to clear matters up. Your aunt would insist that I took her to be forty, and the fun that my blunder made rather drew us together, and gave me a start over the other fellows at the station, half of whom fell straightway in love with her. Some months went on, and when the mutiny broke out we were engaged to be married. It is a proof of how completely the opium dreams had passed out of the minds of both Simmonds and myself, that even when rumors of general disaffection among the Sepoys began to be current, they never once recurred to us; and even when the news of the actual mutiny reached us we were just as confident as were the others of the fidelity of our own regiment. It was the old story, foolish confidence and black treachery. As at very many other stations, the mutiny broke out when we were at mess. Our regiment was dining with the 34th Bengalees. Suddenly, just as dinner was over, the window was opened, and a tremendous fire poured in. Four or five men fell dead at once, and the poor colonel, who was next to me, was shot right through the head. Everyone rushed to his sword and drew his pistol—for we had been ordered to carry pistols as part of our uniform. I was next to Charley Simmonds as the Sepoys of both regiments, headed by Subadar Piran, poured in at the windows.

  “‘I have it now,’ Charley said; ‘it is the scene I dreamed.’

  “As he spoke he fired his revolver at the subadar, who fell dead in his tracks.

  “A Sepoy close by leveled his musket and fired. Charley fell, and the fellow rushed forward to bayonet him. As he did so I sent a bullet through his head, and he fell across Charley. It was a wild fight for a minute or two, and then a few of us made a sudden rush together, cut
our way through the mutineers, and darted through an open window on to the parade. There were shouts, shots, and screams from the officers’ bungalows, and in several places flames were already rising. What became of the other men I knew not; I made as hard as I could tear for the colonel’s bungalow. Suddenly I came upon a sowar sitting on his horse watching the rising flames. Before he saw me I was on him, and ran him through. I leapt on his horse and galloped down to Gardiner’s compound. I saw lots of Sepoys in and around the bungalow, all engaged in looting. I dashed into the compound.

  “‘May! May!’ I shouted. ‘Where are you?’

  “I had scarcely spoken before a dark figure rushed out of a clump of bushes close by with a scream of delight.

  “In an instant she was on the horse before me, and, shooting down a couple of fellows who made a rush at my reins, I dashed out again. Stray shots were fired after us. But fortunately the Sepoys were all busy looting, most of them had laid down their muskets, and no one really took up the pursuit. I turned off from the parade ground, dashed down between the hedges of two compounds, and in another minute we were in the open country.

  “Fortunately, the cavalry were all down looting their own lines, or we must have been overtaken at once. May happily had fainted as I lifted her on to my horse—happily, because the fearful screams that we heard from the various bungalows almost drove me mad, and would probably have killed her, for the poor ladies were all her intimate friends.