The Tiger of Mysore Part 33

"Yes, he might have thought that," Surajah agreed; "but after all, why should he mind that?"

d.i.c.k did not answer for some time. He was trying to think it out.

Presently, he reined in his horse suddenly.

"This might be the reason," he said, excitedly. This governor may be the very one who we heard had taken my father with him, when he was moved from that fort up in the north. He was in command at Kistnagherry before he came here, after the war, and he may have gone to Kistnagherry from that fort in the north. You see there have been executions, but they have been those of fresh batches sent up, and the governor would not include the captive he had brought with him. In time, his very existence may have been forgotten, and he may still be living there. That would account for the governor's objection to answering the question, as he would be sure that, did Tippoo hear there was a prisoner there, he would send orders for him to be executed at once.

"This may be all fancy, Surajah, but I cannot think of any other reason why he should have s.h.i.+rked my question."

He took up the reins again, and the horse at once started forward.

They rode for some little time in silence, d.i.c.k thinking the matter over, again and again, and becoming more and more convinced he was right; except that, as he admitted to himself, the prisoner whom the governor wished to s.h.i.+eld might not be his father.

He was roused, at last, by Surajah asking the question, "Is there anything that you would like us to do?"

"Not now," d.i.c.k replied. "We could not go back again. We must visit the other forts on our list, and see what we can find out there. When we have quite a.s.sured ourselves that my father is not in any of them, we can think this over again; but at present we must put it aside.

However, I sha'n't rest until I get to the bottom of it."

During the next ten days, they inspected the forts of Navandroog, Sundradroog, Outradroog, and Chitteldroog. Few of these were as extensive, and none so strong, as Savandroog. They did the official part of their business, and a.s.sured themselves that no English captives were contained in any of them. The governors all said that prisoners were never kept there many days, and that it was only when Tippoo wished to get rid of them that they were sent there. None of the governors made any objection to answering d.i.c.k's questions on the subject, generally adding an expression of satisfaction that prisoners were never left long under their charge.

"It entails a lot of trouble," the governor of Outradroog said. "They have to be watched incessantly, and one never feels certain they may not slip away. Look at this place. You would think that no one could make his escape; and yet, some ten years ago, fourteen of them got away from here. They slid down a precipice, where no one would have thought a human being could have got down alive. They were all of them retaken, except one, and executed the following day; but the sultan was so furious that, although it was no fault of the governor, who had sentries placed everywhere, he sent for him to Seringapatam, and threw him to the tigers, declaring that there must have been treachery at work. You may be sure that I have no desire to hold English prisoners, after that; and when they have been sent here have been glad, indeed, when orders came for their execution.

"A good many were ordered to be starved to death. But I never waited for that. It took too long. Do what I could, the guards would smuggle in pieces of bread, and they lingered on for weeks; so that it was more merciful to finish with them at once, besides making me feel comfortable at the knowledge that there was no chance of their making their escape. There were sentries at their doors, as well as on the walls, when the fourteen I have told you about escaped; but they dug a pa.s.sage out at the back of their hut, chose a very dark night, and it was only when the sound of some stones, that they dislodged as they scrambled down the precipice, gave the alarm to the sentries, that their escape was discovered.

"No, I do not want any prisoners up here, and when they do come, there is no sleep for me until I get the order to execute them. But they do not often come now. Most of the prisoners who were not given up have been killed since, and there are not many of them left."

Upon finis.h.i.+ng their round, they returned to Seringapatam, where d.i.c.k drew up a full report of the result of their investigations. The sultan himself went through it with them, questioned them closely, cut off a good many of the items, and gave orders that the other demands should be complied with, and the guns and ammunition sent off at once to the various forts, from the great a.r.s.enal at the capital.

d.i.c.k was depressed at the result of their journey. His hopes had fallen lower and lower, as, at each fort they visited, he heard the same story--that all prisoners sent up to the mountain fortresses had, in a short time, been put to death. It was possible, of course, that his father might still be at one of the towns where new levies had been drilled; but he had not, from the first, thought it likely that a merchant sailor would be put to this work; and had it not been that he clung to the belief that there was a prisoner at Savandroog, and that that prisoner was his father, he would have begun to despair.

It was true that there were still many hill forts scattered about the country, unvisited, but there seemed no reason why any of the prisoners should have been allowed to survive in these forts, when they had all been put to death in those they had visited, among which were the places that had been most used as prisons.

"I would give it up," he said to Surajah, "were it not that, in the first place, it would almost break my mother's heart. Her conviction that my father is still alive has never been shaken. It has supported her all these years, and I believe that, were I to return and tell her that it was no longer possible to hope, her faith would still be unshaken. She would still think of him as pining in some dungeon, and would consider that I had given up the search from faint heartedness.

That is my chief reason. But I own that I am almost as much influenced by my own conviction that he is in Savandroog. I quite admit that I can give no reason whatever why, if there is a prisoner there, it should be my father, and yet I cannot get it out of my mind that it is he. I suppose it is because I have the conviction that I believe in it. Why should I have that impression so strongly, if it were not a true one? I tell myself that it is absurd, that I have no real grounds to go upon, and yet that does not shake my faith in the slightest. It is perhaps because we have been so fortunate. Altogether everything has turned out so favourably, that I can't help thinking he is alive, and that I shall find him.

"What do you think, Surajah? Ought we to give it up?"

"Why should we?" Surajah replied stoutly. "I think you are right, and that we are destined to find your father. There is no hurry. We have not been anything like so long a time as we expected to be, and Fortune has, as you say, befriended us wonderfully. We are well off here. We have positions of honour. For myself, I could wish for nothing better."

"Well, at any rate we will wait for a time," d.i.c.k said. "We may be sent to Savandroog again, and if so, I will not leave the place until I find out from the governor whether he has still a prisoner; and if so, manage to obtain a sight of him."

The next day, d.i.c.k was informed by the chamberlain that the officer who was in charge of the wild beasts had fallen into disgrace, and that the sultan had appointed him to the charge. d.i.c.k was well pleased, in some respects. The work would suit him much better than examining stores, and seeing that the servants of the Palace did their duty; but, on the other hand, it lessened his chance of being sent to Savandroog again. However, there was no choice in the matter, and Surajah cheered him by saying:

"You must not mind, d.i.c.k. Has not everything turned out for the best?

And you may be sure that this will turn out so, also."

It was, indeed, but two days later that d.i.c.k congratulated himself upon the change, for Surajah was sent by Tippoo with an order for the execution of four English prisoners. d.i.c.k knew nothing of the matter until Surajah, on his return, told him that he had been obliged to stop and see the orders carried out, by poison being forced down the unfortunate officers' throats.

"It was horrible," he said, with tears in his eyes.

"Horrible!" d.i.c.k repeated. "Thank G.o.d I have been put to other work, for I feel that I could not have done it. And yet, to have refused to carry out the tyrant's orders would have meant death to us both, while it would not have saved the lives of these poor fellows. Anyhow, I would not have done it. As soon as I had received the order I would have come to you, and we would have mounted and ridden off together, and taken our chance."

"Let us talk of something else," Surajah said. "Are the beasts all in good health?"

"As well as they can be, when they are fed so badly, and so miserably cooped up. I made a great row this morning, and have kept the men at work all day in cleaning out the places. They were all in a horrible state, and before I could get the work done, I had to threaten to report the whole of them to Tippoo, and they knew what would come of that. I told Fazli, last night, that the beasts must have more flesh, and got an order from him that all the bones from the kitchens should be given to them."

That evening when d.i.c.k, on his way to the apartments of one of the officers, was going along a corridor that skirted the portion of the Palace occupied by the zenana; a figure came out suddenly from behind the drapery of a door, dropped on her knees beside him, and, seizing his hand, pressed it to her forehead. It was, to all appearance, an Indian girl in the dress of one of the attendants of the zenana.

"What is it, child?" he said. "You must have mistaken me for someone else."

"No, Bahador," she said, "it is yourself I wanted to thank. One of the other attendants saw you go along this corridor, some time ago, and ever since I have watched here of an evening, whenever I could get away un.o.bserved, in hopes of seeing you. It was I, my lord, whom the tiger was standing over when you came to our rescue. I was not greatly hurt, for I was pushed down when the tiger burst in, and, save that it seized me with one of its paws, and tore my shoulder, I was unhurt.

Ever since I have been hoping that the time would come when I could thank you for saving my life."

"I am glad to have done so, child. But you had best retire into the zenana. It would not be good for you, or me, were I found talking to you."

The girl rose to her feet submissively, and he now saw her face, which, in the dim light that burnt in the corridor, he had not hitherto noticed.

"Why," he exclaimed, with a start, "you are Englis.h.!.+"

"Yes, Sahib. I was brought here eight years ago. I am fourteen now.

There were other English girls here then, but they were all older than me, and have been given away to officers of the sultan. I am afraid I shall be, too, ere long. I have dreaded it so much! But oh, Sahib, you are a favourite of the sultan. If he would but give me to you, I should not mind so much."

d.i.c.k was about to reply, when he heard a distant footfall.

"Go in," he exclaimed. "Someone is coming. I will speak to you again, in a day or two."

When he returned to his room, he told Surajah what had happened.

"It will, at any rate, give me a fresh interest here," he said. "It is terrible to think that a young English girl should be in Tippoo's power, and that he can give her, whenever he likes, to one of his creatures. Of course, according to our English notions, she is still but a young girl, but as your people out here marry when the girls are but of the age of this child, it is different altogether."

"She does not suspect that you are English?"

"No. As I told you, I had only just discovered that she was so, when I heard a footstep in the distance. But I shall see her again, tomorrow or next day."

"You will be running a great risk," Surajah said gravely.

"Not much risk, I think," d.i.c.k replied. "She is only a little slave girl, and as the tiger was standing over her when I fired, no doubt I did save her life, and it would be natural enough that she would, on meeting me, speak to me and express her thanks."

"That would be a good excuse," Surajah agreed. "But a suspicious tyrant, like Tippoo, might well insist that this was only a pretence, and that the girl was really giving you a letter or message from one of the inmates of the zenana."

d.i.c.k was silent for a time.

"I will be very careful," he said. "I must certainly see her again, and it seems to me, at present, that whatever risk there may be, I must try to save this poor girl from the fate that awaits her. I cannot conceal from myself that, however much I may refuse to admit it, the hopes of my finding and saving my father are faint indeed; and although this girl is nothing to me, I should feel that my mission had not been an entire failure, if we could take her home with us and restore her to her friends.

"No, I don't think," he went on, in answer to a grave shake of Surajah's head, "that it would add to our danger in getting away. We know that, if we try to escape and are caught, our lives will be forfeited in any case; and if she were disguised as a boy, we could travel with her without attracting any more observation than we should alone. She would not be missed for hours after she had left, and there would be no reason, whatever, for connecting her departure with ours.

I don't say, Surajah, that I have made up my mind about it--of course it has all come fresh to me, and I have not had time to think it over in any way. Still, it does seem to me that when the time for our leaving comes, whether we ride off openly as Tippoo's officers, or whether we go off in disguise, there ought to be no very great difficulty in taking her away with us. You see that yourself, don't you?"

"I can't give any opinion about it, at present," Surajah replied. "I do think that it will add to our difficulties, however we may go, but I don't say it cannot be managed."

"I should think not, Surajah, and it would be worth doing, however great the difficulties might be. Just think of the grief that her parents must feel, at her loss, and the joy when she is restored to them. You see, it would be no great loss of time, if we were obliged to take her down to Tripataly first, and then come back again to renew our search. It would take but a week, going and returning, and now that the pa.s.ses are all open to us, the difficulties would be nothing to what they were when we went back after our scouting expedition.

Besides, at that time they were more vigilant, all along the frontier, than they will be now, because there was war between the two countries, and Tippoo was anxious that no news of his movements should be taken down. There is no talk of war now, for though Tippoo makes no disguise of his fury at his losses, especially at Coorg being taken from him, and is evidently bent upon fighting again, it will take a very long time to get his army into an efficient state, to repair his fortresses, to complete all the new works of defence he is getting up here, and to restore the confidence of his soldiers.