India -- History -- Sepoy Rebellion, 1857-1858 -- Fiction
Early on the morning of the wedding a native presented himself at the
gate of the fort, and on being allowed to enter with a letter for Miss
Hannay of which he was the bearer, handed her a parcel, which proved
to contain a very handsome and valuable set of jewelry, with a slip of
paper on which were the words, “From Rabda.”
The Doctor was in high spirits at the breakfast to which everybody sat
down directly after the wedding. In the first place, his greatest wish
was gratified; and, in the second, he was about to start to take part in
the work of retribution.
“One would think you were just starting on a pleasure party, Doctor,”
Isobel said.
“It is worth all the pleasure parties in the world, my dear. I have
always been a hunter, and this time it is human ‘tigers’ I am going in
pursuit of--besides which,” he said, in a quieter tone, “I hope I am
going to cure as well as kill. I shall only be a soldier when I am not
wanted as a doctor. A man who really loves his profession, as I do, is
always glad to exercise it, and I fear I shall have ample opportunities
that way; besides, dear there is nothing like being cheerful upon an
occasion of this kind. The longer we laugh, the less time there is for
tears.”
And so the party did not break up until it was nearly time for the
little troop to start. Then there was a brief passionate parting, and
the volunteer horse rode away to Cawnpore. Almost the first person they
met as they rode into the British lines was Wilson, who gave a shout of
joy at seeing the Doctor and Bathurst.
“My dear Bathurst!” he exclaimed. “Then you got safely down. Did you
rescue Miss Hannay?”
“I had that good fortune, Wilson.”
“I am glad. I am glad,” the young fellow said, shaking his hand
violently, while the tears stood in his eyes. “I know you were right
in sending me away, but I have regretted it ever since. I know I should
have been no good, but it seemed such a mean thing for me to go off by
myself. Well, Doctor, and so you got off too,” he went on, turning from
Bathurst and wringing the Doctor’s hand; “I never even hoped that you
escaped. I made sure that it was only we two. I have had an awful time
of it since we heard the news, on the way up, of the massacre of the
women. I had great faith in Bathurst, and knew that if anything could be
done he would do it, but when I saw the place they had been shut up in,
it did not seem really possible that he could have got anyone out of
such a hole. And where did you leave Miss Hannay?”
“We have not left her at all,” the Doctor said gravely; “there is no
longer a Miss Hannay. There, man, don’t look so shocked. She changed her
name on the morning we came away.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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