The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [118]
He had gone to bed early, and when at last he fell asleep it was only to dream the same dream that had haunted his sleep during his first week in Mardan. Once again he found himself riding for his life – and Belinda's – across a stony plain between low, barren hills, while behind him the thud of pursuing hoof-beats grew louder and nearer until he awoke to find that the sound was no more than the hammering of his own heart…
The night was fresh and cool, but his body was wet with sweat, and he threw off his blanket and lay still, waiting for his racing heart-beats to slow down to their proper pace, and still subconsciously listening for sounds of pursuit. Beyond the open window the fort lay bathed in moonlight, but even the pariah dogs and jackals were silent, and except for the sentries the whole cantonment seemed asleep. Ash got up and went out onto the verandah and presently, seized by a sudden spasm of restlessness, he returned to don a dressing gown and a pair of chupplis – the heavy leather sandals that are the common footwear of the Border – and went out to walk off his disquiet in the night air. The sentry recognized him and let him pass with a murmured word in place of the conventional challenge, and he turned towards the parade ground and the open country that stretched away beyond it to meet the hills, his shadow dark before him on the dusty road.
There were a number of piquets encircling Mardan to give warning in case of an attack, but knowing the precise location of each one, Ash found little difficulty in avoiding them, and soon he had left the cantonment behind him and was striding out towards the hills. The plain was seamed with gullies and dotted with camel-thorn, boulders and sudden outcrops of rock, and the iron studs on the soles of his chupplis clicked on the stony ground and made a sound that was magnified out of all proportion by the silence. The noise disturbed his train of thought and became an active irritation, but eventually he came on a goat track where the dust lay inches deep, and after that he moved without sound.
The track wandered out across the plain in the aimless manner of goat tracks, and he kept to it for the best part of a mile, before turning aside to sit above it on the crest of a small hillock where a flat-topped rock, shaded by pampas grass and a pile of boulders, offered an inviting seat. The hillock was barely more than a mound, but seated on the rock with his back against a boulder, Ash looked out across the moon-washed levels and had the illusion that he was sitting high above the plain – as high and secluded as in the Queen's balcony on the Peacock Tower.
There had been a light fall of rain on the previous day, and in the clean, cold air even the peaks of the far mountains seemed very near: a day's march at most – or an hour's. Looking at them, Ash stopped thinking of Belinda and George and thought instead of other things: of another moonlight night, long ago, when he had made his way across just such a plain as this one towards a grove of chenar trees by the Gulkote road. He wondered what had become of Hira Lal. He would like to meet Hira Lal again, and repay a part of the debt he owed him for the horse and the money. One of these days he must take leave and… His thoughts came suddenly back from the past and his eyes narrowed and became intent.
Something was moving out on the plain and it could not be cattle, for there was no village near enough. Presumably, some kind of deer; chinkara perhaps? It was difficult to tell, for moonlight played tricks with one's eyesight. But as they were moving towards him and there was no wind to carry his scent to them, he would know soon enough.