The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [15]
The ground was rough and strewn with rocks and other pitfalls, and Ash's short legs, trotting beside her, tired early. But by now the moon was up, and the reflected glare of burning houses filled the night with a sunset brightness. They had covered less than half a mile when they came across a strayed donkey wandering aimlessly among the boulders and the rubbish dumps, and appropriated it. Its owner was probably a dhobi or a grass-cutter who had tied it insecurely or, hastening to the city to take part in the looting of European-owned shops and houses, had temporarily forgotten it. But to Sita it was a gift from the gods and she accepted it as such. The little creature stood patiently while she placed Ash on its back and mounted behind him, and it had obviously been accustomed to far heavier loads, for at the touch of her heel it trotted briskly forward, keeping to some unseen track that wound between the rocks and scrub and rubbish on the glacis beyond the city ditch.
The donkey's hooves made very little noise on the sandy ground, and Sita's wine-coloured cotton sari was lost among the shadows; but there were men on the walls that night who were suspicious of any sound or movement, and twice harsh voices challenged them and shots ricochetted off the stones at their feet or whined viciously overhead to splash into the river. Then at last they were past the Water Bastion and the Counter-Scarp, and picking their way across the short stretch of open ground that separated the Kashmir Gate from the dark, friendly thickets of the Kudsia Bagh.
A final spatter of shots followed but did not harm them, and ten minutes later they were among trees, with Delhi left behind them – a black, uneven fringe of walls and battlements, rooftops and trees, spiked with the slim minarets of mosques and thrown into sharp silhouette by the glow of the fires. To the right lay the river, while ahead and to the left loomed the long dark line of the Ridge, a natural barrier of rock that lay between the cantonments and the city.
There were always lights in the cantonments, in bungalows, barracks and messes, and the quarters of the camp-followers. The glow they made in the night sky was a familiar sight, but tonight it was much brighter and less constant, waxing and waning as though there were fires there too. The Sahib-log, thought Sita, must have caused bonfires to be lighted around the cantonment area to prevent any attack being launched under cover of darkness, which seemed to her a sensible idea; though it was going to make her own progress more hazardous, for there were armed men on the road that linked the city to the Ridge and the cantonments, hurrying figures on foot and on horseback whom she suspected of being mutineers or looters. The sooner she got the child and herself to the safety of Abuthnot-Sahib's bungalow the better, but it might be wiser to wait here where the trees and thickets offered a hiding place, until there was less activity on the cantonment road.
The donkey jibbed suddenly, almost unseating her. It stood still, blowing loud snuffing breaths of alarm, and when she urged it forward with her heel, it backed instead, so that she was forced to dismount.
‘Dekho!’ (Look!) said Ash, whose eyesight in the dark was almost as good as the donkey's. ‘There is someone there in the bushes.’
His voice was interested rather than alarmed, and if he had not spoken before it was only because he had never been much given to talking, except, on occasions, to Akbar Khan. The shots and the shouting had excited him, but no more than that, for Uncle Akbar had taken him out shooting before he could walk, and the