The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [175]
They saw Jhoti rein in and heard his shrill, excited ‘Hai-ai!’ as he rose in the saddle and flung up his arm to help the falcon take off. For a moment bird and boy were motionless: Jhoti standing in his stirrups to gaze upwards and the falcon hanging above him, threshing the air with its wings like a swimmer treading water, until, sighting its prey, it was away with the speed of an arrow. The boy plumped back into the saddle, and was almost unseated as his horse responded with a frenzied bound and plunged forward through the bushes to bolt wildly out onto the stony plain.
‘What on earth –?’ began Ash puzzled; and had no time to finish the sentence, for the next instant he and Mulraj together were racing in pursuit, using whip and spur in a desperate attempt to overtake the run-away.
There was no need for questions, as they could see clearly enough what had happened: Jhoti must have saddled his own horse to avoid waking the syces, and he had failed to pull the girth tight enough, for now the saddle was sliding over to one side, taking him with it and making it impossible for him to check Bulbul's headlong flight. But there was good blood in the boy – Rajput blood, than which there is no finer – and though his mother's birth had been lowly, she had possessed courage and a quick brain, and her youngest son had inherited both. Feeling the saddle slide to the right and finding himself unable to prevent it, he freed his right foot and stood in the left stirrup, and using that as a lever, flung himself forward onto his horse's neck where he clung like a monkey. The saddle swung over and crashed to the ground, striking against one of the flying hooves as it fell and putting the final touch to Bulbul's panic.
‘Shabash, Raja-Sahib!’ called Ash, yelling encouragement. ‘Oh, well done.’
He saw Jhoti throw a quick glance over his shoulder and force a grin. The child's face was pallid with terror, but there was determination in it, and pride too: he was not going to be thrown if he could help it. In any case, to let go now would mean the certainty of breaking an arm or a leg, if not his backbone, for the ground was as hard as iron and he knew that the few bushes that grew on it were armed with thorns that were capable of tearing his eyes out. There was nothing for it but to hold on, and he did so with the tenacity of a limpet. But because his cheek was pressed to the horse's neck and Bulbul's mane blinded him, he did not see what both Ash and Mulraj now saw: the death-trap that yawned ahead of him. A wide, steep-sided nullah that the rains of many monsoons had scoured deep into the plain, dry now and thickly strewn with stones and water-worn boulders.
The horse had not seen it either, for in the manner of bolting horses it was crazed with panic and capable of running straight into a picket fence or over a cliff. It also had a long start on its pursuers and was carrying considerably less weight. But the child's head pressing against its neck made it bear to the left, which gave Ash and Mulraj an advantage, since they rode on a straight line – and on far better horses. Ash's roan, The Cardinal, had recently won two flat races and a point-to-point in Rawalpindi, while Mulraj's mare, Dulhan, had the reputation of being the finest horse in camp.
Yard by yard they narrowed the distance, but the lip of the nullah was barely ten paces away when at last Mulraj drew level and dropped his reins. Guiding Dulhan with his knees alone he leaned out, and gripping the child around the waist, snatched him away just as Ash, coming up on the opposite side, caught Bulbul's trailing reins and attempted to turn him.
As a horseman, Mulraj had few equals and no superior, though had he been riding any other horse that day the whole affair would even then have ended in disaster, if not tragedy. But man and horse had known each other for years and established a rare accord that made them seem, at times, to be part of a whole that was half equine, half human. Mulraj had made his calculations, and coming up on the left of the bolting horse was already