The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [179]
‘Kale Khan was caught and hanged,’ observed Ash dampingly.
He did not intend to encourage Jhoti in any further forms of rebellion; and in any case, he imagined that Biju Ram and his friends would be only too eager for Jhoti to extend his stay in Bhithor for as long as the Rana could be persuaded to have him. Unless, of course, news of Nandu's untimely demise was received even before they got there, in which case they would turn back at once and hurry homeward with the new Maharajah.
But Jhoti did not often talk of Karidkote. He much preferred to hear about life on the North-West Frontier; or better still, in England. He was an exhausting companion, for his thirst for knowledge forced Ash to talk a great deal at a time when talking was still something of an effort. But though Ash would have been only too pleased to do without Jhoti's endless questions, it was one way of keeping him out of mischief; and a disturbing conversation with Mulraj had made him uneasy on the boy's behalf…
Mulraj had not intended to broach the subject until Ash was feeling stronger and better able to deal with such matters, but his hand had been forced, since despite all his efforts to change the conversation, Ash had persisted in discussing the accident and speculating upon its causes.
‘I still can't make out,’ said Ash, frowning at the tent pole, ‘how that saddle came to fall off. I suppose it was Jhoti's fault for not fastening the girth properly. Unless Biju Ram or one of the syces did it for him. Who did? Do you know?’
Mulraj had not answered immediately, and Ash became aware that the older man had tried to avoid the whole subject. But he was tired of being treated as a feeble-minded invalid, so he scowled at Mulraj and repeated his question with a certain tartness, and Mulraj shrugged his shoulders, and bowing to the inevitable said: ‘The child says that he alone saddled the horse, because Biju Ram refused to help him and went away, thinking that he could not do it single-handed and would therefore be prevented from going off alone, or be compelled to wake one of the syces, who would in turn rouse some servant who could not be prevented from following him.’
‘Young idiot,’ observed Ash. ‘That'll teach him.’
‘Teach him what?’ inquired Mulraj dryly. ‘To see that the straps on the girth are properly fastened? Or to look first – and very carefully – at the underside of a saddle?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ demanded Ash, startled by something in Mulraj's face and voice rather than by the words themselves.
‘I mean that the straps were securely fastened, but the girth itself broke. It had worn thin… and in a mere matter of hours, too. For by pure chance I examined the saddle earlier in the day. Do you remember how the boy flew his hawk at a pigeon that you had not even seen, your mind being elsewhere, and how I, watching him gallop away, thought that his saddle looked a trifle loose and rode after him?’
‘Yes, now you mention it. You said something about not liking the look of it. But… Go on.’
‘By the time we recovered his hawk and the pigeon,’ continued Mulraj, ‘we had outdistanced the rest of you and were alone, so I myself adjusted the girth; and I tell you, Sahib, that save for the fact that it could with advantage have been tighter, there was nothing wrong with it then. Yet only a few hours later it had