The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [224]
Ash would have liked to discuss this latest piece of unpleasantness with Mulraj, and had he been certain that the thief was only after money he would have done so and found it a great relief. But he was not certain, and so he said nothing. He told Mahdoo and Gul Baz that he did not wish it talked of, and Gul Baz had tidied up the tent without assistance, and later confided to Mahdoo that the sooner they were done with this wedding and free to return to Rawalpindi again, the better he would be pleased. ‘I have had enough of Rajputana,’ said Gul Baz. ‘And more than enough of this camp. There is something here that I do not understand: some evil which threatens the Sahib, and perhaps others too. Let us pray that we may separate ourselves from these Karidkoties and turn our faces to the north before it overtakes us.’
Much the same thoughts were in Ash's mind, but with one difference, for he had few illusions about himself and knew that what he must pray for was patience and self-control.
He found that he could get through the days provided he filled every moment of them with some form of activity that would prevent his thinking of Juli, but the nights were a different matter; however hard he drove himself, and however tired he became, the moment he lay down to sleep her face rose before him and he could not banish it. He would turn and toss and stare into the darkness, or rise again to light the lamp and write unnecessary reports or check columns of figures – anything to shut her out of his mind, and Gul Baz, coming to wake him before first light with a mug of tea, would find him asleep at the table with his head on a pile of foolscap.
As the world turned pearl-grey before dawn and men and animals awoke reluctantly to a new day, he would climb wearily into the saddle and ride off to do what he could towards getting the camp on the move, while his servants struck his tent and loaded it with the rest of his belongings on to the bullock cart, where Mahdoo would already be ensconced among the cooking-pots, squatting comfortably on a pile of baggage that included a shabby canvas bedding-roll. The air would still be cool from the night, and at this hour there was no wind, for the louh did not blow before sunrise. But no one had leisure to notice, let alone enjoy it, for the uproar and activity that preceded departure, and the artificial heat of torches, oil lamps and cooking fires made an inferno of the early mornings.
As the crow flies, Bhithor was no great distance ahead. But now they were no longer crossing a featureless plain, and the country here was full of low, barren hills whose slopes were slippery with shale and dry grass and whose ridges were bare rock. A traveller on foot could cross them without much difficulty and thereby save himself many miles, but it was impossible for a cart to do so. The camp must go round them, winding to and fro along the wide, shallow valleys that meandered between the hills, and doubling on its tracks with monotonous regularity, as though caught in a maze. It was a particularly tedious form of progress, and when at last they came out into comparatively open country again no one was surprised when the younger bride put her foot down and demanded a halt of at least three days, announcing that if it were not granted she would refuse to move another step. She was, she said, aware that only a few more marches would bring them to the borders of Bhithor, but she had no intention of arriving in her new country ill from exhaustion, and unless she were allowed a few nights' uninterrupted sleep she would collapse.
Her ultimatum had been well timed, for that day's march had brought them to the banks of a river where there were trees in plenty; and no one, with the exception of Ash, was averse to a halt. It was an excellent site for a