The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [379]
Sir Ambrose had not bothered to read further, since the writer's opinion merely confirmed his own: Belinda had been right and that insufferable young blackguard was at his old tricks again. Sir Ambrose threw the entire correspondence into the waste-paper basket, and having dictated a soothing reply to His Highness the Maharajah of Karidkote, assuring him that there was no need for anxiety, sent a frosty letter to Army Headquarters, complaining of Lieutenant Pelham-Martyn's ‘subversive activities’ and suggesting that it might be as well if his present interests and past history were investigated with a view to his being deported as an Undesirable British Subject.
At about the same time as his telegram (together with Jhoti's, and the Resident's and the Political Officer's comments) was being consigned to the Honourable the Agent to the Governor-Genera's waste-paper basket, Ash was greeting a tired and dusty traveller who had arrived that morning from Bhithor.
Manilal had set out for Ahmadabad less than twenty minutes after Gobind had released the second pigeon. But while the pigeon had covered the distance in a few hours, Manilal had taken the best part of a week, for his horse had strained a tendon and thereafter he had been forced to go slowly, the roads being rutted by cart-wheels and deep in dust, which did not make for easy going at the best of times.
‘What news?’ demanded Ash, running down the steps as the tired man dismounted under the shadow of the porch. Ash had ridden out three days running in the hope of intercepting Manila!, and had become increasingly anxious when there had been no sign of him, or any reply from the District Superintendent of Police's friend in Ajmer (he had not been so sanguine as to imagine that his own telegrams would be answered). To tempt Fate, he had stayed indoors that morning, and towards noon Fate had rewarded him by sending Gobind's servant to the bungalow.
‘Very little,’ croaked Manilal, whose throat was dry with dust: ‘except that he was still alive when I left. But who knows what may have happened since? Has the Sahib warned the Government and Karidkote of what is toward?’
‘Assuredly, within a few hours of that pigeon reaching home. I have done all I could.’
‘That is good news,’ said Manilal hoarsely. ‘Have I your leave, Sahib, to eat and drink and perhaps rest a little before I talk further? I have not slept since the horse injured himself shying in terror at a tiger that crossed our path.’
He slept for the rest of the day and reappeared after sundown, still heavy-eyed, to squat on the verandah and tell Ash all that Gobind had not been able to send by pigeon-post. Apparently the palace physicians still said that the Rana would recover, insisting that he was only suffering an unusually severe attack of malarial fever to which he had been subject for many years. But in Gobind's view this was no mere fever, but a sickness of the body for which there was no cure, and the most that could be done was to administer drugs to relieve the pain – and hope to delay the end until the Government sent someone in authority to see to it that when he died it would mean one death only, and not three.
Gobind had apparently managed, by devious means, to establish contact with the Junior Rani through a serving-woman whose relatives were susceptible to bribery, and who was herself said to be much attached to Kairi-Bai. In this way several messages had been smuggled into the Zenana Quarters, and one or two had even been answered, though the replies had been short and uncommunicative, and told Gobind nothing beyond the fact that the Junior Rani and her sister