The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [459]
‘There will be others,’ observed Ash pessimistically. ‘I do not believe that the Diwan's spies will be satisfied so easily.’
Gul Baz shrugged and said that in his opinion they would very soon tire of hanging about the compound to exchange gossip with people who had nothing of the least interest to disclose, and of shadowing the Sahib round cantonments only to find him engaged in such unsuspicious and mundane matters as social calls and farewell parties, and the tedious but necessary arrangements that must be made with railway officials and booking clerks regarding his return journey to Mardan.
‘You have only to go to-and-fro daily,’ said Gul Baz, ‘letting it be seen that you have nothing to conceal and are in no haste to be gone, and the watchers will soon weary of the game. Another week or ten days should suffice, and after that it will be safe enough for us to shake the dust of this ill-omened place from our shoes and board the rail-ghari for Bombay. And may the All Merciful ordain,’ he added fervently, ‘that we never have reason to return here.’
Ash nodded absently, for his thoughts were on Juli, who must spend a further eight or ten days cooped up in the hot and stifling little hut, not daring to show herself for even a short breath of air, or to sleep at night without the aid of opium. But he had taken Gul Baz's advice, and had seen to it that every minute of the succeeding days should find him openly employed in some leisurely and innocuous activity, because the fact that someone, or more probably several people, were interested was soon clear to him. For though he was careful not to look over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, he realized that even if he had not been warned he would still have been aware that he was under constant surveillance. It was purely a matter of instinct, the same instinct that tells the jungle creatures that they are being stalked by a tiger, or that can warn a man waking in darkness and silence that there is an intruder in his room.
Ash had experienced that feeling before, and recognizing it (with him it took the form of a coldness between his shoulder-blades and a prickling of the hairs at the back of his neck, coupled with an intense and uncomfortable alertness) he had his bed moved up to the flat roof of the bungalow, where anyone who so desired could keep an eye on him and see for themselves that he did not leave it to engage in any surreptitious meetings by night.
The tale of Sarjevar's untimely death and the loss of the peerless Dagobaz had spread through the cantonment, and Ash received a good deal of sympathy from the officers and sowars of Roper's Horse and various members of the British community. And also from the dead man's great-uncle, the Risaldar-Major, who was touched by the Sahib's grief for his lost friend and urged him not to blame himself – which was not in Ash's power, as he knew very well that he was to blame, because he could so easily have refused to let Sarji go with him to Bhithor.
The fact that Sarji's family and friends believed that cock-and-bull story that he and Bukta had invented, and repeated it as the truth to all who called to commiserate, was of great service to Ash, as it conveyed the impression that they had known all along that the two had been shooting in an area that was a great deal further to the south of Ahmadabad than the border of Rajasthan was to the north. And this, taken in conjunction with Ash's behaviour and the absence of any evidence that the late Rana's widow was in Gujerat (or even that she was still alive), evidently succeeded in convincing the Diwan's spies that they were on the wrong track, for by the end of the week Gul Baz was able to report that the bungalow was no longer being watched.
That night there had been no skulking figure among the shadows, and next morning when Ash went riding he did not have to be told that he was not being followed