After a hasty meal the journey toward the sea-port began in earnest.
Umballa's attack had thrown them far out of the regular track. They
were now compelled to make a wide detour. Where the journey might have
been made in three days, they would be lucky now if they reached the
sea under five. The men took turns in standing watch whenever they
made camp, and Kathlyn nor Pundita had time for idleness. They had
learned their lessons; no more carelessness, nothing but the sharpest
vigilance from now on.
One day, as the pony caravan made a turn round a ragged promontory,
they suddenly paused. Perhaps twenty miles to the west lay the emerald
tinted Persian Gulf. The colonel slipped off his horse, dragged
Kathlyn from hers, and began to execute a hornpipe. He was like a boy.
"The sea, Kit, the sea! Home and Winnie; out of this devil's cauldron!
You will come along with us, Bruce?"
"I haven't anything else to do," Bruce smiled back.
Then he gazed at Kathlyn, who found herself suddenly filled with
strange embarrassment. In times of danger sham and subterfuge have no
place. Heretofore she had met Bruce as a man, to whom a glance from
her eyes had told her secret. Now that the door to civilization lay
but a few miles away, the old conventions dropped their obscuring
mantles over her, and she felt ashamed. And there was not a little
doubt. Perhaps she had mistaken the look in his eyes, back there in
the desert, back in the first day when they had fled together from the
ordeals. And yet . . . !
On his part, Bruce did not particularly welcome the sea. There might
be another man somewhere. No woman so beautiful as Kathlyn could
possibly be without suitors. And when the journey down to the sea was
resumed he became taciturn and moody, and Kathlyn's heart
correspondingly heavy.
The colonel was quite oblivious to this change. He swung his legs free
of the primitive stirrups and whistled the airs which had been popular
in America at the time of his departure.
There was no lightness in the expressions of Ramabai and Pundita. They
were about to lose these white people forever, and they had grown to
love, nay, worship them. More, they must return to face they knew not
what.
As for Ahmed, he displayed his orientalism by appearing unconcerned.
He had made up his mind not to return to America with his master.
There was much to do in Allaha, and the spirit of intrigue had laid
firm hold of him. He wanted to be near at hand when Ramabai struck his
blow. He would break the news to the Colonel Sahib before they sailed.
It was four o'clock when the caravan entered the little seaport town.
A few tramp steamers lay anchored in the offing. A British flag
drooped from the stem of one of them. This meant Bombay; and Bombay,
in turn, meant Suez, the Mediterranean and the broad Atlantic.