Terror in the Sun Read online

  They said their ‘goodnights’ and went to their own rooms.

  Brucena did not undress immediately because she felt worried and anxious, thinking again that Amelie had perhaps done the wrong thing in telling Lord Rawthorne about her engagement to Ian Hadleigh.

  She wondered how she could persuade him not to be so angry and bitter that he would make trouble.

  ‘He is a very unpredictable man and I feel in some ways a dangerous one,’ she thought to herself.

  She felt so agitated that she did not call her maid, but went out through her bedroom window onto the verandah.

  It was separate from the verandah in the front of the bungalow where they usually sat and was on the side of the house, running along the East wall.

  Brucena walked on the wooden boards in her satin evening slippers, which made no sound. As she reached the far end of the verandah where it ended against the North wall of the bungalow, she heard Lord Rawthorne’s voice.

  It surprised her because she thought that he would be in the front of the house where his bedroom was situated.

  She stopped and then she heard him say,

  “I understand that I must congratulate you on the splendid way you have assisted Captain Sleeman in his gigantic task of suppressing the Thugs.”

  A man’s voice replied, but Brucena could not hear exactly what he said and she wondered who was speaking until Lord Rawthorne went on,

  “It is obvious that you will not be a Corporal for long. Do you enjoy being in the Army?”

  “Yes, Lord Sahib. It is very interesting.”

  Now Brucena knew who Lord Rawthorne was speaking to. It was the Corporal who had been left in charge of the Sepoys.

  She knew him to be a keen young Indian who William had said would look after them well in his absence.

  “I admire Captain Sleeman very much indeed,” Lord Rawthorne continued. “I know everyone, including the Governor-General, is very impressed with what he and his men like you have achieved in this neighbourhood.”

  Brucena was amazed as she listened.

  Why was Lord Rawthorne making such a fuss of the Corporal?

  It seemed strangely out of character.

  She had noticed when they were at Gwalior that he treated the native servants as if they had no importance as individuals and were there only to obey his orders.

  “You must be sorry to miss this expedition that Captain Sleeman has just gone on,” Lord Rawthorne was saying. “An ambitious young man like you always likes to be in the fight or should I say in at the kill?”

  There was a murmur of agreement from the Corporal and then Lord Rawthorne went on,

  “Never mind, I am sure that you will not lose any priority through being left behind and I will certainly tell the Captain and other superior Officials that you have performed your duties in an exemplary manner.”

  “Thank you, Lord Sahib.”

  “When do you expect Captain Sleeman back?”

  “I do not know, Lord Sahib.”

  “How long will it take him to reach the place he has gone?”

  “It’s not very far, Lord Sahib.”

  “Yes, of course! I was told the name. Now let me think, I find Indian places are rather difficult to remember.”

  “Selopa, Lord Sahib.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. How stupid of me. Selopa! Well, I shall wait with impatience for his return as I am sure you will, Corporal.”

  “Yes, Lord Sahib.”

  “Goodnight, Corporal.”

  “Goodnight, Lord Sahib.”

  Brucena held her breath.

  She realised that Lord Rawthorne had obtained the information he required from the Corporal and it was information that she herself did not know.

  Selopa. That was where Ian had gone. But why was Lord Rawthorne so interested?

  It seemed to her so strange that her mind was racing and trying to solve a puzzle that she knew instinctively was of significance.

  She went back to her room to find her maid waiting,

  “I did not expect you to come to bed so early Memsahib,” she said apologetically, “or I would have been waiting for you.”

  “It’s all right,” Brucena replied. “I am not quite ready to undress. Will you fetch Nasir to me? I want to speak to him immediately.”

  “I fetch him, Memsahib.”

  The maid disappeared and Brucena waited.

  A few seconds later Nasir came to the door and she told him to come in.

  He was a small, wiry little man and she knew that Cousin William thought him to be very intelligent.

  “Listen, Nasir,” Brucena began, “I want you to find out something and be very careful so that no one realises what you are about.”

  She saw by the expression in his eyes that Nasir was alert and attentive.

  “I have a feeling, although I may be wrong,” Brucena continued, “that the Lord Sahib, Lord Rawthorne, may despatch a messenger from here tonight on an errand. If he does – he will send one of his men secretly and with the intention that none of us shall know that he has gone.”

  She paused before she added,

  “That must not happen, Nasir.”

  “I will be watching, Memsahib.”

  “You will be able to do that for me?”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “If any of Lord Rawthorne’s servants or one of the soldiers who came with him from Gwalior should leave, you must come and tell me at once – do you understand?”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “Just in case there is any gossip,” Brucena went on, “tell anyone who is interested that I sent for you because I wanted to talk about Azim.”

  “No one will question me, Memsahib,” Nasir informed her. “But if they ask, that is what I tell them.”

  “Thank you, Nasir. I know I can trust you, but please come and wake me if anybody leaves the bungalow.”

  “I will, Memsahib.”

  Nasir salaamed and left the room and Brucena allowed her maid to help her undress.

  Then she climbed into bed.

  She might easily be mistaken, she thought, as she lay back against her pillows, but the suspicions that she had felt after hearing Lord Rawthorne speak to the Corporal seemed to grow and grow.

  Now they were like a cloud, dark and menacing, not to her, but to Ian. Yet she told herself that she was being very foolish.

  Surely Lord Rawthorne would not harm Ian. Could he be unsporting enough to contemplate anything underhanded just because he desired her?

  Still, he had said with an undeniable determination,

  “You will marry me!”

  And added a moment later that he would do anything to prevent her marriage to Ian.

  What could he do?

  She could not believe that the tentative suspicions already in her mind were not just fantasies, but they were there however hard she tried to sweep them away.

  She must have dozed a little before she heard her door open and instantly sat up in bed.

  Nasir moved across the room so silently that he was beside her without her hearing a single footfall.

  Then in a whisper he said,

  “You right, Memsahib, one of the Lord Sahib’s personal servants is saddling a horse.”

  “Then we must leave too,” Brucena told him swiftly. “We have to warn Captain Sleeman and Major Hadleigh. Do you understand?’

  “We, Memsahib?”

  “You and I, Nasir. As soon as this man has left, saddle two horses. Wait a little way down the drive behind the shrubs. You know the way to Selopa?”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “And you know where we will find the Captain Sahib?”

  “Yes, Memsahib.”

  “Then hurry!”

  Nasir left the room as silently as he had entered it and Brucena began to dress.

  She put on her lightest riding habit and her boots and then, carrying her broad-brimmed hat in her hand, she crept along the passage to Amelie’s room.

  She did not kno
ck but opened the door quietly.

  As she did, Amelie asked,

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Brucena.”

  Amelia sat up against her pillows.

  “What is it, dearest?”

  Brucena went close to her before she spoke. The moonlight shining through the curtains over the window made it easy to see the way.

  “I have to go to warn Cousin William and Ian that they are in – grave danger,” she said. “I think, although I am not certain, that a man has been sent to alert the Thugs they are seeking. They might in consequence take them off their guard and – kill them. I have to tell them, Amelie, what is happening.”

  “Ma chérie, how do you know this? How is it possible?”

  “There is no time to tell you, but I promise you there is every reason for me to be afraid. Now listen, and this is vitally important, Lord Rawthorne must not know that I have left the Villa.”

  “But why? How is he concerned in this?”

  “He is very much concerned with it, at least I think so,” Brucena replied. “So tomorrow, Amelie, you must say that I am unwell and I have a fever. Make my maid pretend that I am ill in bed. Be careful to send my food into my bedroom. She can throw it away somehow, but do not let anyone else in the whole house suspect that I have left.”

  Any other woman would have agreed but protested, but Amelie had not been married to William Sleeman without learning to be prepared for any sort of emergency and to ask few questions.

  “Who is going with you?”

  “Nasir,” Brucena replied.

  “You will be safe with him. I only hope that William will not be angry that I am letting you go.”

  Brucena smiled as she bent to kiss Amelie’s cheek.

  “You would not be able to stop me and – I will be back as soon as I can.”

  She left the room by climbing over the side of the verandah to find Nasir waiting down the drive and holding two horses behind a high concealing bank of shrubs.

  He helped her into the saddle without speaking and they rode off, moving slowly over the soft ground so that their horses’ hoofs would not be heard.

  Only when they were clear of the bungalow and out in the open countryside did their pace quicken.

  The moonlight turned everything to silver and made the way as clear as if it was daylight.

  For the first time Brucena felt a sudden exhilaration sweep through her.

  She was helping Ian and she knew that her love for him and his for her would enable her to save him and to prevent the destruction of his and Cousin William’s carefully laid plans.

  Afterwards Brucena wondered at the way that Nasir never faltered and they hardly checked their horses from the moment they started until they reached their destination.

  They had galloped a long way before Brucena asked,

  “How far is Selopa now, Nasir?”

  “Not far, way we travel,” he answered.

  Brucena looked at him, waiting for an explanation and he said,

  “Captain Sahib go by main road so not to attract attention, just like ordinary patrol, inspection of prison and meet District Officers. No hurry, no one think anything strange.”

  “Of course I understand,” Brucena replied and they hurried on.

  She had the feeling that Nasir was taking her through the wildest most uninhabited part of the country, for they seldom crossed a road and there were few little villages.

  They moved through an empty moonlit world that she would have found very beautiful if she had not been driven by an urgency that made her unable to think of anything except that Ian was in danger.

  Supposing she was too late? Supposing the man that Lord Rawthorne had sent, she was sure that he had sent him to the Thugs, reached there before she did and took Cousin William and Ian by surprise?

  She had no idea exactly how many soldiers they had with them, but she remembered with a shudder the story of how Cousin William had at one time captured a gang of over three hundred Thugs congregated in one place.

  If there were that many now, what chance would they have?

  On and on they galloped, Nasir leading the way with the horses responding to everything they asked of them and Brucena was glad that Cousin William had bought good horseflesh.

  It was his one extravagance and she knew that in this instance it was most certainly proving its worth.

  At last, after they had ridden for what seemed a very long time, Nasir drew in his reins and proceeded a little more slowly.

  He was looking about him and Brucena guessed without asking questions that he was searching for a place where Cousin William and Ian would have camped for the night.

  She tried to imagine what their plan would have been. Surely it would be one of surprise, but how were they likely to surprise Thugs in the act of strangling travellers if they rode up to them as Cavalrymen with the irregulars carrying their lances?

  ‘Perhaps I have made a fool of myself,’ Brucena thought suddenly and despairingly. ‘He may in fact be sleeping in a Barracks somewhere, having been entertained in the Officers’ Mess.’

  But she knew in her heart that this was unlikely and even as she puzzled over it, Nasir suddenly dismounted and signalled for her to do the same.

  He did not speak and Brucena remembered that voices carried at night and were therefore likely to reveal their whereabouts.

  She slipped from her saddle and followed Nasir, who was leading his horse into a thicket of trees.

  When she joined him, she found that he was tying its reins to a tree trunk and she did the same with hers.

  Nasir put his fingers to his lips and then started to move ahead. Brucena, lifting the skirt of her habit, followed him not asking where they were going, but trying to move as silently as he was doing, knowing that her heart was beating unaccountably fast.

  They began to descend through a wood that had a thick undergrowth beneath its trees. It forced them to move slowly until suddenly below them Brucena saw a large party of travellers camped for the night.

  There were horses with their legs hobbled so that they could not move away, a camel was squatting on the ground with its head held high and all round it appeared to be a large number of anonymous bundles that she knew were men covered with blankets and cloaks.

  A little apart and nearer to the trees there were two tents, small and low.

  They were the type used by travellers of a certain class who felt themselves too grand to sleep beside their men but were not important enough to have the large imposing tents erected for rich merchants or Sahibs.

  Nasir stood for some time without moving and then, dropping to his knees, he started to crawl towards the tents. He signalled to Brucena to follow him and she crouched down.

  She wanted to ask him what he was doing.

  The people below them were travellers and certainly not soldiers.

  Then it suddenly struck her that, if Cousin William and Ian intended to catch the Thugs red-handed, they might present themselves as victims. They would be the travellers and they would be the baited trap!

  She felt her heart give a lurch of fear. Then, as Nasir went on crawling downhill with a quietness and stealth that came from long experience, she knew how careful she must be not to be heard.

  She felt as if every leaf she knelt on made a crack like a rifle shot and every twig snapped like the roar of a cannon.

  Then, almost before she realised it, they were within a few feet of the tents.

  Nasir turned his head and held up his hand. It was a signal, she guessed, for her to stay where she was.

  He realised that she understood and slowly, very slowly, he crept forward and lifted the bottom of the tent in front of him.

  The moonlight was somewhat obscured by the branches of the trees and yet Brucena saw that as sinuously as a snake he crept into the tent and now she was alone.

  She listened for the sound of voices, but could hear nothing.

  Then she began to wonder frantically whether he h
ad gone to the wrong place and perhaps suspected of being a thief he had been killed.

  Then she saw his face appear from under the tent. He smiled at her and beckoned.

  As she moved forward, he crept towards the other tent again lifting the bottom sheet to vanish inside it.

  Frightened but obedient, Brucena crawled the short distance from the undergrowth to the tent.

  As she reached it a hand came out towards her and her heart seemed to turn three somersaults.

  It was Ian’s hand.

  He pulled her inside and a second later she was in his arms.

  Then he was kissing her until she forgot everything except that she was with him again and she knew that she need not be afraid because she was against his heart

  He released her lips and in a voice so low that she had to strain her ears to hear it he asked,

  “How could you be so incredibly brave to come to warn me?”

  She felt, as he spoke, that his kisses had taken everything from her mind except the wonder and thrill of him.

  Then, as quietly as he had spoken, she began to explain what she had overheard and what she suspected.

  “It was very wonderful of you, my darling. But I do not want you here in danger. And if there is time, I think Nasir should take you away again.”

  “No, no!” Brucena whispered, “I will not – leave.”

  She put her arms round his neck, saying,

  “I am not afraid now that – I am with you. I am only afraid – when you are not here.”

  “I think you should go back,” Ian said, “but your cousin must decide. Nasir is telling him now why you have come.”

  As he spoke, there was a sudden cry like a word of command and followed by a pandemonium of noise.

  In an instant Ian had pulled open the flap in the front of his tent and moved outside.

  Brucena gave a little cry, which stopped in her throat.

  Then she was alone, listening to terrifying sounds that were, she knew, those of life or death.

  But for whom?

  Chapter Seven

  “Goodbye, dearest Amelie. I cannot thank you enough for all – you have done for me.”

  “I shall miss you terribly,” Amelie replied, “as William will miss Ian, but we know how happy you both will be.”