"O Bob, dear Bob, do put your hand on my head and cool it; it _does_ burn so!"
"Doctor, can't you do _anything_?" said the colonel in a fierce whisper, seizing the other's wrist in a convulsive clutch that made the very joint crackle. "He was always fond of _you_--can't you help him somehow?"
"God knows I would if I could!" replied the doctor despairingly; "but this is beyond me. There is only one man in all India who could deal with such a case, and I don't even know where he is just now."
Another night and another day went by, and brought the end nearer still. The overwrought doctor (who was on the point of breaking down himself) crept out about nightfall for a breath of the fresh air that he so much needed.
But ere he had been gone five minutes, he came hurrying back, with a face so startlingly changed that the colonel sprang up from his place by the sick-bed and caught him by both hands, though the question that he would have asked died upon his lips.
"God be thanked!" said the doctor, "there _is_ a chance for us yet. I've just got word that my friend Skilman (whom I spoke of yesterday as the only man here that could deal with this case) has suddenly arrived at Kalipur. We must send off a swift messenger for him at once."
"I'll go myself," said Hardman, stepping towards the door.
"But--" began the dismayed doctor, through whose mind flashed instantly all the possible consequences of the commandant's absence from his post just when it might be attacked at any moment.
The colonel put aside the strong man like an infant, and said, in a tone which, though barely above a whisper, was terribly distinct--
And, a few minutes later, he rode out of the fort into the deepening darkness, attended only by a Rajput trooper and his veteran scout, Lal Singh (Red Lion).
When the two Hindus saw their leader turn off from the high-road into the native path that led through the jungle to Kalipur, both knew well that although this way would save fully half the distance, they carried their lives in their hands by taking it, it being perilous not only from wild beasts and snakes, but from worse things still--for the robbers were said to be astir again at the far end of the valley.
But, trained to exact obedience, there was no thought in their gallant hearts of wavering or hanging back. Had the whole Mahratta army barred their path, they would have simply repeated their usual formula, "_Jo hookum_" (it is an order), and gone without a murmur to certain death.