The Rupa Book Of Great Escape Stories by Ruskin Bond

Author:Ruskin Bond [Bond, Ruskin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9788129115997
Publisher: Rupa & Co
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

The sun was setting when I awoke.

I turned eagerly to Miller—it was time for us to resume the march—and saw only his face, the face of a dead man.

Miller, dead? ... Then went shrieking through my mind the hellish memory of these past hours.... Miller, dead! He would speak no more. He would sing no more. He was dead.... Miller, the man who risked his life to throw a cigarette into the fort prison to me. Miller, the man who warned me about that deathtrap of an outpost. Miller, the man who had made me forget all my troubles. Miller, the man who had done me a thousand kindnesses in the few months I had known him. Miller, the man who had 'looked after the guards' when we escaped from the fort. Miller, the man who had joked about his blindness. Miller, the man with the heart of gold. Miller, the man whom I loved as a brother.... Deadl

I buried him there, where he lay, as quickly as I could. I would go mad, I knew, if I stayed any longer at that hallowed spot. Even now, with the shadows falling quickly around me, the thoughts of what had happened were knocking impatiently at the door to my mind, demanding admittance. They would rob me of my sanity if I let them in, I told myself, as I heaped the last handful of sand on to the mound which was the body of my friend. I must flee. I must flee.

So I stole away, with a terrible lump in my throat—alone. Alone.

At the nearby farm I ate as many grapes as my stomach allowed, and would have been thankful indeed had the farm-owner sighted me from his hovel and ended everything there and then with a well-aimed shot. But Fortune was never more careful of my life than in these bitter days when I desired death.

I walked in a trance throughout that night, found myself once more on the broad camel-path, and went on heedless of where it might take me. I have only a faint knowledge of my own actions during these hours of darkness and only a vague recollection of what I saw and heard, but I remember passing through two small villages. When I came near the first of these, I hid my rifle under the night-shirt affair I wore and kept it concealed there for the remainder of the night.

The coming of daylight was as nothing to me and I continued, in a daze, my endless walk without an instant's halt. A number of Arabs passed me in a body, they shouted something to me and seemed disposed to stop and chat, but I walked on without a second look at them. I had no fear of them, I had no feelings at all, but I remember estimating that I would have the satisfaction of killing two of them before they could kill me, if it came to a fight.

Other Arabs hailed me as the day went on, and what they thought when I did not reply is something known only to themselves.

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