CHEISTMAS EVE 319 



I 



l^^retend to misunderstand ; his vague promises of relief, his 

 alternate boasts of the glories of Lhassa and peddling offers 

 sell them ponies cheap took on another tone. Propitiatory 

 essages and gifts arrived from the Eajah and Rani, and the 

 prisoners set out for Darjiling on December 8 under the charge 

 of the Dewan, * as slowly as he could contrive to crawl.' Mes- 

 sengers bearing Lord Dalhousie's despatch met them on the 

 13th, but still the Dewan, with his ponies and his merchandise, 

 with which he yet hoped to do a roaring trade at Darjiling, 

 loitered and talked and chaffered and allowed his bodyguard 

 to make a parade of threatening the lives of his captives, 

 till on the 22nd he halted in a state of hopeless vacillation 

 within sight of Darjiling and its new barracks, twenty miles 

 away, and shaken by the knowledge that the Eajah's peace 

 offerings had been rejected. There was one last alarm. Nimbo, 

 Hooker's sturdy Bhotea Sirdar, the special object of the Dewan's 

 anger, had broken from prison, and with his chain still hanging 

 to his ankle, had managed to reach Darjiling, and now threatened 

 to lead a party to the rescue. Their attack would have been 

 the signal for the murder of the prisoners. 



Christmas Eve brought opportunity for a final stroke of 

 diplomacy ; the morrow was the great and only * Poojah ' of 

 Englishmen, when they all met ; it would be well to let Camp- 

 bell join his relations and appease the exasperated soldiery. 

 The Dewan, equally afraid to lose his hostages and to keep 

 them, at last, with extreme reluctance and bad grace, consented. 

 By 4 o'clock they were at the frontier, the bridge over the 

 Great Eungeet, and by 8 safe in Darjiling, where, in addition 

 to the rest. Hooker found his old friend and new travelling 

 companion, Thomas Thomson, already awaiting him. 



