CHRISTMAS EVE 319 
pretend to misunderstand ; his vague promises of relief, his 
alternate boasts of the glories of Lhassa and peddling offers 
to sell them ponies cheap took on another tone. Propitiatory 
messages and gifts arrived from the Rajah and Rani, and the 
prisoners set out for Darjihng 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 Rajah'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 Darjihng, 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 
Enghshmen, 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 Rungeet, 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. 
