A cold wind swept down the Peirâk valley, driving the last leaves from the birch trees, which, filling the gully, crept some short way up the steep ascent to the Pass, where the ridges of grey-blue slate seemed almost a part of the staring blue sky against which they showed like a serrated line of shadow. Nearer at hand the slopes of withered bent were broken by sharp fang-like rocks gathering themselves in the distance into immature peaks and passes. Here and there a patch of dirty snow, having borne the burden and heat of summer, lay awaiting a fresh robe of white at the hands of the fast-coming winter. Already the round black tents of the pasture-seeking tribes were in full retreat to the plains, and the valley lay still and silent, without even the sweep of a hawk in its solitary circle, or the bird-like whistle of a marmot sunning itself on the rocks. Ere long the snow would wrap all in its soft white mantle, and the bunting, paired with its own shadow, flicker over the glistening drifts.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the season the Peirâk was not utterly deserted. In a sheltered bit behind a cluster of rocks sat two young men. One, despite the sheepskin coat and turban-wound peaked cap of the Afghan, showed unmistakable signs of alien blood in the steady gaze of a pair of brown eyes, and a white line of clean skin where the fur collar met his neck. It was our old friend Dick Smith, and he was on the watch for the last British regiment which was to cross the Pass in order to strengthen the little garrison beyond, before winter set her silver key upon the mountains. His companion carried his nationality in his face, for even when Afzul Khân had condescended to wear the uniform of a Sikh soldier no one could have mistaken the evidence of his long, straight nose and cruel, crafty expression, in which, however, lurked little hint of sensuality.
"You are deeply interested in this particular regiment," remarked Dick in fair Pushtu. "What's up, Afzul?"
"Nothing,Huzoor. A fool who called himself my relative took service once with your Sirkar. Mayhap in this regiment--God knows! It does not matter if it was."
The studied indifference made his hearer smile. "You are a queer lot, you Pathans," he said lazily. "Not much family affection; not much welcome for a long-lost brother, eh, Afzul?"
"The Presence should remember there are Pathans and Pathans. He has not seen my people; they are not here." He spread a well-shaped nervous hand emphatically east, west, and south.
"Tarred with the same brush north, I expect," muttered the Englishman to himself.
Afzul Khân frowned. "These are my enemies," he went on. "But for the Sirkar,--chk!" He gave a curious sound, half click, half gurgle, and drew an illustrative finger across his throat. It was rather a ghastly performance.
"Then why stop?"
Afzul Khân plucked at the withered bents carelessly. "Because--because it suits this slave; because the merciful Presence is my master; because I may as well wait here as anywhere else."
"What are you waiting for?"
He showed all his long white teeth in a grin. "Promotion,Huzoor. It should come speedily, since but yesterday thesahibsaid I was worth all the rest of the gang."
"I must be more careful. Where the dickens did you pick up English, Afzul?"
"From you,Huzoor." A statement so irredeemably fictitious that it made Dick thoughtful.
"You're sharp enough, Heaven knows; but I don't understand why you wanted to learn signalling. Are you going to give up yourjezailand become abâbu?"
Afzul Khân fingered the matchlock which lay beside him. "I have changed my mind," he said shortly. "I will leave it to the Presence to bring down fire from Heaven;Ibring it from this flash-in-the-pan."
"Now what can you know about Prometheus?"
He shook his head. "The Presence speaks riddles. The fire comes to some folk, to many of thesahibs--to you, perhaps. God knows! The Pathans are different. Our work is fighting."
Dick, looking at his companion's sinewy strength, thought it not unlikely. "While we are waiting, Afzul," he said idly, "tell me the finest fight you ever were in. Don't be modest; out with it!"
"Wherefore not? Victory is Fate, and only women hang their heads over success. The best fight, you say? 'Twas over yonder to the north. There is a dip; but one way up and down. Twenty of us Barakzais and they were fifteen; but they were ahead of us in count, for, by Allah! their wives were so ugly that we didn't care to carry them off."
"Why should you?"
"'Twas a feud. Once, God knows when, a Budakshân Nurzai carried off one of ours and began it. If the women ran out, we killed the men instead. So it was a moonlight night, and the fifteen were fast asleep, snoring like hogs. By Allah! my heart beat as we crept behind the rocks on our bellies, knowing that a rolling stone might waken them. But God was good, andchk!they bled to death, like the pigs they were, before their eyes were wide open."
Dick Smith stared incredulously. "You call that the best fight you ever were in? I call it--" The epithet remained unspoken as he started to his feet with a shout. "By George! I see the glitter. Yonder, Afzul! by the turn. Hurrah! hurrah!"
He was off at long swinging strides, careless of the fact that the Pathan never moved. The latter's keen eyes followed the lad with a certain regret, and then turned to the straggling file of soldiers now plainly visible.
"Marsdensahibwith the advance guard," he muttered. "Why did I give in to those cursed hawk's eyes when my bullet was all but in his heart!Wah-illah!his bravery made me a coward, and now my life is his. But I will return it, and then we shall cry quits. Yonder's thesubadâr. By God! my knife will be in his big belly ere long, and some of those gibing Punjâbis shall jest no more."
So he watched them keenly with a fierce joy, while Dick tore down the hill, to be brought, by an ominous rattle among the rifles below, to a remembrance of his dress. Then he waited, hands down, in the open, until the advance guard came within hail of his friendly voice; when he received the whole regiment with open arms, as if the Peirâk were his special property. Perhaps he had some right to consider it so, seeing that he was the only Englishman who had ever attempted to make those barren heights his head-quarters. But, as he explained to Philip Marsden, while they climbed the narrow gully hemmed in by perpendicular rocks which led to the summit, the breaks in communication from storms and other causes had been so constant, that he had cut himself adrift from head-quarters at Jumwar in order to be on the spot, and so avoid the constant worry of small expeditions with an escort; without which he was not allowed to traverse the unsettled country on either side.
"Here I am safe enough," he said with a laugh; "and if I could only get my assistant, a Bengalibâbu, to live at the other hut I have built on the northern descent, we could defy all difficulties. But he is in such a blind funk that if I go out he retires to bed and locks the door. The only time he is happy is when a regiment is on the road."
"Then his happiness is doomed for this year,--unless you use discretion and come on with us to Jumwar. I doubt your being safe here much longer."
Dick shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not, and of course I shall have to cut and run before the snow; but I like the life, and it gives me time. I've been at work on a field-instrument--" here his eyes lit up, and his tongue ran away with him over insulators and circuits.
Major Marsden looked at the lad approvingly, thinking how different he was from the slouching sullen boy of six months back. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Dick," he said with a half-smile; "but I've no doubt it will be very useful, if, as you say, it enables you to tap the wires anywhere with speed and certainty."
Dick gave a fine blush. "I beg your pardon, but these things get into my head. It will work though, I'm sure of it. I'd show you if it was here, but I left it at the other shanty. There's a stretch of low level line across the Pass where I was testing it."
The half-aggrieved eagerness in his voice made Philip smile. They were sitting together under the lee of a rock on the summit while a halt was called, in order to give time for the long caravan-like file, encumbered by baggage ponies, to reach the top and so ensure an unbroken line during the descent. For in these mountain marches the least breach of continuity is almost certain to bring down on the detached portion an attack from the robbers who are always on the watch for such an opportunity.
"You had best come with us, Dick," said Philip, returning to the point after a pause.
"No! The fact is I want to be certain of the communication until you are safe in Jumwar. Those two marches, between your next camp and the city, are risky. I have my doubts of the people."
"Doubts shared by head-quarters apparently, for the chief got a telegram yesterday to await orders at Jusraoli. I expect they are going to send to meet us from Jumwar."
"I wish I'd known in time," replied Dick lightly; "in that case there is not much reason for staying. Yet I don't know; I'd rather stick on till I am forced to quit."
"That won't be long; the snow's due already, and you are coming on with us so far in any case, aren't you?"
Dick sat idly chucking stones and watching them leap from point to point of the cliffs below him. "I don't think I shall, if you are to be in camp Jusraoli for some days. You see, mybâbuis no use, and something might turn up. I'll see you across the Pass and come back. I could join you later on if I made up my mind to cut." He lay back with his arms under his head and looked up into the brilliant blue cloudless sky. "Major," he said suddenly, after a pause, "do you know that you have never asked after Belle?"
"Haven't I? The fact is I had news of her lately. Raby wrote to me a few days ago."
"I wouldn't trust Raby if I were you. Did he tell you that Belle hadn't a penny and was trying to be independent of charity by teaching?"
"I am very sorry to hear it."
Dick sat up with quite a scared look on his honest face. "I thought there must be something wrong between you two by her letters," he said in a low voice; "but I didn't think it was so bad as that. What is it?"
"Really, my dear boy, I don't feel called upon to answer that question."
"It's beastly impertinent, of course," allowed Dick; "but see here, Major, you are the best friend I have, and she,--why, I love her more dearly every day. So you see there must be a mistake."
The logic was doubtful, but the faith touched Philip's heart. "And so you love her more than ever?" he asked evasively.
"Why not? I seem somehow nearer to her now, not so hopelessly beneath her in every way. And I can help her a little by sending money to Aunt Lucilla.Shewouldn't take a penny, of course. But they tell me that when my grandfather,--I mean my mother's father--dies I might come in for a few rupees; so I have made my will leaving anything in your charge for Belle. You don't mind, do you?"
Philip Marsden felt distinctly annoyed. Here was fate once again meddling with his freedom. "I'm afraid I do. To begin with, I may be lying with a bullet through me before the week's out."
"So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. I'd sooner trust you than any one in the wide world. You would be certain to do what I would like."
"Should I? I'm not so sure of myself. Look here, Dick! I didn't mean to tell you, but perhaps it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. The fact is we are rivals." He laughed cynically at his hearer's blank look of surprise. "Yes,--don't be downcast, my dear fellow; you've a better chance than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively; and upon my word, I believe I'm glad of it. Let's talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes the bugle."
He started to his feet, leaving Dick a prey to very mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was too perfect for anything else; and she? Something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So nothing further was said between them till on the northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good-bye. Then Dick with some solemnity put a blue official envelope into his friend's hand. "It's the will, Major. I think it's all right; I got thebâbuto witness it. And of course the--the other--doesn't make any difference. You see I shall write and tell her it is all a mistake."
The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt indescribably mean. "Don't be in a hurry, Dick," he said slowly. "You can think it over and give it me when you join us, for join us you must. I won't take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as you call it, the mistake would be to have it changed. Whatever happens she will never get anything better than what you give her, Dick--never!--never! Good-bye; take care of yourself."
As he watched the young fellow go swinging along the path with his head up, he told himself that others beside Belle would be the losers if anything happened to Dick Smith; who, for all the world had cared, might at that moment have been lying dead-drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is something," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with the freshness of extreme youth. It has gone from me hopelessly, and I am so much the worse for it." And Dick, meanwhile, was telling himself with a pang at his heart that no girl, Belle least of all, could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his hero.
The sun had set ere Dick reached the narrowest part of the defile where, even at midday, the shadows lay dark; and now, with the clouds which had been creeping up from the eastward all the afternoon obscuring the moon, it looked grim and threatening. He was standing at an open turn, surprised at the warmth of the wind that came hurrying down the gully, when the low whistling cry of the marmot rang through the valley and died away among the rocks. A second afterwards the whizz of a bullet, followed by the distant crack of a rifle, made him drop in his tracks and seek the shelter of a neighbouring boulder. Once again the marmot's cry arose, this time comparatively close at hand. To answer it was the result of a second's thought, and the silence which ensued convinced Dick that he had done the right thing. But what was the next step? Whistling was easy work, but how if he met some of these musical sentries face to face? Perhaps it would be wiser to go back. He had almost made up his mind to this course when the thought that these robbers, for so he deemed them, might out of pure mischief have tampered with his beloved wires came to turn the balance in favour of going on. A disused path leading by adétourto the southern side branched off about a mile further up; if he could reach that safely he might manage to get home without much delay. Only a mile; he would risk it. Creeping from his shelter cautiously he resumed his way, adopting the easy lounging gait of the hill-people; rather a difficult task with the inward knowledge that some one may be taking deliberate aim at you from behind a rock. More than once, as he went steadily onwards, the cry of a bird or beast rose out of the twilight, prompting his instant reply. "If they would only crow like a cock," he thought, with the idle triviality which so often accompanies grave anxiety, "I could do that first-class."
Yet he was fain to pause and wipe the sweat from his face when he found himself safely in the disused track, and knew by the silence that he was beyond the line of sentries. A rough road lay before him, but he traversed it rapidly, being anxious to get the worst of it over before the lingering light deserted the peaks. As he stood on the summit he was startled at the lurid look of the vast masses of cloud which, rolling up to his very feet, obscured all view beyond. They were in for a big storm, he thought, as he hurried down the slopes at a break-neck pace; with all his haste barely reaching the shanty in time, for a low growl of thunder greeted his arrival, and as he pulled the latch a faint gleam of light showed him the empty room. He called loudly; darkness and silence: again, as he struck a match; light, but still silence. Quick as thought, Dick was at the signaller, and the electric bell rang out incongruously.Tink-a-tink-a-tinkwas echoed from the eastward. But westward? He waited breathlessly, while not a sound returned to him. Communication was broken; the wires had possibly been cut, and Dick stood up with a curiously personal sense of injury. His wires tampered with out of sheer mischief! Yet stay! Might it not be something more? Where the devil had thebâbuhidden himself? After fruitless search an idea struck him, and he signalled eastward once more. "Repeat your last message, giving time at which sent." With ears attuned to tragedy Dick awaited the reply. "6 P.M. To north side. 'Will send cocoa-nut oil and curry stuff by next mail.'"
The echo of Dick's laughter, as he realised that but an hour or so before thebâbuhad been putting the telegraph to commissariat uses, was the last human sound the shanty was to hear for many a long day. For the next moment's thought roused a sudden fear. Thebâbuhad doubtless gone over the Pass with the troops for the sake of company; that was natural enough, but if he was still in the north shanty awaiting Dick's return, why had he not answered the signal sent westward? It could not be due to any break in the wire, unless the damage had been done after dark, for he had been able to telegraph eastward not so long ago. Was there more afoot than mere mischief?
It was not a night for a dog to be out in, and as Dick stood at the door he could see nothing but masses of cloud hurrying past, softly, silently. Then suddenly a shudder of light zig-zagged hither and thither, revealing only more cloud pierced by a few pinnacles of rock.
Not a night for a dog certainly; but for a man, with a man's work before him? Belle would bid him go, he knew. A minute later he had closed the door behind him, and faced the Pass again. Ere he reached the end of the short ascent it was snowing gently; then, with a furious blast, hailing in slanted torrents that glittered like dew-drops in the almost ceaseless shiver of the silent lightning. Everything was so silent, save for the wind which, caught and twisted in the gullies, moaned as if in pain. Ah! was that the end of all things? Round him, in him, through him, came a blaze of white flame, making him stagger against the wall of rock and throw up his hands as if to ward off the impalpable mist which held such a deadly weapon. Half-blinded he went on, his mind full of one thought. If that sort of thing came again, say when he was passing the snow-bridge, could a man stand it without a start which must mean instant death? The question left no room for anything save a vague wonder till it was settled in the affirmative. Then the nickname of "lightning-wallahs," given by the natives to the telegraph-clerks, struck him as being happy, and Afzul's reference to fire from heaven passed through his mind. More like fire from hell surely, with that horrible sulphurous smell, and now and again a ghastly undertoned crackle like the laughter of fiends. There again! Wider this time, and followed by a rattle as of musketry. But the snow which was now sweeping along in white swirls seemed to shroud even the lightning. Horrible! To have so much light and to be able to see nothing but cloud, and the stones at your feet. How long would he see them? How long would it be before the snow obliterated the path, leaving him lost? He stumbled along, tingling to his very finger-tips, despite the cold which grew with every explosion. The very hair on his fur coat stood out electrified, and his brain swam with a wild excitement. On and on recklessly, yet steadily; his footsteps deadened by the drifting snow, until he stood at the threshold of shelter and threw open the door of the shanty.
Great Heaven, what was this! Thebâbu, green with fear, working the signaller, while Afzul Khân, surrounded by six or seven armed Pathans, stood over him with drawn knife. "Go on, you fool!" he was saying, "your work is nearly finished."
The full meaning of the scene flashed through Dick Smith's excited brain quicker than any lightning. Treachery was at work, with a coward for its agent. His revolver was out in a second, and before the astonished group had time to grasp the unexpected interruption, thebâbu'snerveless fingers slipped from the handles, as with a gasping sob, rising above the report, he sank in a heap on the floor.
"By God and His Prophet!" cried Afzul, carried away, as men of his kind are, by the display of daredevil boldness which is their unattained ideal of bravery. "Yea, by the twelve Imaums, but it was well done."
"Liar, traitor, unfaithful to salt!" cried Dick, whose extraordinary appearance and absolutely reckless behaviour inspired his hearers with such awe that for the moment they stood transfixed. The revolver was levelled again, this time at Afzul, when the memory of other things beside revenge sobered the lad, and a flash of that inspiration which in time of danger marks the leader of men from his fellows made him throw aside the weapon and fold his arms. "No!" he said coolly, "I am faithful. I have eaten the salt of the Barakzais; they are my friends."
"Don't hurt the lad," cried Afzul, not a moment too soon, for cold steel was at Dick's throat. "God smite you to eternal damnation, Haiyât! Put up that knife, I say. The lad's words are true. He has eaten of our salt, and we of his. He hath lived among us and done no harm to man or maid. By Allah! the lightning has got into his brain. Bind him fast; and mark you, 'twill be worse than death for him to lie here helpless, knowing that the wires he made such a fuss about have lured his friends to death. I know his sort. Death?--this will be seventy hells for him; and we can kill him after, if needs be."
Dick, as he felt the cords bite into his wrists and ankles, ground his teeth at the man's jeering cruelty. "Kill me outright, you devils!" he cried, struggling madly. It was the wisest way to ensure life, for the sight of his impotent despair amused his captors.
"Give him a nip of his own brandy, Haiyât, or he will be slipping through our fingers," said one, as he lay back exhausted.
"Not I; the bottle's near empty as it is."
Tales of his boyhood about drunken guards and miraculous escapes recurred to Dick's memory, and though he felt to the full the absurdity of mixing them up with the present deadly reality, the slenderest chance gave at least room for hope. "There is plenty more in the cupboard," he gasped. "The key is in my pocket."
"True is it, O Kâreem, that the Feringhi infidel cannot die in peace without hissharâb," remarked Haiyât virtuously. But he did not fail with the others to taste all the contents of the cupboard, even to a bottle of Pain-killer which had belonged to thebâbu. Meanwhile Dick, lying helpless and bound, felt a fierce surge of hope and despair as he remembered that behind those open doors lay something which could put an end to treachery. Five minutes with his field-instrument in the open, and, let what would come afterwards, he would have done his work. The thought gave Dick an idea which, if anything, increased the hopelessness of his position, for the only result of his offer to work the wires on condition of his life being saved, was to drive Afzul, who saw his dread of Dick's getting his hands on the instrument in danger of being over-ruled, into settling the question, once and for all, by severing the connection with a hatchet.
"I know him better than that," he said; "he would sit and fool us until he had given warning. Let him lie there; if he has sense, he will sleep."
There was something so significant in his tone that Dick felt wisdom lay in pretending to follow the advice. He strained his ears for every whispered word of the gang as they crouched round the fire, and gathered enough to convince him that the sudden change of plan at head-quarters had endangered some deep-laid scheme of revenge, and that Afzul Khân, believing Dick had gone on to the camp, had suggested a false telegram in order to lure the regiment into the open. A frantic rage and hate for the man who had suggested such a devilish prostitution of what constituted Dick's joy and pride roused every fibre of the lad's being. Lecoq, that greatest of examples to prisoners, declares that given time, pluck, and a cold chisel, the man who remains a captive is a fool. But how about the cold chisel? Dick's eyes, craftily searching about under cover of the failing fire-light, saw many things which might be useful, but all out of reach.
"I am cold," he said boldly; "bring me a rug or move me out of the draught."
They did both, in quick recognition of his spirit, and, with a laugh and an oath to the effect that the dead man would be a warm bed-fellow, dragged him beside the wretchedbâbuand threw a sheepskin rug over both. Dick's faint hope of some carpenter's tools in the far corner fled utterly: but his heart leaped up again as he remembered that his cowardly subordinate had always gone about armed with revolvers and bowie-knives. Rifling a dead man's pockets with your hands tied behind your back is slow work, but the rug covered a multitude of movements. Half an hour afterwards Dick's feet were free, and with the knife held fast between his heels he was breaking his back in obstinate determination of some time and somehow severing the rope upon his wrists. Some time and somehow--it seemed hours; yet when he managed at last with bleeding hands to draw the watch from his pocket he found it was barely two o'clock. Hitherto his one thought had been freedom; now he turned his mind towards escape. There was still plenty of time for him to reach the camp ere dawn found the regiment on the move; but the risks he might have to run on the way decided him, first of all, to try and secure his field-instrument from the cupboard. He lay still for a long time wondering what to do next, furtively watching Afzul Khân as he busied himself over the fire, while the others dozed preparatory to the work before them. Having possessed himself also of the deadbâbu'srevolver, Dick felt mightily inclined to risk all by a steady shot at Afzul, and immediate flight. But the remembrance of those sentries on the downward road prevented him from relying altogether on his speed of foot. Yet Dick knew his man too well to build anything on the chance of either wine or weariness causing Afzul to relax his watch. It had come to be a stand-up fight between these two, a state of affairs which never fails to develop all the resources of brain and body. Dick, keenly alive to every trivial detail, noticed first a longer interval in the replenishing of the fire, and then the fact that but a few small logs of wood remained in the pile. Thereafter, whenever Afzul's right hand withdrew fresh fuel, Dick's left under cover of the noise made free with more. The sheepskin rug had shelter for other things than a dead body and a living one.
"It burns like a fat Hindoo," muttered the Pathan, sulkily, as the last faggot went to feed the flame. "Lucky there is more in the outhouse, or those fools would freeze to death in their sleep."
Dick's heart beat like a sledge-hammer. His chance, the only chance, had come! Almost before the tall figure of the Pathan, after stooping over him to make sure that he slept, had ceased to block the doorway, Dick was at the cupboard. A minute's, surely not more than a minute's delay, and he was outside, safe and free, with the means of warning carefully tucked inside his fur coat.
Too late! Right up the only possible path came Afzul, carrying a great armful of sticks. To rush on him unprepared, tumble him backwards into a snowdrift alongside, deal him a crashing blow or two for quietness' sake and cram hispugreeinto his mouth, was the work of a minute; the next he was speeding down the descent with flying feet. The storm was over, and the moon riding high in the heavens shone on a white world; but already the darkness of the peaks against the eastern sky told that the dawn was not far off.
The first dip of the wires, he decided, was too close for safety, besides the drifts always lay thickest there. The next, a mile and a half down the valley, was best in every way; and as he ran, the keen joy of victory, not only against odds but against one man, came to him with the thought of Afzul Khân gagged and helpless in the snow. But he had reckoned without the cold; the chill night air which, finding its way through the open door, soon roused the sleepers by the ill-replenished fire. Haiyât, waking first, gave the alarm, and the discovery of their leader half suffocated in the snowdrift followed swiftly. Yet it was not until the latter, slowly recovering speech, gasped out a warning, that the full meaning of their prisoner's escape was brought home to them.
"After him! Shoot him down!" cried Afzul, staggering to his feet. "He can bring fire from heaven! If he touches the wires all is lost. Fool that I was not to kill him, the tiger's cub, the hero of old! Curse him, true son of Byramghor, born of the lightning!" So with wild threats, mingled with wilder words of wonder and admiration, Afzul Khân, still dazed by the blows Dick had dealt him, stumbled along in rear of the pursuit.
The latter's heart knew its first throb of fear when the signal he sent down the severed wire brought no reply. After all, was the outcome of long months of labour, the visible embodiment of what was best in him, about to fail in time of need? Again and again he signalled, urgently, imperiously, while his whole world seemed to wait in breathless silence. Failure! No, no, incredible, impossible; not failure after all! Suddenly, loud and clear, came an answering trill, bringing with it a joy such as few lives know. A shout from above, a bullet whistling past him; scarcely fair that, when his hands were busy, and his mind too, working methodically, despite those yelling fiends tearing down the slope. "Major from Dick--treachery." Something like a red-hot iron shot through his leg as he knelt on the cliff, a clear mark against the sky. Lucky, he thought, it was not through his arm. "For God's sake--" He doubled up in sudden agony but went on "Stand fast."
There was still a glint of life left in him when Afzul Khân, coming up behind the butchers, claimed the death-blow. Their eyes met. "Fire--from--heaven!" gasped Dick, and rolled over dead. The Pathan put up his knife gloomily. "It is true," he said with an oath. "I knew he was that sort; he has beaten us fairly."
An hour afterwards, heralded by winged clouds flushed with the ceaseless race of day, the steady sun climbed the eastern sky and looked down brightly on the dead body of the lad who had given back his spark of divine fire to the Unknown. Perhaps, if bureaucracy had not seen fit to limit genius within statutory bounds, Dick Smith might have left good gifts behind him for his generation, instead of taking them back with him to the storehouse of Nature. And the sun shone brightly also on Belle Stuart's bed; but not even her dreams told her that her best chance of happiness lay dead in the snow. She would not have believed it, even if she had been told.
It was a walled garden full of blossoming peach-trees, and chequered with little rills of running water beside which grew fragrant clumps of golden-eyed narcissus. In the centre was a slender-shafted, twelve-arched garden-house, with overhanging eaves, and elaborate fret-work, like wooden lace, between the pillars. On the sides of the stone daïs on which the building stood trailed creepers bright with flowers, and in front of the open archway serving as a door lay the harmonious puzzle of a Persian carpet rich in deep reds and yellows. Easy-chairs, with a fox-terrier curled up on one of them, and a low gipsy table ominously ringed with marks of tumblers, showed the presence of incongruous civilisation.
From within bursts of merriment and the clatter of plates and dishes, without which civilisation cannot eat in comfort, bore witness that dinner was going on. Then, while the birds were beginning to say good-night to each other, the guests came trooping out in high spirits, ready for coffee and cigars. All, with one exception, were in thekhâkiuniform which repeated washing renders, and always will render, skewbald, despite the efforts of martial experts towards a permanent dye. Most of the party were young and deeply engrossed by the prospect of some sky-races, which, coming off next day, were to bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant close. One, a lanky boy with pretensions to both money and brains, was drawing down on himself merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former stables he had owned.
"Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dearest friend. "I give you my word they were all screws. Stable, indeed! Call it your tool-chest, Samuel, my boy."
Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, whose real name of Algernon, bestowed on him by his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, had been voted far too magnificent for everyday use, blinked his white eyelashes in evident enjoyment of his own wit as he retorted: "Well, if they were screws I turned 'em myself. You buy yours ready made."
"Well done, Samivel! Well done! You're improving," chorused the others with a laugh.
"You might lend me that old jest-book, Sam, now that you've got a new one," replied his opponent calmly. "I'm running short of repartees,--and of cigars, too, bad cess to the Post! By Jove! I wish I had the driving of those runners; I'd hurry them up!"
"Man does not live by cigars alone. I'm dead broke for boots," interrupted another, looking disconsolately at the soles and uppers which not all the shameless patching of an amateur artist could keep together.
"I have the best of you there," remarked some one else. "I got these at Tom Turton's sale. They wouldn't fit any one else."
"Yes, poor Tom had small feet."
There was a pause among the light-hearted youngsters as if the grim Shadow which surrounded that blossoming garden had crept a bit nearer.
"This is delightful," said John Raby, the only civilian present, as he lay back in his easy-chair which was placed beyond the noisy circle. His remark was addressed to Philip Marsden, who leaned against one of the octagonal turrets which like miniature bastions flanked the platform. "I shall be quite sorry to leave the place," continued Raby. "It's a perfect paradise."
In truth it was very beautiful. The pink and white glory of the peach blossoms blent softly into the snow-clad peaks, now flushed by the setting sun; while a level beam of light, streaming in through a breach in the wall, lit up the undergrowth of the garden, making the narcissus shine like stars against the dark green shadows.
"Doubtless," remarked Philip, "--for a Political who comes with the swallows and summer. You should have seen it in January,--shouldn't he, boys?"
"Bah! the usual 'last Toosday' of 'Punch!' The hardships of campaigning indeed!Perdrix aux chouxand cold gooseberry tart for dinner; an idyllic mess-house in a peach-garden; coffee and iced pegs to follow."
"Well, sir," cried a youngster cheerfully, "if you had favoured us in winter we would have given you stewed Tom in addition. It was an excellent cat; we all enjoyed it, except Samuel. You see it was his favouritemiaow, so he is going to give the stuffed skin to an aged aunt, from whom he expects money, in order to show that he belongs to the Anti-Vivisection League."
"A certain faint regard for the verities is essential to a jest," began Samuel, affecting the style of his illustrious namesake.
"I wish some one would remove the mess-dictionary," interrupted the other. "The child will hurt himself with those long words some day."
"Bad for you, if they did," grinned a third. "D'ye know he actually asked me last mail-day if there were two f's in affection.Whoo hoop!" Closely pursued by the avenger he leapt the low balustrade, and the garden resounded to much boyish laughter, as one by one the youngsters joined the chase.
"Remarkably high spirits," yawned John Raby, "but a trifle reminiscent of a young gentleman's academy. They jar on thedolce far nienteof the surroundings."
"We were glad enough of the spirits a few months ago," replied Philip significantly. "Thedolce far nienteof semi-starvation requires some stimulant."
"That was very nearly afiasco, sending you over the Pass so late. Lucky for you the Politicals put the drag on the Military in time."
"Lucky, you mean, that poor Dick Smith managed to send that telegram. I've often wondered how he did it. The story would be worth hearing; he was one in a thousand."
"You always had a leaning towards that red-headed boy; now I thought him most offensive. He--"
"De mortuis," quoted the Major with a frown.
"Those are the ethics of eternity combined with a sneaking belief in ghosts. But I mean nothing personal. He was simply a disconcerting sport, as the biologists say, from the neutral-tinted Eurasian, and I distrust a man who doesn't look his parentage; he is generally a fraud or a monstrosity."
"That theory of yours is rather hard on development, isn't it?" said Philip with a smile.
"Only a stand in favour of decency and order. What right has a man to be above his generation? It is extremely inconvenient to the rest of us. If he is successful, he disturbs our actions; if he uses us as a brick wall whereon to dash out his brains, he disturbs our feelings. To return to Dick Smith; the whole affair was foolhardy and ridiculous. If I had been Political then I should certainly have refused to allow that camping-out on the Pass; and so he would probably have been enjoying all that money, instead of dying miserably just when life became worth having."
"What money?" asked Philip Marsden hastily.
"Didn't you hear? It was in the papers last week,--haven't seen them yet perhaps? Some distant relation of his father's died in England, leaving everything to Smith senior or his direct male heirs; failing them, or their assigns, to charity. So as no one had made a will,--paupers don't generally--some dozens of wretched children will be clothed in knee-breeches or poke-bonnets till Time is no more."
In the pause which ensued Philip Marsden felt, as most of us do at times, that he would have given all he possessed to put Time's dial back a space, and to be standing once more on the northern slope of the Peirâk with Dick's hand in his. "There's the will, Major; it doesn't make any difference, you know." The words came back to him clearly, and with them the mingled feeling of proud irritation and resentful self-respect which had made him set the blue envelope aside, and advise a more worldly caution. Temper, nothing but temper, it seemed to him now. "There was a will," he said at last, in a low voice. "Dick spoke to me of one when we came over the Pass together. You see there was a chance of his getting a few rupees from old Desouza."
John Raby threw away the end of his cigarette with an exclamation. "By George, that's funny! To make a will in hopes of something from a man who died insolvent, and come in for thirty thousand pounds you knew nothing about! But where is the will? It was not among his papers, for strangely enough the people had not looted much when the Pass opened and we went over to search. Perhaps he sent it somewhere for safe custody. It would make a difference to Belle Stuart, I expect, for he--well, he was another victim."
"I think,--in fact I am almost sure,"--the words came reluctantly as if the speaker was loth to face the truth,--"that he had the will with him when he died. He showed it me--and--Raby, was every search made for the body?"
His hearer shrugged his shoulders. "As much as could be done in a place like that. For myself I should have been surprised at success. Think of the drifts, the vultures and hyenas, the floods in spring. Of course it may turn up still ere summer is over, but I doubt it. What a fool the boy was to carry the will about with him! Why didn't he give it to some one else who was less heroic?"
"He could easily have done that, for I tell you, Raby, he was worth a dozen of us who remain," said Philip bitterly, as he stood looking over the peach-blossom to the lingering snows where Dick had died. "Well, good-night. I think I shall turn in. After all there is no fool like an old fool."
The civilian followed his retreating figure with a good-natured smile. "He really was fond of that youngster," he said to himself. "The mere thought of it all has made him throw away half of the best cigar on this side the Peirâk. By Jove! I won't give him another; it is too extravagant."
The next morning Philip Marsden came over to the Political quarters, and with a remark that last night's conversation had borne in on him the necessity for leaving one's affairs in strict business order, asked John Raby to look over the rough draft of a will.
"Leave it with me," was the reply, given with the usual easy good-nature. "It appears to me too legal, the common fault of amateurs. I'll make it unimpeachable as Cæsar's wife, get one of mybâbusto engross it, and bring it over ready for you to fill up the names and sign this afternoon. No thanks required; that sort of thing amuses me."
He kept his promise, finding Philip writing in the summer-house. "If you will crown one kindness by another and can wait a moment, I will ask you to witness it," said the latter. "I shall not be a moment filling it in."
"The advantage of not cutting up good money into too many pieces," replied his friend smiling.
"The disadvantage perhaps of being somewhat alone in the world. There, will you sign?"
"Two witnesses, please; but I saw Carruthers in his quarters as I came by; he will do."
John Raby, waiting to perform a kindly act somewhat to the prejudice of his own leisure, for he was very busy, amused himself during Major Marsden's temporary absence by watching a pair of doves with pink-grey plumage among the pink-grey blossom. Everything was still and silent in the garden, though outside the row of silvery poplar trees swayed and rustled in the fitful gusts of the wind. Suddenly a kite soaring above swooped slightly, the startled doves fled scattering the petals, and the wind, winning a way through the breach in the wall, blew them about like snowflakes. It caught the paper too that was lying still wet with ink, and whirled it off the table to John Raby's feet. "I hope it is not blotted," he thought carelessly, as he stooped to pick it up and replace it.
A minute after Major Marsden, coming in alone, found him, as he had left him, at the door, with rather a contemptuous smile on his face. "Carruthers is not to be had, and I really have not the conscience to ask you to wait any longer," said the Major.
John Raby was conscious of a curious sense of relief. In after years he felt that the chance which prevented him from signing Philip Marsden's will as a witness came nearer to a special providence than any other event in his career. Yet he replied carelessly: "I wish I could, my dear fellow, but any other person will do as well. I have to see the Mukdoom at five, and I start at seven to prepare your way before you in true Political style. Can I do anything else for you?"
"Put the will into the Political post-bag for safety when I send it over," laughed Philip as they shook hands. "Good-bye. You will be a lion at Simla while we are still doing duty as sand-bags on the scientific frontier; diplomacy wins nowadays."
"Not a bit of it. In twenty years, when we have invented a gun that will shoot round a corner, the nation which hasn't forgotten the use of the bayonet will whip creation, and we shall return to the belief that the man who will face his fellow, and lick him, is the best animal."
"In the meantime, Simla for you and service for us."
"Not a bit of that, either. Why, the British Lion has been on the war-trail for a year already. It's time now for repentance and a transformation-scene; troops recalled,durbarat Peshawar, the Amir harlequin to Foreign Office columbine, Skobeloff as clown playing tricks on the British public as pantaloon."
"And the nameless graves?"
"Principle, my dear fellow," replied John Raby with a shrug of his shoulders, "is our modern Moloch. We sacrifice most things to it,--on principle. By the bye, I have mislaid that original of the will somehow; possibly my boy packed it up by mistake, but if I come across it I'll return it."
"Don't bother,--burn it. 'Tis no good to any one now."
"Nor harm, either,--so good-bye, warrior!"
"Good-bye, diplomatist!"
They parted gaily, as men who are neither friends nor foes do part even when danger lies ahead.
That same evening the homeward bound post-runner carried with him over the Peirâk Major Marsden's will leaving thirty thousand pounds to Belle Stuart unconditionally. It was addressed to an eminently respectable London firm of solicitors, who, not having to deal with the chances of war, would doubtless hold it in safe custody until it was wanted. The testator, as he rode the first march on the Cabul road, felt, a little bitterly, that once more he had done his best to stand between her and care. Yet it must be confessed that this feeling was but as the vein of gold running through the quartz, for pride and a resentful determination that no shadow of blame should be his, whatever happened, were the chief factors in his action. Nor did he in any way regard it as final. The odds on his life were even, and if he returned safe from the campaign he meant to leave no stone unturned in the search for Dick Smith's body. Then, if he failed to find the will, it would be time enough to confess he had been in the wrong.
John Raby, as he put the bulky letter in the Political bag according to promise, felt also a little bitter as he realised that Belle with thirty thousand pounds would come as near perfection in his eyes as any woman could. And then he smiled at the queer chance which had put him in possession of Major Marsden's intention; finally dismissing the subject with the cynical remark that perhaps a woman who was sufficiently fascinating to make two people leave her money ere she was out of her teens might not be a very safe possession.