“I have six shots here without reloading,” I said.
“I have six shots here without reloading,” I said.
“Sir,” said Mr Hicks, approvingly, “there was a dreadful smart newspaper man lost when you were raised for a diplomatist.”
Stratford smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment, which was delivered with even more than the amount of drawl which Mr Hicks chose usually to affect.
“Well, there was a moment’s pause,” he went on, “which I utilised in surveying the position. I had the King within easy range, with Fath-ud-Din standing beside him, and to reach the door they would have to pass me. I was in the corner, so that even if the guard came in they could only reach me in front. Of course they could have floored me easily if the black fellows had come at me in a body; but it would have been the last fight for two or three of them, and they knew it and kept quiet. The only danger was that they might fire at me from the door or from the outside of one of the windows when the guard found out what had happened, and I saw that if I was to get off we must come to terms before any one in the great hall suspected anything. What they made of the sound of my revolver-shot I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to have struck them as anything suspicious; perhaps they thought that the King was amusing himself with practising shooting at me. No one appeared, at any rate, and I spoke to the King again. ‘Before we do anything further,’ I said, ‘I should be glad to know where Jahan Beg is.’ Fath-ud-Din instantly replied with great gusto that he was expiating his crimes in the King’s deepest dungeon, which he would never leave alive. I remarked that it was just possible some one in that room might die sooner than Jahan Beg did, which made him calm down a little, and then I asked the King what crime Jahan Beg had committed. He did not fly out as Fath-ud-Din had done, but told me quite quietly that it was unwise in me to inquire after the traitor who had done his best to deliver Ethiopia into our hands. I asked what he meant (of course I kept my eyes about me and the revolver ready all this time), and he told me a very circumstantial story, the recital of which was intended to cover me with confusion. It seemed that Fath-ud-Din, as soon as the Chief had definitely refused to gratify him by extraditing Jahan Beg on account of some imaginary crime, told the King that he had strong reason to suspect his rival of intriguing with us. He was sure he was an Englishman, and he believed that he was plotting with the English to dethrone the King and put Rustam Khan in his place. The King was loath to suspect Jahan Beg, and particularly anxious not to have to find a substitute for him in the frontier work which he alone could do; but the Vizier was so positive that he consented to set spies to watch him. Of course they saw him come to us at night and found out that he was supplying us with corn, so he was promptly arrested and thrown into prison, and the charge considered proved.”
“You must have been pretty well stumped at that,” said Dick. “It was a mad thing for Jahan Beg to continue to come here as he did when he knew that Fath-ud-Din suspected him.”
“Yes,” said Stratford; “my only chance was a sudden attack by means of atu quoque. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Jahan Beg is an Englishman, and he came to the Mission to visit the Envoy, who was an old friend of his. But he did not come with any view of interfering in public matters. He has never sought to engage our help in placing Rustam Khan upon the throne, nor in making any change in the government of Ethiopia, and we should not have granted it if he had. In fact, his coming was so entirely unofficial that we did not even take advantage of his visits to the Mission to seek his assistance in the negotiations which the Grand Vizier was carrying on with us at the time. When Fath-ud-Din used to visit the Envoy by night, and even when he came to try and arrange the secret agreement about Antar Khan’s succession to the throne, we did not invite Jahan Beg to be present, because we knew that the matter was not intended to be made public, and we feared to produce the impression that our friend was endeavouring to thrust himself uninvited into the King’s counsels.’ I saw in a moment that the shot had told. The King turned and glared at Fath-ud-Din, and then again at me. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘Fath-ud-Din desired to set my son Antar Khan upon my throne?’ ‘He came merely to attempt to secure the support of her Majesty’s Government for the Prince in case that should happen which England and Ethiopia would alike deplore,’ I said, as soothingly as I could; but the King was not mollified. ‘He sought to obtain assurance of English support in case of my death?’ he cried. ‘Yes,’ said I; ‘and when we refused to enter into the arrangement, saying that the matter was one for the King and his Amirs to settle among themselves, he threatened that he would seek the assistance we denied him from the Envoy of Scythia, who would not refuse it. Is it possible that he was not acting on behalf of your Majesty, after all?’ ‘Fath-ud-Din,’ said the King, ‘are the words of the Englishman true?’ ‘O my lord,’ said the old villain, flopping down on his face before the divan in an awful fright, ‘the Englishman’s tongue is forked. He seeks to save himself from the fate he merits by casting dirt upon the name of the meanest of my lord’s servants; but he shall yet eat his words.’ ‘The matter is in the hands of the King to prove,’ I said; ‘let him send and fetch Jahan Beg straight here from his dungeon, and let him be questioned as to all that has taken place. It is evident that he cannot have held communication with any member of the Mission since his arrest, and if his words agree with mine, mine must be seen to be true; if not, then let us both pay the penalty.’ The King seemed to think it rather a good idea, and was inclined to agree; but Fath-ud-Din interposed all sorts of objections as he lay grovelling on the floor, and at last I got tired. Some slave or chamberlain might have come in at any moment and spoilt everything. So I took out my box of lozenges, and said, ‘In this box I have food for several days, so that I can remain here without inconvenience. The King and Fath-ud-Din have no food, and cannot pass me to leave the room; therefore I would recommend that they follow my advice.’ The King saw the reason of it, and called one of the black fellows, whom he ordered to fetch Jahan Beg at once, without saying anything about what had been going on. You may judge that in spite of this I kept the revolver ready in case of any attempt to rush me; but none was made. I think the King felt that it was necessary to get to the bottom of the matter, for he even invited me to come and sit beside him; but I refused, ‘until my words were proved true,’ as I said. I don’t know whether Fath-ud-Din or I felt the more uncomfortable when the messenger was gone, for it struck me that Jahan Beg might think it advisable not to tell the exact truth, in which case I should find myself badly left; but I made a great parade of eating one of the lozenges, and I hope I dissembled my uneasiness better than the Vizier did. Happily, when poor old Jahan Beg was brought in—a perfect shadow, wasted and ill, and ragged, and chained—he gathered the significance of the questions the King asked him at once, and confirmed exactly what I had said, being able to corroborate my account of the Vizier’s earlier visits to the Mission. Of course, he did not know anything of the Antar Khan business, which did not happen until after his arrest; but I had an inspiration there. I suggested an examination of Fath-ud-Din’s servants, with the view of discovering whether he had really held communication with the Scythian agent and with us. The King jumped at the idea, and improved upon it by ordering a search of his house as well. I thought that it was not likely to be much good; but I was mistaken, for his scribe, on being arrested, displayed such great anxiety to be allowed to take his copy of the Koran to prison with him that suspicion was excited, and in the cover of it they found concealed a written promise from the Scythian agent, pledging his Government to support Antar Khan in case of the King’s death, and to pay Fath-ud-Din eight thousand pounds in return for his getting their treaty signed. The greedy old beast must have had the paper in his possession when he came to us this morning—was it really only this morning?—and tried to get us to outbid him by two thousand pounds. It was exactly the evidence we wanted, and its discovery is only another warning never to commit compromising agreements to writing.”
“Yes; and then?” asked Fitz, eagerly, seeing that Stratford appeared inclined to moralise.
“Then? Why, a grand transformation scene, of course. Fath-ud-Din’s signet was taken from him, and he was conducted to the dungeon which Jahan Beg had just vacated. Jahan Beg was taken to the bath, and rigged out at the King’s expense, and formally invested with the Grand Vizier’s signet. He was another man after a little care and attention. As for me, I was favoured with a seat by the King’s side, publicly thanked for exposing a traitor and saving the King (evidently he held the same opinion as to his chances of life under Fath-ud-Din’s fostering care that we did), and asked whether I had a copy of our treaty at hand. That was the crowning moment. I produced the treaty from inside my coat. Jahan Beg signed it—his first act in his new capacity—I followed, and the King put his seal to it. And that is all.”
“And now?” asked Lady Haigh.
“Now we have only to get back to Khemistan as fast as we can,” said Stratford.
If, after Stratford had told his story, the party at the Mission had been informed that the most anxious portion of their stay in Kubbet-ul-Haj was still to come, the idea would have seemed absurd, and yet the joyful night on which the treaty was signed proved to be merely the prelude to a fresh period of uneasiness. Far from being able to pack up and start at once on the return journey to the British frontier, the members of the Mission found that their departure must necessarily be delayed for at least a week. The camels and other baggage-animals which had been taken from them had been sent for safe-keeping to a town three days’ journey off, the governor of which was a creature of Fath-ud-Din’s. It was therefore needful to send after them, and, if the governor would consent to give them up, then to bring them back, which in itself involved a considerable delay. But this was not all. Jahan Beg in Fath-ud-Din’s place bore a certain resemblance to the ass in the lion’s skin. As he said himself, he laboured under the great disadvantage, as compared with his predecessor, of being too scrupulous for the post.
“I should have thought I had learnt by this time to do in Ethiopia as the Ethiopians do,” he grumbled one day to Stratford and Dick, who were entertaining him on the verandah of the Durbar-hall with coffee and conversation; “but I find now that I have some remnants of a Christian conscience left somewhere about me still, old renegade though I am. I simply haven’t got it in me to take the measures which the situation demands. Fath-ud-Din in my place would have had no difficulty. He would merely have had his predecessor brought before him, and tortured until things went smoothly. But he knows that I am not the man to do that, and it gives him a tremendous pull over me when I want to find out something he knows, or when some of his people have to be kept quiet. It isn’t dignified for me to be always going to the mouth of the dungeon and shouting down questions which he refuses to answer, and I have put it to the King that we must try another plan.”
This meant that Fath-ud-Din was to be released from the dungeon and kept as a kind of state-prisoner in the Palace. The new plan was successful in so far as he was more disposed to answer questions relating to his past stewardship; but it worked badly when it emboldened his adherents to resist the new Vizier on the ground that he was still afraid of his predecessor, and could not act without his help. The mob of the city, who had always been Fath-ud-Din’s warmest friends, resented his downfall keenly, and lost no opportunity of testifying their hatred to Jahan Beg and the English strangers, to whose influence that downfall was to be ascribed. Once more the Mission was guarded on all sides by soldiers, this time in order to prevent a murderous attack by the mob, whose attitude was extremely threatening. A further danger arose from the fact that there was reason to believe that the soldiers themselves were not altogether to be depended upon, and this added enormously to the anxiety of Stratford and of Jahan Beg. So long as the soldiers could keep down the townspeople, and the Grand Vizier could keep down the soldiers, things were fairly safe; but at any moment a chance spark might fire the train, and an explosion occur, the first results of which would be the murder of Jahan Beg and the massacre of the British Mission. No one left the house during these days of terror, and the gates were barely opened to admit traders and messengers. Within, every man had his revolver ready to his hand, and heaps of sand-bags were in readiness to barricade the entrance to the archway in Bachelors’ Buildings and the windows of the Durbar-hall. The Mission premises were in a state of siege.
During all this anxious time, however, no change was made in the social life of the little colony. In spite of alarms from without, and the abiding sorrow of Sir Dugald’s speechless and unconscious condition, the usual routine of work and meals remained unbroken, and the gatherings on the terrace after dinner were not abandoned. To Georgia there seemed at first something heartless, almost wicked, in keeping up appearances in this way at such a crisis; but it was Lady Haigh herself who pointed out to her the reasons for the insensibility which she was inclined to reprobate.
“There is the effect on the servants to be considered, my dear,” she said. “If we went about looking dishevelled and woe-begone, and refused to take our meals at the proper hours, we should have them deserting right and left. It will help the men, too, more than anything if they see us cheerful and apparently unconscious of danger. I believe that Mr Stratford and Major North would be almost heartbroken if they imagined that we knew as much about the state of things as we do.”
“But that is very foolish,” objected Georgia. “Why don’t they take us into their councils and let us all know authoritatively the worst we have to fear?”
“My dear, men are not made that way. They like to think that they have succeeded in hiding their apprehensions from us, and that we are pursuing our butterfly existence untroubled by thoughts of danger. And if it makes them happier to think so, we won’t undeceive them. We will dress for dinner, and talk cheerfully, and give them a little music in the evenings, and do our best to help them in whatever way we can.”
“But I don’t like it, Lady Haigh. They are treating us like babies.”
“Well, dear child, we know we are not babies. It is hard, I know, when you feel that you could give them valuable help—or, at any rate, moral support—if they would pay you the compliment of taking you into their confidence; but I believe that this is the way in which we can help them most, and sooner than add a finger’s weight to the burden those two dear fellows are bearing, I would take to bibs and a rattle again!”
And Georgia, while she marvelled, perceived that thirty years of married life teach some things about the other sex which are not included in the curriculum of any university or medical school. It was not without a certain degree of envy that she acknowledged to herself that she would have been willing to exchange a small portion—perhaps even an appreciable amount—of her medical knowledge for a share of that acquaintance with the world and with male human nature which lay behind Lady Haigh’s shrewd hazel eyes. For Dick was still obdurate and unapproachable, and after the enlightening which had come to her on the day of the signing of the treaty, she did not dare to make any of those overtures by means of which she had occasionally succeeded in re-establishing peace after their former quarrels. There was always the risk that he might misunderstand—or was it not rather that he might too well understand?—her motive.
“If it was merely an ordinary disagreement,” she said to herself, hopelessly, “I am not too proud to hold out a hand of friendship, but now!—I know I said some hard things to him, but he had said worse to me—though I shouldn’t mind now what he said if only I knew that he cared. And I thought he did care—that day when he called me Georgie—what could it have meant but that? It can’t be, oh! it can’t be, that he has been trying to lead me on, and make me care for him, in revenge for my refusing him long ago? I won’t believe it of him. It isn’t like him—he wouldn’t do it. If it was that—if he could be such a wretch, I would—yes, I could forgive him anything but that!”
Dick’s feelings during this period were scarcely more to be envied than Georgia’s. Having assured himself that nothing on earth could make him more miserable than he was already, he was fiercely eager that the crown should be given to his misery by Georgia’s engagement to Stratford, for the announcement of which he looked daily, but which did not take place. On the contrary, Stratford went about his work as usual, apparently unconscious that anything of the kind was or could be expected from him, while Georgia looked “about as wretched—well, as I feel!” said Dick to himself. He could not reasonably believe that Stratford cared for her, after his friend’s explicit denial of the fact; but it became abundantly clear to him that he ought to be made to do so, if Georgia’s happiness depended upon it. For a day or two he thought seriously of informing him that he must—under penalties which Dick did not specify to himself—ask her to marry him, since he had evidently been trifling with her feelings; but, happily, a vague impression that a marriage entered upon under such conditions was scarcely likely to turn out well restrained him. The more immediate certainty that Miss Keeling would bitterly resent such an interference in her affairs did not trouble Dick; it maddened him to see her looking as she looked now, and her happiness must be secured in spite of herself. In the meantime, he did his best to hate Stratford, both for his past conduct and his present callousness as to its results, and found it very difficult. The man was his friend and good comrade, and absolutely innocent of any wish to quarrel, and Dick would find himself sitting on the office table and talking familiarly to him as of old. Then he would call up the haunting remembrance of Miss Keeling’s pale face and reproachful eyes, and divided between the desire to avenge her wrongs and the fear of betraying her secret, become so snappish that any one but Stratford would have taken offence and demanded an explanation. But Stratford had a large fund of patience to draw upon, and he was sorry for Dick. He saw that things were not going well with him, and although he was too prudent to seek to interfere, he was determined not to make matters worse by taking up any of the gauntlets which his friend was perpetually flinging down.
Another person who viewed the state of things with much interest and uneasiness was Lady Haigh. During her long and philanthropic, if slightly autocratic, experience of English life in the East, she had engineered to a satisfactory conclusion a good many love affairs, and she had welcomed the first signs of this one as affording a fresh scope for the exercise of her particular talent. But she had now for some days been driven to the opinion that Dick and Georgia were playing at cross-purposes, a form of recreation which she regarded with the utmost horror, and she yearned to do something to set matters right.
“Nothing on earth shall induce me to interfere,” she assured herself. “Interference is a thing I abhor. But if either of them should give me the chance of saying a word, I shall certainly step in.”
Fortune favoured Lady Haigh. Coming out on the terrace one evening at dusk, after a long watch in Sir Dugald’s room, she saw Dick crossing the court towards her. He had just seen that the sentries were properly posted, and the flag hauled down for the night, and now he mounted the steps and found the terrace apparently empty. Lady Haigh was standing motionless in the shadow of the doorway, and she heard him sigh, for no obvious reason, as he threw himself into one of the chairs, and then propound despairingly for his own benefit the well-worn conundrum, “Is life worth living?”
“I am sorry to hear you say that, Major North,” said Lady Haigh, in her brisk tones, as she moved forward out of the darkness, and sat down opposite to him. “You are very high in the Service for a man of your age, you have the best possible prospects, a sufficiency of money, and a record which would make most men’s mouths water. Don’t you think that you are a slightly unreasonable—not to say ungrateful—man?”
“I must beg your pardon for being so trite,” said Dick, on the defensive at once. “If I had known you were there, I would have tried to couch my question in more original language.”
“But you would still have asked it?”
“I’m afraid so. You think me a discontented beast, don’t you, Lady Haigh?”
“That I can’t decide until I know what grounds you have for your discontent.”
“It isn’t for my own sake—at least, I come into it too, of course, but it is chiefly on another person’s account.”
“Come, this does you great credit, Major North. That the world should become clouded for you on account of some one else’s troubles—when everything with which you have to do is going on so well”—she could not resist this hit at the reticence which Stratford and he had maintained on the subject of the dangers that threatened the party, but he did not notice it—“this shows a most unselfish spirit. Are the misfortunes of this other person absolutely beyond remedy?”
“They ought not to be, but I can’t for the life of me see how they are to be set right,” said Dick, moodily.
“Well, I am very sorry to hear it. If at any time you think I can be of any help towards setting them right, be sure you let me know. The chief, I may say the only, pleasure I have just now lies in helping other people.”
She rose as though to go indoors, but Dick stopped her.
“If you can spare me a few minutes, please stay and let me tell you about it now,” he entreated. “I am awfully puzzled—and worried—and—and miserable. I want you to look at things quite apart from me. If I could only see her happy, I might get over it in time, I suppose, but now——”
“My dear boy——” Lady Haigh began, then, hoping that he had not observed the slip, altered it to, “My dear Major North, you must please explain yourself a little. Who is the lady to whom you refer—not Miss Keeling?”
“Yes, it is Miss Keeling,” said Dick, rather guiltily.
“But is Miss Keeling unhappy?”
“How you women hang together!” he remarked, with some bitterness. “You must have seen it, Lady Haigh, and yet you won’t say a word to help me out. I feel as if I had no business to talk about it, even to you—and yet you are the only other woman here—and it isn’t as though I was betraying her confidence, for she never told me. She only let me see unmistakably——”
“I am afraid you won’t believe me,” interrupted Lady Haigh, “but I really don’t understand you. If I can do anything whatever to help either you or Miss Keeling, you may count upon me, as I said just now; but please don’t think I want to pry into your private affairs.”
“I’m a fearful bear,” said Dick, penitently, “and it’s awfully good of you to be willing to take so much trouble about us, when Sir Dugald is ill, and you have so much to be anxious about. I’ll make a clean breast of the whole thing, for I am quite at the end of my tether, and I can’t see what to do. It doesn’t signify what happens to me, you know, but——”
“Do you know that you are frightening me, Major North? What desperate enterprise has Miss Keeling got on hand that you should talk about her and yourself in this strain?”
“It’s nothing of that kind. It is only that I want to see her happy. Perhaps you don’t know that for some time lately I have been beginning to hope that one day she might get to care for me?” Lady Haigh smothered a smile, and nodded assent. “Well, it was on the day that the treaty was signed that I found out all at once that it was Stratford she cared for.”
“Mr Stratford?” cried Lady Haigh, with a start. “Are you quite certain?”
“I had no idea of anything of the kind until she turned on me and asked why I had let him go to the Palace to save her, and said she would never speak to me again if anything happened to him. I couldn’t mistake that, could I?” he asked, with a dreary smile. “It was all clear to me at once, and I can’t tell you what an arrant and unmitigated and contemptible brute I felt for having let him go. I’m sure I should never have had the face to go near her again if he had got killed.”
“Well, but wasn’t it all right when he came back?”
“No, indeed; it is all wrong. He doesn’t care for her; he told me so himself before he went. Now, you know, no one can be astonished at her caring for him, he is such an out-and-out good fellow; but if he doesn’t care for her, what is to be done? That is what I am addling my brains over, and if you can suggest anything, Lady Haigh, I shall bless you for ever.”
“What was your own idea as to what ought to be done?”
“Well, it’s pretty clear to me that if Miss Keeling had a father or a brother out here, it would be his business to take the matter in hand, and bring Stratford to book—ask him his intentions, and that sort of thing. I don’t want to say anything against him, but it’s quite plain that he isn’t doing the proper thing; and if he has made her care for him with those high and mighty A.D.C. airs of his”—Dick spoke with the lively bitterness of a man who has known and suffered far from gladly the wiseacres of a viceregalentourage—“he ought not to be allowed to cry off like this without even asking her to marry him.”
“Then the propriety of your assuming therôleof Miss Keeling’s brother, and representing the matter to him yourself, has not suggested itself to you?” Lady Haigh waited with keen anxiety for the answer, which came with a groan.
“Hasn’t it indeed? But how is a man to do such a thing without giving the girl away? Don’t tell me you think I ought to do it, Lady Haigh! I’ll do it if you say I must; but really, you know, I am absolutely the worst fellow that ever was born for a delicate job of that kind. Stratford told me himself on that very day that tact was not my strong point, which is putting it mildly, and this sort of thing simply cries aloud for tact.”
“You are quite right, it does, and I am truly thankful that you have not felt called upon to attempt it.” Dick heaved a sigh of relief. “But do tell me, Major North, why you are willing to put aside your own hopes in this way, and bring Mr Stratford to book?”
“Because I want to see her happy,” growled Dick.
“You think she is not happy?”
“Look at her face. Ever since that day, she has looked quite different. Perhaps you haven’t noticed it, for she keeps a cheerful expression for company. But I have come upon her unexpectedly, and seen her when she thought no one was looking, and her face—well, it made me want to pulverise Stratford, that’s all. She put on the cheerful expression again as soon as she caught me looking at her, just as though I didn’t know all about it, and wouldn’t give my right hand to help her,” he concluded, resentfully.
“Major North,” said Lady Haigh, solemnly, “if your insight into character was only equal to your goodwill, you would be a very clever man, but as it is——” there was an expressive pause, then Lady Haigh bent towards him, and spoke very low and distinctly. “You are quite right not to speak to Mr Stratford, it would only do harm; but I think you ought to speak to Miss Keeling herself. What you have told me is news to me, and if I am not mistaken, it will also be news to her. You would tell her, of course, that you had discovered that she was in love with Mr Stratford, and was pining for him, because he would not ask her to marry him. That is the kind of fact about oneself which one has a right to know. Tell her, by all means. I don’t guarantee that you will escape with your life, but a storm clears the air sometimes. On second thoughts, don’t tell her. I really think it would be scarcely safe. Lay your own story before her—without any names, if you like—and see what she says. That is my honest and candid advice, without any kind of joking. If you won’t take it, I fear I can’t help you.”
And Lady Haigh rose and went into the house, leaving Dick stupefied. He felt utterly bewildered, and was conscious only that he must have made some egregious mistake, which Lady Haigh had perceived, but would not point out to him for fear of spoiling the game. In spite of her assurance that she was not joking, he yet hesitated to accept her last piece of advice. What possible good could it do to tell Miss Keelinghisstory, even supposing that he could succeed in finding her alone, and that she would vouchsafe to listen to him? It looked like stealing a march on Stratford, too; but, of course, that was absurd. Stratford was in possession of the field, and if it was no good attempting a serious attack on his position, how could it serve any useful purpose to make a feint of an assault upon it? It could only render Miss Keeling more unhappy still, for Dick felt sure that she would pity even him when she learnt how the words which had escaped her lips in her first grief and despair had gone to his heart. There seemed to be no way out of the dilemma, and Dick decided very quickly that he would not in any case follow Lady Haigh’s counsel, for fear of complicating the situation further. At least he could keep his own feelings in the background, while waiting anxiously for something to turn up that might relieve him from the necessity of taking any step at all. As it happened, however, the explanation he dreaded was precipitated by an event of so much importance that it actually obscured in his mind for the time the whole question he had discussed with Lady Haigh.
Bad news reached the Mission on the following morning. The district which had hitherto been ruled by Fath-ud-Din was in open revolt. The governor of the town to which the baggage-animals had been sent refused to surrender them except to Fath-ud-Din or the King in person, and this necessitated the despatch of a military expedition to enforce compliance with the royal order. Jahan Beg could not venture to leave the capital, and although Rustam Khan was to be sent in command of the forces, the business was likely to be a long one in the present unsatisfactory state of the army. This meant a further period of detention at Kubbet-ul-Haj for the Mission, and Stratford and Dick, feeling that they could not impose upon the ladies much longer with any hope of success, broke the news to them with elaborate care. Lady Haigh, true to her self-effacing creed, received it with suitable alarm; but Georgia puzzled the two men by exclaiming, “Isthatall?” in a tone which showed that their considerate method of making the announcement had prepared her to hear things much worse than the reality. Dick thought that she was failing to realise the gravity of the news, and anticipated a reaction when she began to perceive fully what it meant; and when he came upon her on the terrace after dinner that evening, he thought that the reaction had come. Lady Haigh had been called away, and Dick, emerging from the lighted dining-room to make his usual tour of inspection, found Georgia sitting alone and gazing into the darkness. Something in the desolation of her attitude went to his heart, and he approached her impulsively and laid his hand upon her shoulder.
“For heaven’s sake, Miss Keeling, don’t give in now!” he said, hoarsely. “You and Lady Haigh have kept our hearts up all this week by your pluck and cheerfulness.”
“I don’t think I am afraid,” said Georgia, without looking at him. “One could always defend oneself, you see, if the mob broke in, and that would probably ensure death at once, and I have seen too many deathbeds not to know that death is generally easier than most people think. No, it is the isolation, the fearful loneliness, the feeling that there is not one of these people, to whom we have been trying to do good, that does not hate us heartily.”
“Oh, I hope it’s not so bad as you think——” began Dick; but his clumsy attempt at consolation died on his lips. “How long have you known that things were as bad as they are?” he asked her.
“As long as you have,” returned Georgia, with some scorn.
“Not really so long? We were trying to save you from the knowledge. We hoped——”
“Yes, I know; but, unfortunately, you had to deal with an old campaigner and a New Woman, you see. Lady Haigh and I were able to read the signs of the times as well as you and Mr Stratford; but we pretended that we knew nothing about things, for the sake of sparing your feelings. Now, do you think you have treated us properly? I don’t demand information as a right; I only ask whether it was fair—whether it was even kind—to try and keep us in ignorance? We have at least as much at stake as you have.”
“At least?” he repeated, bitterly. “I can tell you that I would give my life gladly to know that you were in Khemistan and safe out of this. Now you can’t say that I haven’t spoken plainly.”
“But why not have told us the worst before, and let us talk it over, and get what comfort we could out of that? Facing a danger boldly makes it seem much less terrible. It is the guessing, and the wondering, and the putting two and two together, and the anxiety as to whether there has been any fresh trouble, of which we know nothing, to make you and Mr Stratford look graver and graver every day, that have been so dreadful this week.”
“Have a little pity for me, Georgia,” he said, almost roughly; and she realised, with a sudden tightening of the heart, that he had used the same words that other day. “Do you think it’s an easy or a pleasant thing for a man to tell the woman he loves—as I love you—that such things are before her as seem to be before us now? No, don’t start and turn your back on me—you have brought this on yourself. You laughed at me when I told you I loved you long ago, and again and again since we first met this year you have shown me pretty plainly that nothing I could do would ever change your tone. When I begged your pardon after that fuss about your doctoring the Chief, and you wouldn’t listen to me, I couldn’t have believed a woman would have spoken in such a way to the greatest blackguard on earth, let alone a man that had put himself at her mercy. Your mercy, indeed!—I believe you enjoy tormenting me. But you can go too far—even with me. Under ordinary circumstances I should have respected your wishes, and not persecuted you with my unwelcome attentions; but this is not an ordinary time, and you have goaded me beyond bearing, and I tell you—and you shall hear it—that I shall love you till I die—and beyond. You can’t alter it.”
He paused, expecting an outburst of anger, but Georgia’s head was turned away from him, and she made no answer.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said at last, apprehensively, his conscience smiting him for his roughness. “I know by what you have said that you have enough to bear already.”
“I am not crying!” said Georgia, resenting the accusation indignantly, and for one moment she turned her eyes upon him. They were shining, but not with tears. Dick thought that it was with anger, and her words served to confirm him in his belief. “I have tried to be patient with you,” she went on quickly, and her voice seemed to him to be throbbing with wounded pride, “but you are too unfair. You say you love me, but how do you treat me? Since we met last March—as you said just now; you see that I can hoard up grudges as well as you—you have done nothing but parade your contempt for me, and for everything I care for. What do you know about the New Woman? What do you know about me? and yet you have persecuted me continually with the name, which you, at any rate, meant to be one of reproach. I don’t know what your idea of love may be, but I think that it ought to teach a little tenderness—a little consideration for the other person’s feelings. How dare you tell me that you love me? You might, if you could bend me to your own pattern; but you can’t, and so you have done your best to show that you dislike me. Not that your dislike signifies to me in the least, of course,” with superb disdain, “but I don’t see why you should render yourself generally unpleasant by exhibiting it.”
“Make a little allowance for me, please. I loved you, and you would not listen to me. I daresay I have made an awful idiot of myself, but——”
“Don’t say that you had excuse. I was always willing to be friends with you, if you would only——”
“Friends? I don’t want your friendship. There can be no such thing between you and me. I must have all or nothing.”
“And by way of getting all, you did everything you could to make it impossible for me to give you anything? I am not a Griselda, and if you will excuse my saying it, I don’t think nature intended you for a Petruchio. Were you really under the impression that the best way of winning a woman’s heart was to abuse all her friends and pour contempt on all her interests? How could I learn to care for you?”
“I am very sorry, Georgie,” said Dick, humbly enough.
“It is possible to be sorry too late,” Georgia went on mercilessly; but he interrupted her with a burst of passion.
“Don’t I know that? Hasn’t it tormented me day and night since I knew that you cared for him? Don’t try me too far. I have done my best not to worry you since that day, and if I could do anything to make you happy with him, I would; but I can’t stand it if you begin to moralise on the subject. You expect too much of a man.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Georgia, turning round quickly. Her face had grown very pale. “Who is the person you are talking about?”
“Why, Stratford, of course,” said Dick, off his guard. Georgia’s eyes flamed.
“Stratford? You thought I was in love with Mr Stratford? After that, I don’t think there is anything more that need be said, Major North. Will you kindly let me pass?”
But he would not. Despair gave him courage, and he put his arm across the doorway. “Georgie, I’m an idiot and an ass and an utter fool, but give me another chance. I do love you, and if you will only let me try again, now that there’s no other fellow in the way, perhaps you might come to care for me a little in time.”
Georgia wavered, and was lost. She had caught sight of his face in the moonlight, and there was an expression in his eyes which completed what his eager, halting words had begun. “Oh, Dick, don’t look at me like that,” she entreated, laying her hands on his arm. “You may try again.”
“Try again? Georgie, may I really? How much does that mean?”
“Take the night to think over it,” said Georgia, trying to slip past him indoors; but he caught her hands and held her prisoner.
“You said just now ‘how could you learn to care for me?’ I thought you meant that it was impossible. Did you mean that there might be a chance? Just the one word, dear.”
“Yes,” said Georgia, in a voice which was somewhat muffled. “At least, I mean no. I have cared for you a long time.”
“What a beast I have been!” was the next coherent remark uttered by Dick.
“You were rather a trial,” was the murmured answer.
“But I am going to reform now, Georgie. You must pull me up if I let out at anything in which you have the smallest interest. But I could praise up the New Woman herself to-night.”
“Considering that I am the embodiment of the New Woman to your mind,” began Georgia, “that is a very poor——”
“I say, North, is there anything wrong? Haven’t you finished your rounds yet?” shouted Stratford, coming to the dining-room window with a half-smoked cigar in his fingers.
“No, it’s all right,” answered Dick’s voice, unexpectedly near at hand. “I’ll do the rounds in a minute.”
“Well, Georgie?”
“Well, Dick?”
Georgia’s eyes danced with merriment, for Dick was lying in wait for her on the verandah, with a bunch of roses in his hand. Kubbet-ul-Haj roses are not roses of Damascus, or of Kashmir, or of any other locality famous for the culture of the plant; but poor as they were, they were flowers, and of flowers the prisoners at the Mission had seen but few of late. He held them out to her with quite unusual timidity.
“Will you have them?” he asked, somewhat shyly.
“Of course I will, Dick. Thank you so much.” She took them from his hand, kissed them, and fastened them in her dress. “Are you satisfied now?” she asked, smiling.
“Satisfied!” he said, looking at her admiringly. “I feel now that what happened last night was a reality.”
“Why, had you begun to hope it was a dream?”
“It might have been merely imagination—too good to be true. Stratford has just been declaring that I was mad last evening. He says that I wanted to sit up all night and talk, and that he had to turn me out of his room by main force.”
“Poor fellow! Were you trying to drown the remembrance of what had happened?”
“Drown it, indeed! burn it in, more likely. I can’t imagine how you ever came to—Georgie, there’s one thing that puzzles me still. Why were you so angry because Stratford went to the Palace instead of me? I did all I could to go, of course, because I wanted to do something for you; but why did you mind so much?”
“Never mind,” said Georgia, growing rather red; “it was absurd and unreasonable of me. I know you must have thought that I wanted you to be killed.”
“But why was it?”
“I suppose you will give me no peace until I tell you. It was because I couldn’t bear to think you cared so little about me as to let him go instead.”
“I wish I had gone!” said Dick, enviously.
“Then you would probably have been killed, and the treaty would not have been signed, and we should never have known what we know now—about our caring for each other, I mean. I might have guessed the truth when I heard that you had gone, but I could never have been sure; it might only have been a way of taking a noble revenge on me, you know. And you would have sacrificed yourself and perhaps even died, believing all the time that I detested you. I know you deserved it, but still, I should have been sorry. No, things are much better as they are. It was very silly of me to think and say what I did.”
“I like you to be silly about me.”
“And you don’t like me under other circumstances? I hope I am not always silly.”
“I don’t care about circumstances, or wisdom, or foolishness, or anything. I love you because you are yourself.”
“Dick, you are incorrigible!” There was a slight soreness in Georgia’s tone. It was undeniable that Dick was lacking in tact.
“Now I have gone and hurt your feelings again! I wish I wasn’t such a blundering idiot.”
“Dick, listen to me. I want you to do me a favour.”
“If there is any single thing in the whole world I could do for you——”
“You would do it, I know, however great it was. But it is a number of little things, Dick. I know you don’t mean to hurt me, but you often do. Think a moment. I don’t love you any more because of your Victoria Cross, but it makes me glad and proud to think that you have it. I know I can’t expect you to be glad that I am a doctor, and proud of being one, because you dislike the very idea; but I want you to treat the subject tenderly, because it is connected with me. I daresay it seems very strange to you that I should be as sensitive about my profession as you are about yours, and I know you will never look at the two things in the same light, but I ask you to regard it as a concession to my weakness when you let an opportunity pass without a sneer. We must agree to differ on this question, I suppose, but I want you to do it gracefully, for my sake.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and Dick felt the enormity of his conduct more keenly than he had ever done in the days when he delighted to provoke her to arguments and the delivery of lectures.
“What a brute I must have been, that you should find it necessary to ask such a thing of me!” he burst out. “It makes me feel thoroughly ashamed to think what a cad I am. Do you think that it’s safe to have anything to do with me, Georgie?”
“I don’t know whether it’s safe or not, but I love you so much that I couldn’t do without you,” said Georgia, unsteadily.
“To hear you say that makes me feel that I could do anything you asked me. Help me to be more worthy of you, Georgie. If I hurt your feelings after this I deserve to be hung. Pull me up—simply slang me—if I say anything unkind. I never thought I was such a blackguard. No, only look at me, as you did just now, and if I don’t wilt, as Hicks puts it, that instant, then throw me over, for I shan’t be worth troubling about. I will get over that habit of letting out at the things you care for. I feel as though I could go anywhere and do anything to-day.”
“And I feel so ridiculously safe,” said Georgia, smiling at him with an April face.
“And yet nothing is really different from what it was yesterday.”
“Oh, Dick! everything is different. There is hope to-day, and there was none then. Think how dreadful it would have been to be killed when everything was wrong between us.”
“What a remark!” said Dick, lazily—“it’s almost worthy of young Anstruther; and how particularly cheerful the subjects of your thoughts are! Now that I am in a position to keep you from making rash expeditions to the Palace, I must say that I don’t see any present danger of your being killed.”
“The calmness with which you contemplate such a contingency does infinite credit to your strength of mind, sir. But it is rather strange that you should have mentioned the Palace, for I am going there this morning.”
“Not with my consent.”
“Then without it, I am afraid. Dick, you are not going to get up a quarrel over such a little thing, surely? You don’t imagine that I should think of going now without taking every possible precaution, and getting Mr Stratford’s leave?”
“What has Stratford got to do with it? It’s my affair.”
“Excuse me, I think it’s mine. Now, Dick, you don’t deserve to be reassured and made to feel comfortable about it, but I am going to be magnanimous. While you were out in the early morning there came a messenger from the King. He said that they had not yet taken the bandage from the Queen’s eyes, because they were afraid to touch it if I was not there. He was so anxious that I should be present and direct operations that he offered of his own accord to send Antar Khan here as a hostage for the whole time I am gone. Now are you satisfied?”
“Not unless I go with you.”
“But that’s impossible. Rahah and I make the passage in the litter, and we couldn’t manage to smuggle you in. Besides, what should we do with you when we got to the Palace?”
“That wasn’t what I meant. I will take five or six of the servants and ride beside you. Then I shall wait in the men’s part of the Palace while you go to see the Queen, and bring you back again. You won’t find me leaving the place without you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find it rather dull. We shan’t be able to talk, you know. But of course I should like it much better if you were there. You will come, then?”
“Rather. If you will run into danger, you shall not go alone—now.”
“Your permission is slightly grudging,” said Georgia, laughing, but she was heartily glad to have his escort. The unpleasant circumstances of her last visit to the Palace had made her shrink from going there again, although she had a particular reason for desiring to do so. The thought that Dick would not be far off was a reassuring one, even though there was no reason for anticipating any unfriendliness from the royal household. And in this way it came to pass that when the Palace litter, closely guarded by soldiers, conveyed Georgia and her handmaid to visit her patient, Dick rode behind it with six of the servants of the Mission, who were divided between delight at being outside the walls of the house once more, and a certain degree of terror at the prospect of finding themselves inside the Palace.
Reclining luxuriously on the cushions, with Rahah crouching opposite to her, Georgia spent the time occupied by the transit in recapitulating to herself the points of the inquiry which she was anxious to make, and which had as its primary object the re-establishment of Sir Dugald’s health. The disagreeable interruption of her interview with Nur Jahan’s mother, by the entrance of the King’s younger wife, had prevented her from putting to the women present the questions which had been suggested to her by their mention of the witch whose poisons Fath-ud-Din was wont to employ to rid him of his enemies. The name and dwelling-place of this old woman had become matters of the deepest interest to Georgia, and she was also eager for any information that it might be possible to obtain as to her methods and the poisons she used. On what she could discover this morning, Sir Dugald’s life, or at any rate, his restoration to health, might depend, and this in itself was enough to determine Georgia to leave no stone unturned in the effort to ensure success. But it must be confessed that she had an additional motive—a sufficiently weighty one, although completely secondary—and this was the subjugation, or conviction, or conversion, whichever it might be called, of Dick. She did not give the process any of these names in her own mind, but she recognised that in the present state of affairs between them the old difference of opinion was only lying dormant, and that sooner or later it must revive. Shrinking with all her heart from the idea of paining, or even opposing him, she was none the less aware that any surrender on her part would only bring her grief and remorse later, and she longed to be able to do something that might justify her in Dick’s eyes, might bring him to acquiesce of his own free will in her continuing the practice of her profession, and thus avert the crisis she foresaw and feared. There was only one thing that could come between Dick and herself, and that was her work; but she knew that if she was true to her principles, she must uphold it against Dick. She had gained a temporary advantage that morning, but she was already ashamed of the weapons of which she had made use.
“Mine was a weak impulse,” she said to herself, “for it led me to appeal merely to Dick’s feelings, instead of to his reason and his sense of right. I made him ashamed of himself, but it was in an unfair way—almost as bad as it would have been if I had cried. I can’t think what led me to do it—I suppose it was simply a reversion to the tactics of the Old Woman. It was lowering myself, and it lowered Dick—he would never have stooped to try to coax me, but he yields when I coax him. Of course he liked it—he naturally would, but that doesn’t make it any better. I asked him to do as a favour to me what he ought, as a gentleman, to do as a mere matter of justice, and if he follows the thing out logically he will feel at liberty to sneer at any other medical woman he may meet, even though he makes an exception in my case. I have gone to work in the wrong way—no doubt it is the most comfortable, but that doesn’t signify if it isn’t right. It’s no use pretending that Dick is perfect—he isn’t, any more than I am; but I want to see him getting nearer to perfection the more I have to do with him, and it wouldn’t be the way to bring that about if I helped him to grow into a tyrant whose most unreasonable wish was law unless he could be wheedled out of it. No, I see that he has a great deal to learn yet: I am only afraid that I may not be the right person to teach it him. I am so much afraid of hurting his feelings—and I don’t know how I could ever do without him now.”
In short, Georgia was in a difficult position, between an exacting professional conscience and a sufficiently masterful lover, but it is possible that her very tenderness for Dick’s feelings afforded her a better guarantee of success than if she had cared for him less. He, on his part, was quite content to enjoy to the full his unexpected happiness, without troubling himself about the future, and he knew nothing of the heavy sigh with which Georgia at last put her own affairs from her, and dismounted from the litter in the harem courtyard at the Palace, prepared to throw herself wholly into the joys and sorrows of its inmates.
“O doctor lady!” cried Nur Jahan, rushing to meet her with much clashing of bangles and rustling of stiff satin, “it rejoices my eyes to behold thee again. We feared that after the evil words of Antar Khan’s mother thou wouldst never return to us. Truly the world has changed for us all since thou wert here, and were it not for my lord’s absence with the army I should have nothing to wish for.”
She led Georgia into the Queen’s room, where the patient was waiting in pitiable anxiety. The long delay, which she had been too nervous to terminate at the proper time, had tasked the poor lady’s patience to the utmost, and she was feverishly eager that the result of the operation should be known, and the final verdict uttered. The room was carefully darkened, and Georgia unfastened the bandages. For a moment the Queen’s weakened eyes could see nothing, and a low despairing wail broke from her, but almost as Georgia laid her hand upon her shoulder and exhorted her to be calm, the moan changed to a cry of joy.
“I can see!” she cried. “God is great, and great is the power He has given to the English and to the doctor lady. With these eyes of mine I shall behold my son’s son before I die.”
“Here is the child, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, laying her baby eagerly in the Queen’s arms. “Bless him now, and bless also the doctor lady, through whose skill thou beholdest him.”
“Almost I might believe myself young again, with my son Rustam Khan in my arms,” said the grandmother, looking fondly at the baby, “and yet this is Rustam Khan’s son that I hold. O doctor lady, if the blessing of one who has suffered much, and whom thou hast by thine art brought back from the gates of despair, can benefit thee, thou hast it now, and may it follow thee and thy children and thy children’s children for ever!”
Georgia’s own eyes were dim with tears as she turned away to put together the things she had brought with her, and the slaves crowded round her in grateful reverence, kissing the hem of her dress and laying her hand on their heads, while Nur Jahan despatched a messenger to inform the King that the operation had been successful. The slave returned in a short time, accompanied by the chamberlain who presided over the treasury, bearing a mass of jewellery tied up in a thick silk handkerchief as a gift to the doctor lady, together with the King’s grateful thanks. Georgia knew her duty with respect to presents of this kind, and having raised the handkerchief to her forehead, she placed it again on the tray on which it had arrived, and choosing out of the heap a necklace of curious workmanship, but of comparatively small intrinsic value, she returned the remainder to the bearer, desiring him to convey her thanks to the King. Rahah was made happy by the gift of a massive pair of anklets, in which she clanked about as though in fetters; and the negro, as he withdrew, intimated that the King intended to mark the occasion by gifts of jewellery to his wife and daughter-in-law and their respective attendants. Hence it was a very merry party which partook presently of coffee and sweetmeats in the Queen’s room, and Georgia observed with some amusement that now it was the Queen’s servants who shrieked shrill defiances across the courtyard at the attendants of Antar Khan’s mother, and that they were powerless to retaliate. They sat in a scowling and disconsolate row on the verandah, and, as Mr Hicks would have put it, “squirmed” under the infliction.
“Must thou leave us when thy friends depart, O doctor lady?” asked the Queen. “There are many women blind and sick and lame in Kubbet-ul-Haj, much more in all Ethiopia. Wilt thou not stay and cure them?”
“I am afraid I must go back when the Mission does,” said Georgia, “though I shall be very sorry to have to leave you all, and I wish I might hope to come back. But I shall not be my own mistress for very long now.”
“Has the wife of the Queen of England’s Envoy found a husband for thee, then, O doctor lady?” asked Nur Jahan with deep commiseration, forgetting the unfavourable impression of her own married life which the words would convey; “I thought thou wert free and happy.”
“Peace, Nur Jahan!” said the Queen, quickly. “Knowest thou not that the caged birds should entice the wild ones into the trap, and not warn them away? Hath the lot of all women overtaken thee at last, O doctor lady? I would have thee give God thanks that it comes so late.”
“O my ladies,” said Rahah, indignantly, “surely ye know not the ways of the English. The great lord that is to marry my lady is a mighty captain, and his name is known throughout all Khemistan. He is rich also, and his hand is bountiful,” and Rahah surveyed complacently a new bracelet she had made for herself that very morning by stringing together certain silver coins, “and to please my lady he would give all that he has. In his own eyes he is but the dust under her feet.”
“Art thou so young as to be thus deceived, girl?” asked the Queen, compassionately. “Surely it is ill with thy mistress if thou art led away and withheld from warning her by a few pieces of silver. These that thou hast mentioned are the ways of all men at the first, but sooner or later the change comes. I warn thee, O doctor lady, when thy lord brings another wife into the house, however solemnly he may have assured thee that thou shalt always reign there alone, reproach him not, but be friendly with her, if she will have it so, for otherwise she will prevail upon him to cast thee out.”
To the astonishment of the whole circle, Georgia was laughing so heartily over the idea thus presented to her that she could scarcely speak, but Rahah explained with haughty superiority the difference between English and Ethiopian marriage customs, although her explanation was received with manifest incredulity. It was not until Georgia had declared solemnly that if her husband brought a second wife into the house she would instantly leave it, and that the law of England and public opinion would support her in doing so, that the ladies began to perceive that there might be advantages attaching to matrimony in Europe which were lacking to it in Kubbet-ul-Haj. Nur Jahan possessed the moral support of Rustam Khan’s promise to her father that he would not take a second wife; but it was evident that the Queen and her women regarded this as a temporary concession which might or might not continue to be observed, and that public opinion would think no worse of Rustam Khan if he withdrew it.
“It is right, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “that thou shouldest have a prospect of happiness in marriage, for thou hast dealt well indeed with me and with my house.”
“Nay, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, “is it not rather that the doctor lady has brought us good luck, from her first coming until now? Since she came, the wicked Fath-ud-Din has been cast down and punished, and my father is put into his place. Thine adversary has been made to eat dirt, and the faces of all our enemies are humbled before us. My lord is restored to his honours and to his command, and my mother has returned to her house in peace with many gifts, sent her by our lord the King. And thine eyes are opened also. Is not the doctor lady truly a bringer of good luck?”
“And yet our coming to Kubbet-ul-Haj has not brought good fortune to ourselves,” said Georgia, sadly. “One of our party has been murdered, and the Envoy himself lies like one dead——”
“And a husband has been found for thee,” murmured the irrepressible Nur Jahan.
“I see you won’t believe me when I tell you that I don’t count that a misfortune,” said Georgia. “I am not joking, Nur Jahan. I need help very much, and I think that some of you can give it me, but it is in quite a different matter.”
“Speak, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “and may the blindness thou hast taken from me rest on any that refuse to help thee.”
“You were speaking the other day,” said Georgia, “of some old woman who was supposed to help Fath-ud-Din by poisoning his enemies. Is this known to be true, or is it merely common talk?”
“It is quite true,” replied the Queen, “that several of Fath-ud-Din’s enemies have died in agonising torments which no physician could alleviate. One expired in torturing thirst, with such pains as those experience who have lost their way in the desert and can find no water.” Georgia nodded quickly. “Another died of hunger, which tormented him with its pangs, while he could swallow nothing to alleviate them. Yet another went mad, and rushing through the city, cast himself headlong from the walls; and of one the wives and children died one after the other, until, broken down by misery, he died also.”
“Tell me,” said Georgia, eagerly, “has any one whom Fath-ud-Din hated ever fallen into a sleep so heavy that he could not be awakened, in which he remained for weeks and yet lived?”
The ladies turned and looked at one another. “It is the Father of sleep!” were the words that passed between them.
“You know something about it?” cried Georgia.
“Weknownothing, O doctor lady,” said Nur Jahan; “but we have heard much concerning a certain drug of this wicked woman’s. Others of her poisons are drawn, men say, from strange plants of distant lands; but this is taken from a fish which is found upon a certain island of the southern seas, and whose scales and bones and flesh, so they say, have been all filled with poison by wicked enchantments, and they call it the Father of sleep.”
“Then have you ever known an instance when it was used?” asked Georgia, filled with eager anticipation.
“I have, O doctor lady,” said one of the Queen’s confidential slaves, “and I will tell thee of it if my mistress will suffer me to speak freely.”
“Speak,” said the Queen. “Have not I commanded all my household to assist the doctor lady in every way?”
“It was many years ago, when our lord the King married the Vizier’s sister, who is now the mother of Antar Khan,” said the slave, rather reluctantly, “and our lord the King’s sister, the Lady Fatma, in whose service I was at that time, was very angry about the match. It was even said that she had almost succeeded in breaking it off. That wicked woman, the sorceress, the accursed Khadija, was sent by Fath-ud-Din to warn the Lady Fatma to withdraw her opposition, if her life was dear to her; but the Princess mocked at Khadija, and derided her powers. Then Khadija made an evil sign, and foretold that before the next morning light the Lady Fatma should know her power; and surely enough, when her slaves sought to awaken her at dawn, she did not hear them, but lay as one still asleep. Then, when they had failed again and again to arouse her, they ran to tell the King of the matter, and of the words of Khadija. He sent for the woman, and threatened her with death, but he could in no way wring from her a promise to remove the spell, except on condition that no punishment whatever should be inflicted on her. Now the King had an enemy, a rebel chief, and it seemed to him that he might well be rid of him by this woman’s means, and he covenanted with her that, as the price of her life, she should not only remove the spell from the Lady Fatma, but also bring about the death of Zohrab Khan. And this was done.”
“And it was well done,” said the Queen, decisively, as the slave looked towards her with some anxiety. “The man was a traitor, and false to his salt.”
“But was it poison that Khadija had administered to the Lady Fatma?” asked Georgia, too eager for information to turn aside to the moral question involved in the death of Zohrab Khan. “And how did she counteract it?”
“She had put the poison (very little is needed) into the Lady Fatma’s coffee, and in order to awaken her from the magic sleep she gave her a potion that she mixed. It was whispered among the slaves that it was made of the shavings of a porcupine’s teeth, mixed with the juice of a plant that is brought from the land of the poison-fish; but the secret of it is known only to Khadija herself, and the antidote is useless unless it is administered in one particular way, but none of us who belonged to the Princess’s household were allowed to see what was done.”
“This must be the very thing I want to know!” said Georgia. “And now, where is Khadija to be found?”
“In Fath-ud-Din’s fortress of Bir-ul-Malikat, where she watches over his daughter Zeynab,” said Nur Jahan, with lively contempt. “The Rose of the World, they call the girl, and she is to marry Antar Khan, if Fath-ud-Din and the witch together can bring it about.”
“But where is this fortress?” asked Georgia.
“In the desert, on the way to Khemistan. There are two forts on two hills, Bir-ul-Malik and Bir-ul-Malikat. Bir-ul-Malik used to belong to my father, but Khadija dried up the water in the well by her arts, and the garrison almost died of thirst. My father complained to our lord the King, and he, thinking that the place was now useless, commanded Fath-ud-Din to give my father another town in exchange, and this he did, in another part of the kingdom. But as soon as my father’s men were gone from Bir-ul-Malik, Fath-ud-Din took possession of the place, and Khadija brought back the water into the well, and now he holds the only two forts and wells in all that region.”
This was all the information that could be gained from the household at the Palace, and Georgia’s desire not to alarm her friends kept her from uttering aloud the thought that was in her mind, so that she allowed the subject to drop. During the remainder of the visit, however, and while she was being carried home in the litter, the determination rose strong within her to find Khadija and get hold of the secret of that antidote, if she had to make an expedition into Ethiopia all by herself, after the Mission had returned to Khemistan, for the sake of doing so.
After the farewell visit to the Palace, there was still another visit to be paid, and this was to Nur Jahan’s mother, who had returned with her husband to her own house, which might now be considered a place of comparative safety. The Princess sent her litter to the Mission, and Georgia made the transit in the usual seclusion, escorted by Dick and a number of armed servants. Arrived at the Grand Vizier’s house, Dick whiled away the time by a chat with Jahan Beg, and Georgia and Rahah were conducted to the harem, where the Princess received them with great kindness. There was even a touch of compassion in her manner, for which Georgia was at a loss to account until she learnt that Nur Jahan had told her mother of the doctor lady’s intended marriage.
“Art thou well advised in this that thou art intending, O doctor lady?” asked the Princess. “If it is true that thou art free to act in the matter according to thine own will, consider what thou doest before it is too late. My daughter tells me that thou hast no fear, since thy betrothed husband is an Englishman; but I know too well that all husbands are alike, for I also am married to an Englishman, although I was not aware of the truth until Fath-ud-Din’s servants shouted it at me as they drove me from my own house a month ago.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Georgia, diffidently, “the Amir Jahan Beg was not then acquainted with the customs of Ethiopia, which differ from ours, and he may have appeared unkind through ignorance.”
“Not so,” said the Princess, decisively, “for had that been all, my love would have won him to honour our customs for my sake,” and her hard eyes softened at the touch of some early memory. “Listen to me, O doctor lady, and judge between my lord and me. My first husband was very old, and when he died I mourned for him almost as for a father. To him I was a child and a plaything—he was not unkind, but I was nothing to him, and I knew it. Then for some time I dwelt at the Palace, under the protection of my cousin the Queen. In those days every one was talking of the valour and wisdom of a new favourite of our lord the King, a captive from among the hillmen of the south, but a convert to the faith of Islam. He had repelled the hostile tribes on our northern border, and extended the kingdom beyond the utmost limits it had hitherto attained, and he was coming in triumph to Kubbet-ul-Haj to lay his spoils at the King’s feet. When that day came, the Queen and I, with our women, were watching the ceremony from our balcony above the throne. The slave-girls exclaimed at the vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought, he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust and ashes when gained! My nurse told me afterwards that on our wedding-night she had seen how things would fall out. I was waiting for my bridegroom, she with me, that she might remove my veil and leave him to behold my face. He came in without a salutation to either of us, and sat down beside me upon the divan. My nurse was angry, and said sharply, ‘It is not the custom in Ethiopia to sit uninvited in the presence of the daughter of the King’s uncle.’ ‘O mother,’ he replied, ‘I stand before no woman in Ethiopia, least of all my own wife.’ My nurse was much disturbed. ‘Wilt thou still marry him, Nafiza, my dove?’ she whispered, so that only I could hear; ‘the King will not suffer thee to be insulted.’ But I, thinking, ‘He must surely be a great prince in his own country, to speak thus to a king’s granddaughter!’ motioned to her to lift my veil, saying, ‘It is well, O my nurse; go on.’ And thus was I married, and evil was my marriage. For in the night I would hear my lord speaking in his own tongue in his sleep, and I knew that he spoke of his own land. But more; I learnt why nothing that I could do could please him, or bring his eyes to look upon me with favour. He had no love for me, he had married me at the King’s command, and I could not even hope that in time I might be able to win his affection, for always in the night he called upon the name of another woman.”
“Oh, but how could you tell?” cried Georgia, quickly, appalled by this revelation of the tragedy which Jahan Beg had brought into the life of his slighted wife. “You don’t understand English. You may have mistaken what he said.” The Lady Nafiza smiled.
“How could I tell, O doctor lady? My heart told me. Though I might not understand the words, yet I could not mistake the tone. And thus my dream faded. But when my daughter Nur Jahan was born, my lord left off crying out to the other woman, but he spoke more and more in his sleep of his own land. Iknewit, O doctor lady, though I could not understand. And one day, sitting at his feet, with my baby in my arms, while he held up the hilt of his sword so that the light might flash upon the jewels and make the child laugh, I plucked up my courage and said, ‘Does my lord long very sorely for his own land that he cries out for it every night?’ I would have gone on to tell him that for his sake I was ready to leave my people and flee with him to his land, but his brow darkened, and he sprang up and seized me by the shoulder. ‘Am I not safe in my own house?’ he cried in a dreadful voice. ‘Do they set my wife to spy upon me? Woman, no one that has betrayed Jahan Beg lives another hour!’ What could I do but embrace his knees and kiss his feet, and entreat his mercy for my child’s sake, since he had no pity for me? And he thrust me from him and went out. Never again did I speak to him of the words he uttered in sleep. But I loved him still, and cast about how I might win him to me. At last it seemed to me that there was indeed a reason for my ill-success, for I had given my lord no son. Then, after many tears shed in secret, and many struggles with myself, I said to him, ‘Let my lord choose another wife, who may bear him sons, and I will welcome her into my house, and she shall be to me as a sister, for my lord’s sake, and her children as my own.’ This I did, thinking that he feared to supplant me because I was the King’s cousin—and indeed, all this house and the slaves were part of my dowry, and belong to me—but helaughed, O doctor lady, he laughed at me, though I was giving him that which it broke my heart to offer, and he said, ‘If I desired other wives, I would take them, but one is enough for me.’ Why should my lord visit upon me the evil deeds of that other woman, O doctor lady? for I know that she must have deceived him. But from that day I sought no more to speak to my husband’s heart. And my daughter grew up; but she was like him and his people, and not like me, and he loved her for that reason, so that sometimes I almost hated my own child. But that is long ago, and I remember it to-day only as a warning to thee.”