"Hullo, doctor! What news?" sang out a curly-haired subaltern on the steps of the club, a newly-erected, wooden bungalow of which the little Frontier station was immensely proud. "You're looking infernally serious. What's the matter?"
Dr. Seddon rolled stoutly off his steaming pony and went to join his questioner.
"What do you think you're doing, Toby?" he said, with a glance at an enormous pair of scissors in the boy's hand.
"I'm making lamp-shades," Toby responded, leading the way within. "What's your drink? Nothing? What a horribly dry beast you are! Yes, lamp-shades—for the ball, you know. Got to be ready by to-morrow night. We're doing them with crinkly paper. Miss Eversley promised to come and help me. But she hasn't turned up."
"What?" exclaimed Seddon. "Not come back yet?"
Toby dropped his scissors with a clatter, and dived for them under the reading-room table.
"Don't make me jump, I say, doctor!" he said pathetically. "I'm quite upset enough as it is. That lazy lout, Soames, won't stir a finger. The other chaps are on duty. And Miss Eversley has proved faithless. Why can't you turn to and help?"
But Seddon was already striding to the door again in hot haste.
"That idiot of a girl must have crossed the Frontier!" he said, as he went. "There was a fellow shot on sentry-go last night. It's infernally dangerous, I tell you!"
Toby raced after him swearing inarticulately. A couple of subalterns just entering were nearly overwhelmed by their vigorous exit. They recovered themselves and followed to the tune of Toby's excited questioning. But none of the party got beyond the veranda steps, for there the sound of clattering hoofs arrested them, and a jaded horse bearing a dishevelled rider was pulled up short in front of the club.
"Miss Eversley herself!" cried Toby, making a dash forward.
A native servant slipped unobtrusively to the sweating horse's bridle. Averil was on the ground in a moment and turned to ascend the steps of the club-house.
"Is my brother-in-law here?" she said to Toby, accepting the hand he offered.
"Who? Raymond? No; he's in the North Camp somewhere. Do you want him? Anything wrong? By Jove, Miss Eversley, you've given us an awful fright!"
Averil went up the steps with so palpable an effort that Seddon hastily dragged forward a chair. Her lips, as she answered Toby, were quite colourless.
"I have had a fright myself," she said. Then she looked round at the other men with a shaky laugh. "I have been riding for my life," she said a little breathlessly. "I have never done that before. It—it's very exciting—almost more so than riding to hounds. I have often wondered how the fox felt. Now I know."
She ignored the chair Seddon placed for her, turning to the boy called Toby with great resolution.
"Those lamp-shades, Mr. Carey," she said. "I'm sorry I'm so late. You must have thought I was never coming. In fact"—the colour was returning to her face, and her smile became more natural—"I thought so myself a few minutes ago. Let us set to work at once!"
Toby burst into a rude whoop of admiration and flung a ball of string into the air.
"Miss Eversley, well done! Well done!" he gasped. "You—you deserve a V.C.!"
"Indeed I don't," she returned. "I have been running away hard."
"Tell us all about it, Miss Eversley!" urged one of her listeners. "You have been across the Frontier, now, haven't you? What happened? Someone tried to snipe you from afar?"
But Miss Eversley refused to be communicative. "I am much too busy," she said, "to discuss anything so unimportant. Come, Mr. Carey, the lamp-shades!"
Toby bore her off in triumph to inspect his works of art. There was a good deal of understanding in Toby's head despite its curls which he kept so resolutely cropped. He attended to business without a hint of surprise or inattention. And he was presently rewarded for his good behaviour.
Averil, raising her eyes for a moment from one of the shades which she was tacking together while he held it in shape, said presently:
"A very peculiar thing happened to me this morning, Mr. Carey."
"Yes?" he replied, trying to keep the note of expectancy out of his voice.
Averil nodded gravely. "I crossed the Frontier," she said, "and rode into the mountains. I thought I heard a child crying. I lost my way and fell among thieves."
"Yes?" said Toby again. He looked up, frankly interested this time.
"I was shot at," she resumed. "It was my own fault, of course. I shouldn't have gone. My brother-in-law warned me very seriously against going an inch beyond the Frontier only last night. Well, one buys one's experience. I certainly shall never go again, not for a hundred wailing babies."
"Probably a bird," remarked Toby practically.
"Probably," assented Averil, equally practical. "To continue: I didn't know what to do. I was horribly frightened. I had lost my bearings. And then out of the very midst of my enemies there came a friend."
"Ah!" said Toby quickly. "The right sort?"
"There is only one sort," she said, with a touch of dignity.
"And what did he do?" said Toby, with eager interest.
"He simply took my bridle and ran by my side till we were out of danger," Averil said, a sudden soft glow creeping up over her face.
Toby looked at her very seriously. "In native rig, I suppose?" he said.
"Yes," said Averil.
"Carlyon of the Frontier," said Toby, with abrupt decision.
She nodded. "I did not know he had left England," she said.
"He hasn't—officially speaking," said Toby. He was watching her steadily. "Do you know, Miss Eversley," he said, "I think I wouldn't mention your discovery to any one else?"
"I am not going to," she said.
"No? Then why did you tell me?" he asked, with a tinge of rude suspicion in his voice.
Averil looked him suddenly and steadily in the face. It was a very innocent face that Toby Carey presented to a serenely credulous world.
"Because," said Averil slowly, "he told me to tell you alone. 'Tell Toby Carey only,' he said, 'to watch when the beasts go down to drink.' They were his last words."
"Good!" said Toby unconcernedly. "Then he knew you recognized him?"
"Yes," Averil said; "he knew." She smiled faintly as she said it. "He told me he was in no danger," she added.
"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Toby sharply.
"Yes," said Averil, with pride.
"I'm sorry to hear it," said Toby bluntly.
"Why?" she asked, with a swift flash of anger.
"Why?" he echoed vehemently. "Ask your brother-in-law, ask Seddon, ask any one! The man is a fiend!"
Averil sprang to her feet in sudden fury.
"How dare you!" she cried passionately. "He is a king!"
Toby stared for a moment, then grew calm. "We are not talking about the same man, Miss Eversley," he said shortly. "The man I know is a fiend among fiends. The man you know is, no doubt—different."
But Averil swept from the club-room without a word. She was very angry with Toby Carey.
Averil rode back to her brother-in-law's bungalow, vexed with herself, weary at heart, troubled. She had arrived at the station among the mountains on the Frontier two months before, and had spent a very happy time there with the sister whom she had not seen for years. The ladies of the station numbered a very scanty minority, but there was no lack of gaiety and merriment on that account.
That the hills beyond the Great Frontier were peopled by tribes in a seething state of discontent was a matter known, but little recked of, by the majority of the community. Officers went their several ways, fully awake to threatening rumours, but counting them of small importance. They went to their sport; to their polo, their racing, their gymkhanas, with light hearts and in perfect security. They lay down in the dread shadow of a mighty Empire and slept secure in the very jaws of danger.
The fierce and fanatical hatred that raged over the Frontier was less than nothing to most of them. The power that sheltered them was wholly sufficient for their confidence.
The toughness of the good northern breed is of a quality untearable, made to endure in all climates, under all conditions. Ordered to carry revolvers, they stuffed them unloaded into side-pockets, or left them in the hands ofsycesto bear behind them.
Proof positive of their total failure to realize the danger that threatened from amidst the frowning, grey-cragged mountains was the fact that their womenkind were allowed to remain at the station, and even rode and drove forth unattended on the rocky, mountain roads.
True, they were warned against crossing the Frontier. A few officers, of whom Captain Raymond, who was Averil's brother-in-law, and Toby Carey, the innocent-faced subaltern, were two, saw the rising wave from afar; but they saw it vaguely as inevitable but not imminent. Captain Raymond planned to himself to send his wife and her sister to Simla before the monsoon broke up the fine weather.
And this was all he accomplished beyond administering a severe reprimand to his young sister-in-law for running into danger among the hills.
"There are always thieves waiting to bag anyone foolish enough to show his nose over the border," he said. "Isn't the Indian Empire large enough for you that you must needs go trespassing among savages?"
Averil heard him out with the patience of a slightly wandering attention. She had not recounted the whole of her experience for his benefit, nor did she intend to do so. She was still wondering what the mysterious message she had delivered to Toby Carey might be held to mean.
When Captain Raymond had exhausted himself she went away to her own room and sat for a long while gazing towards the great mountains, thinking, thinking.
Her sister presently joined her. Mrs. Raymond was a dark-eyed, merry-hearted little woman, the gay originator of many a frolic, and an immense favourite with men and women alike.
"Poor darling! I declare Harry has made you look quite miserable!" was her exclamation, as she ran lightly in and seated herself on the arm of Averil's chair.
"Harry!" echoed Averil, in a tone of such genuine scorn that Mrs. Raymond laughed aloud.
"You're very rude," she said. "Still, I'm glad Harry isn't the offender. Who is it, I wonder? But, never mind! I have a splendid piece of news for you, dear. Shut your eyes and guess!"
"Oh, I can't indeed!" protested Averil. "I am much too tired."
Mrs. Raymond looked at her with laughing eyes.
"There! She shan't be teased!" she cried gaily. "It's the loveliest surprise you ever had, darling; but I can't keep it a secret any longer. I wanted to see him now that he is grown up, and quite satisfy myself that he is really good enough for you. So, dear, I wrote to him and begged him to join us here. And the result is—now guess!"
Averil had turned sharply to look at her.
"Do you mean you have asked Dick to come here?" she said, in a quick, startled way.
"Exactly, dear; I actually have," said Mrs. Raymond. "More—we had a wire this morning. He will be here to dinner."
"Oh!" said Averil. She rose hastily, so hastily that her sister was left sitting on the arm of the bamboo chair, which instantly overturned on the top of her.
Averil extricated her with many laughing apologies, and, by the time Mrs. Raymond had recovered her equilibrium, the younger girl had lost her expression of astonishment and was looking as bright and eager as her sister could desire.
"Only Dick is such a madcap," she said. "How shall we keep him from getting up to mischief in No Man's Land precisely as I have done?"
Mrs. Raymond opined that Averil ought by then to have discovered the secret of managing the young man, and they went totiffinon the veranda in excellent spirits.
Dr. Seddon was there and young Steele, one of Raymond's subalterns. Averil found herself next to the doctor, who, rather to her surprise, forebore to twit her with her early morning adventure. He was, in fact, very grave, and she wondered why.
Steele, strolling by her side in the shady compound, by and bye volunteered information.
"Poor old Seddon is in a mortal funk," he said, "which accounts for his wretched appetite. He has been wasting steadily ever since Carlyon went away. He thinks Carlyon is the only fellow capable of taking care of him. No one else is monster enough."
"Is Colonel Carlyon expected out here?" Averil asked, in a casual tone.
One of Steele's eyelids contracted a little as if it wanted to wink. He answered her in a low voice: "Carlyon is never expected before his arrival, Miss Eversley."
"No?" said Averil indifferently. "And, why, please do you call him a monster?"
Steele laughed a little. "Didn't you know?" he said. "Why, he is the King of Evil in these parts!"
Averil felt her face slowly flushing. "I don't understand," she said.
"Don't you?" said Steele. "Honestly now?"
The flush heightened. "Of course I don't," she said. "Otherwise why should I tell you so?"
"Pardon!" said Steele, unabashed. "Well, then, you must know that we are all frightened of Carlyon of the Frontier. We hate him badly, but he has the whip-hand of us, and so we have to do the tame trot for him. Over there"—he jerked his head towards the mountains—"they would lie down in a row miles long and let him walk over their necks. And not a single blackguard among them would dare to stab upwards, because Carlyon is immortal, as everyone knows, and it wouldn't be worth the blackguard's while to survive the deed.
"They don't call him Carlyon in the mountains, but it's the same man, for all that. He is a prophet, a deity, among them. They believe in him blindly as a special messenger from Heaven. And he plays with them, barters them, betrays them, every single day he spends among them. He is strong, he is unscrupulous, he is merciless. He respects no friendship. He keeps no oath. He betrays, he tortures, he slays. Even we, the enlightened race, shrink from him as if he were the very fiend incarnate.
"But he is a valuable man. The information he obtains is priceless. But he trades with blood. He lives on treachery. He is more subtle than the subtlest Pathan. He would betray any one or all of us to death if it were to the interest of the Empire that we should be sacrified. That, you know, in reason, is all very well. But, personally, I would sooner tread barefoot on a scorpion than get entangled in Carlyon's web. He is more false and more cruel than a serpent. At least, that is his reputation among us. And those heathen beggars trust him so utterly."
Steele stopped abruptly. He had spoken with strong passion. His honest face was glowing with indignation. He was British to the backbone, and he loathed all treachery instinctively.
Suddenly he saw that the girl beside him had turned very white. He paused in his walk with an awkward sense of having spoken unadvisedly.
"Of course," he said, with a boyish effort to recover his ground, "it has to be done. Someone must do the dirty work. But that doesn't make you like the man who does it a bit the better. One wouldn't brush shoulders with the hangman if one knew it."
Averil was standing still. Her hands were clenched.
"Are you talking of Colonel Carlyon—my friend?" she said slowly.
Steele turned sharply away from the wide gaze of her grey eyes.
"I hope not, Miss Eversley," he said. "The man I mean is not fit to be the friend of any woman."
It was to all outward seeming a very gay crowd that assembled at the club-house on the following night for the first dance of the season. For some unexplained reason sentries had been doubled on all sides of the Camp, but no one seemed to have any anxiety on that account.
"We ought to feel all the safer," laughed Mrs. Raymond when she heard. "No one ever took such care of us before."
"It must be all rot," said Derrick who had arrived the previous evening in excellent spirits. "If there were the smallest danger of a rising you wouldn't be here."
"Quite true," laughed Mrs. Raymond, "unless the road to Fort Akbar is considered unsafe."
"I never saw a single border thief all the way here!" declared Derrick, departing to look for Averil.
He claimed the first waltz imperiously, and she gave it to him. She was the prettiest girl in the room, and she danced with a queenly grace of movement. Derrick was delighted. He did not like giving her up, but Steele was insistent on this point. He had made Derrick's acquaintance in the Frontier campaign of a year before, and he parted the two without scruple, declaring he would not stand by and see a good chap like Derrick make a selfish beast of himself on such an occasion.
Derrick gave place with a laugh and sought other partners. In the middle of the evening Toby Carey strolled up to Averil and bent down in a conversational attitude. He was not dancing himself. She gave him a somewhat cold welcome.
After a few commonplace words he took her fan from her hand and whispered to her behind it:
"There's a fellow on the veranda waiting to speak to you," he said. "Calls himself a friend."
Her heart leapt at the murmured words. She glanced hurriedly round. Everyone in the room was dancing. She had pleaded fatigue. She rose quietly and stepped to the window, Toby following.
She stood a moment on the threshold of the night and then passed slowly out. All about her was dark.
"Go on to the steps!" murmured Toby behind her. "I shall keep watch."
She went on with gathering speed. At the head of the veranda-steps she dimly discerned a figure waiting for her, a figure clothed in some white, muffling garment that seemed to cover the face. And yet she knew by all her bounding pulses whom she had found.
"Colonel Carlyon!" she said, and on the impulse of the moment she gave him both her hands.
His quiet voice answered her out of the strange folds. "Come into the garden a moment!" he said.
She went with him unquestioning, with the confidence of a child. He led her with silent, stealthy tread into the deepest gloom the compound afforded. Then he stopped and faced her with a question that sent a sudden tumult of doubt racing through her brain.
"Will you take a message to Fort Akbar for me, Averil?" he said. "A matter of life and death."
A message! Averil's heart stood suddenly-still. All the evil report that she had heard of this man raised its head like a serpent roused from slumber, a serpent that had hidden in her breast, and a terrible agony of fear took the place of her confidence.
Carlyon waited for her answer without a sign of impatience. Through her mind, as it were on wheels of fire, Steele's passionate words were running: "He lives on treachery. He would betray any one or all of us to death if it were to the interest of the Empire that we should be sacrificed." And again: "I would sooner tread barefoot on a scorpion than get entangled in Carlyon's web."
All this she would once have dismissed as vilest calumny. But Carlyon's abandonment of Derrick, and his subsequent explanation thereof, were terribly overwhelming evidence against him. And now this man, this spy, wanted to use her as an instrument to accomplish some secret end of his.
A matter of life or death, he said. And for which of these did he purpose to use her efforts? Averil sickened at the possibilities the question raised in her mind. And still Carlyon waited for her answer.
"Why do you ask me?" she said at last, in a quivering whisper. "What is the message you want to send?"
"You delivered a message for me only yesterday without a single question," he said.
She wrung her hands together in the darkness. "I know. I know," she said; "but then I did not realize."
"You saved the camp from destruction," he went on. "Will you not do the same to-night?"
"How shall I know?" she sobbed in anguish.
"What have they been telling you?"
The quiet voice came in strange contrast to the agitated uncertainty of her tones. Carlyon laid steady hands on her shoulders. In the dim light his eyes had leapt to blue flame, sudden, intense. She hid her face from their searching; ashamed, horrified at her own doubts—yet still doubting.
"Your friendship has stood a heavier strain than this," Carlyon said, with grave reproach.
But she could not answer him. She dared scarcely face her own thoughts privately, much less utter them to him.
What if he were urging the tribes to rise to give the Government a pretext for war? She had heard him say that peace had come too soon, that war alone could remedy the evil of constantly recurring outrages along that troublous Frontier.
What if he counted the lives of a few women and their gallant protectors as but a little price to pay for the accomplishment of this end?
What if he purposed to make this awful sacrifice in the interests of the Empire, and only asked this thing of her because no other would undertake it?
She lifted her face. He was still looking at her with those strange, burning eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul.
"Averil," he said, "you may do a great thing for the Empire to-night—if you will."
The Empire! Ah, what fearful things would he not do behind that mask! Yet she stood silent, bound by the spell of his presence.
Carlyon went on. "There is going to be a rising, but we shall hold our own, I hope without loss. You can ride a horse, and I can trust you. This message must be delivered to-night. There is not an officer at liberty. I would not send one if there were. Every man will be wanted. Averil, will you go for me?"
He was holding her very gently between his hands. He seemed to be pleading with her. Her resolution began to waver. They had shattered her idol, yet she clung fast to the crumbling shrine.
"You will not let them be killed?" she whispered piteously. "Oh, promise me!"
"No one belonging to this camp will be killed if I can help it," he said. "You will tell them at Fort Akbar that we are prepared here. General Harford is marching to join them from Fort Wara. Whatever they may hear they must not dream of moving to join us till he reaches them. They are not strong enough. They would be cut to pieces. That is the message you are going to take for me. Their garrison is too small to be split up, and Fort Akbar must be protected at all costs. It is a more important post than this even."
"But there are women here," Averil whispered.
"They are under my protection," said Carlyon quietly. "I want you to start at once—before we shut the gates."
"Have they taken you by surprise, then?" she asked, with a sharp, involuntary shiver.
"No," Carlyon said. "They have taken the Government by surprise. That's all." He spoke with strong bitterness. For he was the watchman who had awaked in vain.
A moment later he was drawing her with him along the shadowy path.
"You need have no fear," he whispered to her. "The road is open all the way. I have a horse waiting that will carry you safely. It is barely ten miles. You have done it before."
"Am I to go just as I am?" she asked him, carried away by his unfaltering resolution.
"Yes," said Carlyon, "except for this." He loosened thechuddahfrom his own head and stooped to muffle it about hers. "I have provided for your going," he said. "You will see no one. You know the way. Go hard!"
He moved on again. His arm was round her shoulders.
"And you?" she said, with sudden misgiving.
"I shall go back to the camp," he said, "when I have seen you go."
They went a little farther, ghostly, white figures gliding side by side. Wildly as her heart was beating, Averil felt that it was all strangely unreal, felt that the man beside her was a being unknown and mysterious, almost supernatural. And yet, strangely, she did not fear him. As she had once said to him, she believed he was a good man. She would always believe it. And yet was that awful doubt hammering through her brain.
They reached the bounds of the club compound and Carlyon stopped again. From the building behind them there floated the notes of a waltz, weird, dream-like, sweet as the earth after rain in summer.
"I want to know," Carlyon said steadily, "if you trust me."
She stretched up her hands like a child and laid them against his breast. She answered him with piteous entreaty in which passion strangely mingled.
"Colonel Carlyon," she whispered brokenly, "promise me that when this is over you will give it up! You were not made to spy and betray! You were made an honourable, true-hearted man—God's greatest and best creation. You were never meant to be twisted and warped to an evil use. Ah, tell me you will give it up! How can I go away and leave you toiling in the dungeons?"
"Hush!" said Carlyon. "You do not understand."
Later, she remembered with what tenderness he gathered her hands again into his own, holding them reverently. At the time she realized nothing but the monstrous pity of his wasted life.
"It isn't true!" she sobbed. "You would not sacrifice your friends?"
"Never!" said Carlyon sharply.
He paused. Then—"You must go, Averil," he said. "There are two sentries on the Buddhist road, and the password is 'Empire.' After that-straight to Akbar. The moon is rising, and no one will speak to you or attempt to stop you. You will not be afraid?"
"I trust you," she said very earnestly.
Ten minutes later, as the moon shot the first silver streak above the frowning mountains, a white horse flashed out on the road beyond the camp—a white horse bearing a white-robed rider.
On the edge of the camp one sentry turned to another with wonder on his face.
"That messenger's journey will be soon over," he remarked. "An easy target for the black fiends!"
In the mountains a dusky-faced hillman turned glittering, awe-struck eyes upon the flying white figure.
"Behold!" he said. "The Heaven-sent rides to the moonrise even as he foretold. The time draws near."
And Carlyon, walking back in strange garb to join his own people, muttered to himself as he went: "One woman, at least, is safe!"
An hour before daybreak the gathering wave broke upon the camp. It was Toby Carey who ran hurriedly in upon the dancers in the club-room when they were about to disperse and briefly announced that there was going to be a fight. He added that Carlyon was at the mess-house, and desired all the men to join him there. The women were to remain at the club, which was already surrounded by a party of Sikhs and Goorkhas. Toby begged them to believe they were in no danger.
"Where is Averil?" cried Mrs. Raymond distractedly.
"Carlyon has already provided for her safety," Toby assured her, as he raced off again.
Five minutes later Carlyon, issuing rapid orders in the veranda of the mess-house, turned at the grip of a hand on his shoulder, and saw Derrick, behind him, wild-eyed and desperate.
"What have you done with Averil?" the boy said through white lips.
"She is safe at Akbar," Carlyon briefly replied. Then, as Derrick instantly wheeled, he caught him swiftly by the arm.
"You wait, Dick!" he said. "I have work for you."
"Let me go!" flashed Derrick fiercely.
But Carlyon maintained his hold. He knew what was in the lad's mind.
"It can't be done," he said. "It would be certain death if you attempted it. We are cut off for the present."
He interrupted himself to speak to an officer who was awaiting an order then turned again to Derrick.
"I tell you the truth, Dick," he said, a sudden note of kindliness in his voice. "She is safe. I had the opportunity—for one only. I took it—for her. You can't follow her. You have forfeited your right to throw away your life. Don't forget it, boy, ever! You have got to live for her and let the blackguards take the risks."
He ended with a faint smile, and Derrick fell back abashed, an unwilling admiration struggling with the sullenness of his submission.
Later, at Carlyon's order, he joined the party that had been detailed to watch over the club-house, the most precious and the safest position in the whole station. He chafed sorely at the inaction, but he repressed his feelings.
Carlyon's words had touched him in the right place. Though fiercely restless still, his manhood had been stirred, and gradually the strength, the unflinching resolution that had dominated Averil, took the place of his feverish excitement. Derrick, the impulsive and headstrong, became the mainstay as well as the undismayed protector of the women during that night scare of the Frontier.
There was sharp fighting down in the camp. They heard the firing and the shouts; but with the sunrise there came a lull. The women turned white faces to one another and wondered if it could be over.
Presently Derrick entered with the latest news. The tribesmen had been temporarily beaten off, he said, but the hills were full of them. Their own losses during the night amounted to two wounded sepoys. Fighting during the day was not anticipated.
Carlyon, snatching hasty refreshment in a hut near the scene of the hottest fighting, turned grimly to Raymond, his second in command, as gradual quiet descended upon the camp.
"You will see strange things to-night," he said.
Raymond, whose right wrist had been grazed by a bullet, was trying clumsily to bandage it with his handkerchief.
"How long is it going to last?" he said.
"To-night will see the end of it," said Carlyon, quietly going to his assistance. "The rising has been brewing for some time. The tribesmen need a lesson, so does the Government. It is just a bubble—this. It will explode to-night. To be honest for once"—Carlyon smiled a little over his bandaging—"I did not expect this attack so soon. A Heaven-sent messenger has been among the tribesmen. They revere him almost as much as the great prophet himself. He has been listening to their murmurings."
Carlyon paused. Raymond was watching him intently, but the quiet face bent over his wound told him nothing.
"Had I known what was coming," Carlyon said, "so much as three days ago, the women would not now be in the station. As things are, it would have been impossible to weaken the garrison to supply them with an escort to Akbar."
Raymond stifled a deep curse in his throat. Had they but known indeed!
Carlyon went on in his deliberate way: "I shall leave you in command here to-night. I have other work to do. General Harford will be here at dawn. The attacking force will be on the east of the camp. You will crush them between you! You will stamp them down without mercy. Let them see the Empire is ready for them! They will not trouble us again for perhaps a few years."
Again he paused. Raymond asked no question. Better than most he knew Carlyon of the Frontier.
"It will be a hard blow," Carlyon said. "The tribesmen are very confident. Last night they watched a messenger ride eastwards on a white horse. It was an omen foretold by the Heaven-sent when he left them to carry the message through the hills to other tribes."
Raymond gave a great start. "The girl!" he said.
For a second Carlyon's eyes met his look. They were intensely blue, with the blueness of a flame.
"She is safe at Akbar," he said, returning without emotion to the knotting of the bandage. "The road was open for the messenger. The horse was swift. There is one woman less to take the risk."
"I see," said Raymond quietly. He was frowning a little, but not at Carlyon's strategy.
"The rest," Carlyon continued, "must be fought for. The moon is full to-night. The Great Fakir will come out of the hills in his zeal and lead the tribes himself. Guard the east!"
Raymond drew a sharp breath. But Carlyon's hand on his shoulder silenced the astounded question on his lips.
"We have got to protect the women," Carlyon said. "Relief will come at dawn."
All through the day quiet reigned. An occasional sword-glint in the mountains, an occasional gleam of white against the brown hillside; these were the only evidences of an active enemy.
The women were released from durance in the club-house, with strict orders to return in the early evening.
Derrick went restlessly through the camp, seeking Carlyon. He found him superintending the throwing-up of earthworks. The most exposed part of the camp was to be abandoned. Derrick joined him in silence. Somehow this man's personality attracted him strongly. Though he had defied him, quarrelled with him, insulted him, the spell of his presence was irresistible.
Carlyon paid small attention to him till he turned to leave that part of the camp's defences. Then, with a careless hand through Derrick's arm, he said:
"You will have your fill of stiff fighting to-night, boy. But, remember, you are not to throw yourself away."
As evening fell, the attack was resumed, and it continued throughout the night. Tribesmen charged up to the very breastworks themselves and fell before the awful fire of the defenders' rifles. Death had no terrors for them. They strove for the mastery with fanatical zeal. But they strove in vain. A greater force than they possessed, the force of discipline and organized resistance—kept them at bay. Behind the splendid courage of the Indian soldiers were the resource and the resolution of a handful of Englishmen. The spirit of the conquering race, unquenchable, irresistible, weighed down the balance.
In the middle of the night Captain Raymond was hit in the shoulder and carried, fainting, to the closely guarded club-house, where his wife was waiting.
The command devolved upon Lieutenant Steele, who took up the task undismayed. Down in the hastily dug trenches Toby Carey was fiercely holding his men to their work.
And Derrick Rose was with him, unrestrained for that night at least.
"Relief at dawn!" Toby said to him once.
And Derrick responded with a wild laugh.
"Relief be damned! We can hold our own without it."
Relief came with the dawn, at a moment when the tribesmen were spurring themselves to the greatest effort of all, sustained by the knowledge that their Great Fakir was among them.
General Harford, with guides, Sikhs, Goorkhas, came down like a hurricane from the south-east, cut off a great body of tribesmen from their fellows, and drove them headlong, with deadly force, upon the defences they had striven so furiously to take.
The defenders sallied out to meet them with fixed bayonets. The brief siege, if siege it could be called, was over.
In the early light Derrick found himself fighting, fighting furiously, sword to sword. And the terrible joy of the conflict ran in his blood like fire.
"Ah!" he gasped. "It's good! It's good!"
And then he found another fighting beside him—a mighty fighting man, grim, terrible, silent. They thrust together; they withdrew together; they charged together.
Once an enemy seized Derrick's sword and he found himself vainly struggling against the awful, wild-faced fanatic's sinewy grasp. He saw the man's upraised arm, and knew with horrible certainty that he was helpless, helpless.
Then there shot out a swift, rescuing hand. A straight and deadly blow was struck. And Derrick, flinging a laugh over his shoulder, beheld a man dressed as a tribesman fall headlong over his enemy's body, struck to the earth by another swordsman.
Like lightning there flashed through his brain the memory of a man who had saved his life more than a year before on this same tumultuous Frontier—a man in tribesman's dress, with blue eyes of a strange, keen friendliness. He had it now. This was the Secret Service man. Derrick planted himself squarely over the prostrate body, and there stood while the fight surged on about him to the deadly and inevitable end.
"All Carlyon's doing!" General Harford said a little later. "He has pulled the strings throughout, from their very midst. Carlyon the ubiquitous, Carlyon the silent, Carlyon the watchful! He has averted a horrible catastrophe. The Indian Government must be made to understand that he is a servant worth having. They say he personally led the tribesmen to their death. They certainly walked very willingly into the trap arranged for them. Now, where is Carlyon?"
No one knew. In the plain outside the camp wounded men were being collected. The General was relieved to hear that Carlyon was not among them. He sat down to make his report, a highly eulogistic report, of this man's splendid services. And then he went to late breakfast at the club-house.
In the evening Averil rode back to the station with an escort. The terrible traces of the struggle were not wholly removed. They rode round by a longer route to avoid the sight.
Seddon was the first of her friends who saw her. He was standing inside the mess-house. He went hurriedly forward and gave her brief details of the fight. Then, while they were talking, Derrick himself came running up. He greeted her with less of his boyish effusion than was customary.
"How is the Secret Service man?" he asked abruptly of Seddon. "Is he badly damaged?"
The latter looked at him hard for a second.
"You can come in and see him," he said, and led the way into the mess.
Averil and Derrick followed him hand in hand. In a few low words the boy told her of his old friend's reappearance.
"He has saved my life twice over," he said.
"He has saved more lives than yours," Seddon remarked abruptly, over his shoulder.
He led the way "to the little ante-room where, stretched on a sofa, lay Derrick's Secret Service man. He was dressed in white, his face half covered with a fold of his head-dress. But the eyes were open—blue, alert, beneath drooping lids. He was speaking, softly, quickly, as a man asleep.
"The women must be protected," he said. "Let the blackguards take the risks!"
Averil started forward with a cry, and in a moment was kneeling by his side. The strange eyes were turned upon her instantly. They were watchful still and exceeding tender—the eyes of the hero she loved. They faintly smiled at her. To his death he would keep up the farce. To his death he would never show her the secret he had borne so long.
"Ah! The message!" he said, with an effort. "You gave it?"
"There was no need of a message," Averil cried. "You invented it to get me away, to make me escape from danger. You knew that otherwise I would not have gone. It was your only reason for sending me."
He did not answer her. The smile died slowly out. His eyes passed to Derrick. He looked at him very earnestly, and there was unutterable pleading in the look.
The boy stooped forward. Shocked by the sudden discovery, he yet answered as it were involuntarily to the man's unspoken wish. He knelt down beside the girl, his arm about her shoulders. His voice came with a great sob.
"The Secret Service man and Carlyon of the Frontier in one!" he said. "A man who does not forsake his friends. I might have known."
There was a pause, a great silence. Then Carlyon of the Frontier spoke softly, thoughtfully, with grave satisfaction it seemed. He looked at neither of them, but beyond them both. His eyes were steady and fearless.
"A blackguard—a spy—yet faithful to his friends—even so," he said; and died.
The boy and girl were left to each other. He had meant it to be so—had worked for it, suffered for it. In the end Carlyon of the Frontier had done that which he had set himself to do, at a cost which none other would ever know—not even the girl who had loved him.