“And faith? and honour? and my friends?” demanded Ferrers fiercely, with bloodless lips.
“To your friends you died the day you entered Gamara. Nothing that now happens to you can reach their ears. Whether you live long and enjoy his Highness’s favour, or brave his wrath and die the deaths of a hundred men, they will know nothing of it. The matter is one for yourself; they can have no part in it.”
“This is your doing!” burst from Ferrers.
“And why not? When you destroyed in a moment all my labours, refusing me the means of justifying myself to those that had employed me in Nalapur, so that having failed to slay the Sheikh-ul-Jabal, the accursed, it was needful for me to flee from their wrath also, I said to you that we should meet again. I thought to journey at some future time to Khemistan, and finding you in high place and established with a wife, trouble your tranquillity by whispers of what I might tell if I chose. I did not expect you to come to me here, where all was at hand for a vengeance of which I had not dreamt. But when I heard you were coming to Gamara, I knew that destiny had delivered you into my hand. You are here, and being such as you are, you will choose life and happiness, having only lately been very close to Death, and gladly turned your back on him. So that my vengeance has nothing in it that is cruel, but the truest kindness, for your life will be saved in this world, and your soul in the world to come, if there be such a thing.”
“I won’t do it!” cried Ferrers. “Call in your slaves and denounce me. Then you will have your precious vengeance after all.”
“Nay,” said the Mirza musingly, “it would be long in coming. Death is not all that is in store for the renegade, nor is it swift. Moreover, his Highness desires a Farangi to train his guard in the manner of Europe, and I would not willingly disappoint a second master. You are young, and life is sweet, and before you are war and wealth and the love of women on the one side. On the other—nay, but I will show you what is on the other. Come with me, but utter no word, for your own sake.”
The Mirza took up a lantern and a long cord, and led the way towards the door by which he had first brought Ferrers into his house.
“To the prison?” asked Ferrers, with a shudder which he could not repress at the thought of entering again the place where he had suffered so much.
“To the prison. But fear not, you shall return hither. After that, it will be for you to do as you choose.”
Once more they passed through the low doorway, crossed the filthy courtyard, received the salutations of the sleepy watchers in the guardroom, and entered the dark passage, Ferrers trembling from head to foot as the full recollection of what he had suffered there returned to him. But instead of opening the door of his cell, the Mirza turned aside into a second passage, and led the way through a labyrinth of narrow corridors and winding staircases, the trend of the route being always downwards. The air grew thick and damp, and the lantern burned dimly. There was a smell of mould, and where the light fell on the walls, they seemed to move. Ferrers stumbled on after the Mirza, who appeared to know his way perfectly. At last their nostrils were assailed by a horrible stench, and the Mirza, moving the lantern from side to side, showed that they were in a cave or room of some size, hollowed in the rock. In the middle of the floor was a hole or well, from which the stench seemed to come, and above it in the roof was another hole.
“Not a word!” whispered the Mirza, leading the way to what looked like a doorway on the farther side of the place. He lifted the lantern and threw the light inside. Horrible things wriggled and ran along the floor and crept upon the walls as he did so. He put one foot inside the doorway, and there was a kind of stampede. Small bright eyes and sharp teeth shone in every corner. But Ferrers’ gaze was fixed upon a crouching heap, which might have been a wild animal, at the very back of the cell. It moved, and disclosed the face of a man, gaunt, wasted, fever-stricken, with bleached unkempt hair and beard.
“Be off! I won’t do it!” The words were uttered with difficulty, but they were in English. Ferrers started violently, and the Mirza threw him a menacing look. The captive, seeming to recollect himself, repeated the words in Persian, but the Mirza made no reply. After turning the light of the lantern once more on the man and his surroundings, he motioned Ferrers back. Ferrers obeyed. The moment before, it had been in his mind to say some word of cheer to the prisoner, at whatever risk to himself, if only to let him know that there was another Englishman—another Christian—within those terrible walls. But the words remained unspoken, and with a clank of chains the prisoner sank back into his former position, his chin supported on his knees.
Meanwhile the Mirza had been fastening to the lantern the cord he had brought with him, and now he let it down into the well, ordering Ferrers to look over the edge, but not to go too near. Once more he obeyed, to behold a sickening chaos of human bones and dead bodies in all stages of decomposition, among which moved and scampered obscene creatures such as he had seen on the walls and floor of the cell.
“All that die in the prison are cast here,” said the Mirza, and Ferrers realised that the hole in the roof must communicate with the courtyard above-ground.
“And who was—that?” he asked fearfully, as they began to retrace their steps. The Mirza gave him a glance full of satisfied malignity.
“That,” he said slowly, and as if enjoying each word, “is Whybrow Sahib.”
“Whybrow, whom I came here to——?”
“Whom you came to save. He is not a wise man, like Firoz Sahib. He will neither embrace the faith of Islam nor enter his Highness’s army. Therefore he lives here, with the rats and the scorpions.”
“And what—what will become of him?”
“Who can say? Perhaps he will die—the rats are often hungry—or he might be forgotten. Or it may be his cell will be needed for some other prisoner,—then he will be thrown into the well and left there. But that may not be for years.”
Years—years of such captivity as that! Ferrers laughed harshly. “You should have brought him up into your house and made life mean as much to him as you have done to me,” he said.
“We have,” was the answer; “and even into the very palace of his Highness, where one of the dancing-girls, pitying him, pleaded for his life with her lord and with him, but he would not yield. He returned hither, and she died, as a warning to her companions.”
Again they made their way through the passages and up the stairs, again crossed the courtyard and entered the Mirza’s house. Ferrers turned aside to the steps which led up to the roof.
“Take counsel with yourself,” the Mirza called after him. “To-morrow you must decide.”
Take counsel! Ferrers had meant to do it; but even as he began to pace to and fro, with the sleeping city outspread all around him, he knew that the matter was decided already—had been decided from the moment when he withheld the words he had tried to utter to Whybrow. The test was more than flesh and blood could stand. In open day, Ferrers could have charged alone into an overwhelming host of enemies, and died gloriously. Had he lived in earlier days, he could have faced the lions in the amphitheatre, unarmed, and not have flinched, or have fought as a gladiator and received his death-blow by command of the audience without a sign of fear. But die slowly by inches underground, submit to be eaten alive by vermin, perish unknown, unhonoured, this he could not do. If only he had had companions in misfortune, if even Whybrow and he could have stood shoulder to shoulder from the first, and encouraged one another, it would have been different, but there was not a creature within hundreds of miles to whom steadfastness on his part would seem anything but foolishness. As the Mirza had said, no one in the world he had left would ever know whether he had died a hero or lived a craven; and if they did, what good would it do him? Penelope, who ought to care, would expect him to hold out. He felt angrily that if Penelope had loved him better he might have been a better man, even able to hold out, perhaps. It would have been something, on the other hand, to be able to assure himself that she would wish him to yield, but he could not take this comfort. And, after all, what was he giving up? To trample on the cross, to curse the claims of Christ—these were disagreeable things to do, but, as the Mirza had said, they had no particular poignancy for him. With Colin it would have been different, of course. Christ was more than a name to him, Christianity other than a mere set of formulæ. But how could it be expected of Ferrers—could any one in his senses ask it—that he should die for Colin’s faith?
Forsome months after Ferrers’ departure for Gamara, Colin was kept a prisoner by the wounds received in the unsuccessful first attack on Shir Hussein’s stronghold. Lady Haigh had insisted that he should be brought to the fort, and she and Penelope nursed him unweariedly. His convalescence was long and tedious, and complicated by attacks of fever; but he exhibited a constant patience which, as Lady Haigh said, was nothing but a reproach to ordinary mortals, and only showed what terrible people the Martyrs must have been to live with. From the first return to consciousness, his question was always for news of Ferrers; and when he was at last promoted from his bedroom to a couch in the drawing-room, he was still eager on the subject.
“Have you had many letters from George, Pen?” he asked his sister the very first day.
“Two, I think. No, there must have been three,” she answered indifferently.
“Do you mean to say you’re not sure? If poor George only knew what an affectionate sweetheart he has!”
“They came when you were very ill. How could I think of them then?”
“I don’t know. It seems the proper thing, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t they be generally supposed to be a comfort to you?”
“Possibly, by people who didn’t know the circumstances.”
“Why, Pen!” Colin gave her a puzzled look. “Couldn’t you read me a bit here and there?” he asked coaxingly. “I should like to hear how the old fellow is getting on.”
“I’m not sure that I can find them. I’ll look.”
She went into her own room, and returned presently with some crumpled papers in her hand.
“There must have been three, but I can only find two. I remember thedhobisent some message about a paper in the pocket of a dress that went to the wash. I must have thrust it away and forgotten all about it. Don’t look at me with huge reproachful eyes in that way, Colin. I suppose you think I ought to work an embroidered case for George’s letters, and keep them next my heart, don’t you?”
“I thought that was the sort of thing girls did generally. Of course I mightn’t be allowed to see them, Pen?” He spoke in jest; but his eyes were fastened hungrily on the letters.
“Oh dear, yes! I don’t mind. Why shouldn’t you?”
Colin was taken aback. He had no experience in love-affairs, but it struck him that this was not quite as it should be. He smoothed out the crushed sheets as she handed them to him.
“Why, they look just as if you had crumpled them up and thrown them across the room!” he said.
“Well, if you are anxious to know, that is exactly what I did do, and the ayah picked them up and put them carefully into a drawer.”
“Pen!” Colin was shocked. “What could you have been thinking about?”
“Oh, I happened to be in a bad temper, that was all, of course. Don’t worry your head about it, dear. Now that you are better, I don’t so much mind all the other things. I oughtn’t to be cross and horrid, when I’m so thankful about you, ought I? but I’m tired, and we’ve been anxious about you for so long.”
She bent over him and kissed his forehead, and Colin, though perplexed, acquiesced in her evident desire to change the subject. But he watched her anxiously, noticing the irritability which was so new in her voice, and the restless unhappiness of her face when she thought herself alone.
“Pen,” he said suddenly one day, “has anything gone wrong between you and George?”
“Oh, nothing particular,” she answered listlessly. “It’s only that if I knew I should never see him again, I should be perfectly happy.”
“Penelope!” he cried, aghast. “You would like him to disappear, perhaps to be killed, like poor Whybrow?”
“No, I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But if he would only fall in love with some one else, and never come back here!”
“I don’t think you are at all in a right state of mind, Penelope.” Colin’s didactic instincts were roused by this heartless speech.
“Nor do I,” she answered promptly. “I have known it for a long time. The best that can be said of it is that I am forcing myself to do evil that good may come—or that you are forcing me.”
“I?” cried Colin indignantly. “You know I want nothing but your happiness.”
“You don’t think of my happiness at all. You think of me merely as a means of reclaiming George, not as a person to be considered separately.”
“I hope you are not going to adopt Lady Haigh’s jargon, Pen. It doesn’t sound nice from a young lady’s lips.”
“Do you think that what I have gone through since Christmas has been nice to feel?” she demanded hotly, then broke down and fell upon her knees by his couch in tears. “Oh, Colin, I am very miserable. I can’t bear it. Help me. Be kind as you used to be. Think of me a little, not only of George. He has come between us ever since we came to India. I can’t marry him—I can’t!”
Colin put out a shaking hand to touch hers. He had honestly thought he was doing the best both for his sister and his friend in bringing about a marriage between them, and the sudden revelation of Penelope’s state of feeling came upon him with a shock. “Don’t, Pen,” he said feebly. “I didn’t know you felt like this about it. I’ll speak to George—awful blow—poor fellow——” his voice failed, and Penelope sprang up in alarm.
“Oh, I have made you ill again! You are faint!” she cried in terror. “Oh, Colin, don’t. I will marry him—it was always to please you.”
“No, no.” He lifted his hand with difficulty. “We will talk of this again—not just now. I will think about it. Poor George! poor fellow!” and as she fetched him a restorative Penelope felt, with a renewal of the old bitterness, that his first thought was still for Ferrers, not for her.
It was not until the next day that he returned to the subject; but in the interval she caught his eyes following her wistfully, as though he was trying to discover the reason for such hardness of heart. But his voice was gentle as he held out his hand to her when they found themselves alone, and said, “Now, Pen, come and sit here, and let us talk things over.” It did not occur to her to resent this fatherly attitude on the part of a brother no older than herself. He had always stood somewhat apart, and taken the lead, and until the last few months she had never admitted a doubt of his insight or his wisdom. He looked at her searchingly as she sat down beside him. “There is one thing I must ask first,” he said. “Is there any one else?”
The blood rushed to Penelope’s face, but she looked him straight in the eyes. “There is,” she said. “But don’t look at me in that way, Colin, as if I had been encouraging some one else while I was engaged to George. I think you might know me better than that.”
“You should have told me about it.”
“How could I? There was nothing to tell. He didn’t speak until it was too late.”
“But when he spoke, you came at once to the conclusion that you preferred him to George?”
“Not quite that. It wasn’t so sudden. I—I liked him before, but because he said nothing I thought he—didn’t care.”
“And now you wish George to release you that you may become engaged to him?”
“It’s not that! He promised never to speak of that sort of thing again. How dare you say such things to me, Colin? It’s not just—you know it isn’t. If you knew anything about love—but you don’t—— It is simply that I can’t promise to love and obey one man when I know in my heart that I don’t love him, but some one else.”
She had sprung up from her low seat and confronted him with flushed cheeks and grey eyes flashing. Colin hardly knew his quiet sister, and he felt abashed before her indignation. “Forgive me, Pen,” he said. “I only wanted to know all the ins and outs of the matter. Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“Do you think you are an encouraging person to tell things to?” demanded Penelope, still unreconciled. “No, I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say that. It was my promise, Colin. You were so shocked at the idea of my breaking it, I thought I would sooner die. And so I tried to forget the—the other, and to like George, but I couldn’t make myself feel as I ought. I don’t want to hurt you—I know how fond you are of George—but it was the difference, the dreadful difference between the two men. I couldn’t help seeing it more and more.”
“And so you were very miserable?” She was beside him again now, with her face buried in his cushions, and his tone was tender.
“So miserable. And I have felt so wicked, Colin. It was almost a relief when you were so ill, and I couldn’t think of any one but you. When Elma came and made me go and rest, I couldn’t sleep, because the thought of George used to seize me like a terror. It was horrible to think of his coming back.”
Colin was stroking her hair, but there was a little bitterness in his voice as he said, “I seem to have been making a mistake all along. If I had guessed there was another man it would have been different; but I thought a girl could not want anything more than a kind husband, whom she might hope to help by her companionship. I knew Lady Haigh had prejudiced you against poor George——”
“No, that is not fair. I was quite willing to believe in George again on your word, but he never took the slightest trouble to show me that he cared for me. Even when I told him that before Christmas, he only made a kind of pretence, as if he knew I should have to marry him whether I liked him or not. I know I have been very wrong, Colin, but it was in listening to George at all, when I knew I didn’t care for him. It isn’t fickleness, really. I have tried hard to like him.”
“And now I must tell him that you prefer some one else, and want him to release you?”
“No, tell him that I can’t marry him.”
“That is not enough. Do you think it is a pleasant thing for me to have to confess that my sister has made a promise she cannot keep, and that I must throw myself on his mercy to set her free? And poor George himself! You may tell me I know nothing about this sort of thing, but it will be a terrible blow to him. No, it is not your fault, Pen—altogether. You should have spoken before, but I am to blame too. I will undertake to settle the matter with George, and I only trust that I may be mistaken in thinking how much he will feel it.”
“He won’t release me,” she said hopelessly. “I asked him myself.”
“Without giving any reason? Of course he thought it was merely girlish fickleness or a love of teasing.” Penelope moved her head unrepentantly. “Pen, you talk of my being unjust to you, but you are frightfully unjust to George. As if any gentleman would keep a girl bound when he knew she cared for some one else! You try to excuse yourself by making him out a blackguard.”
“I can only judge him as I have found him,” she said, wondering whether Colin’s firm faith in his friend had really a power to bring out the best side of Ferrers’ character. Colin looked for good in him, and found it; she expected nothing better than lack of sympathy and consideration, and duly met with it. Was she herself in part to blame for the unsatisfactory features of his conduct? If she had been able to love him and believe in him with the whole-hearted confidence he had inspired in her as a child, if she could have continued to regard him as an ideal hero, accepting his careless favours with rapture, and never dreaming of demanding more affection than he chose to give, he might possibly have developed into the being she believed him. Possibly, but not probably. An unreasoning devotion would in all likelihood have wearied him, even if her sharp eyes had not beheld the flaws in his armour; but it was not possible to Penelope to go about with her eyes shut. Perfection she did not expect, but Ferrers could never have satisfied her now that she was no longer a child, even had his deficiencies, not been accentuated by the contrast with that other lover of whom she strove conscientiously not to think, but whose very faults she owned to herself that she loved.
For some time after her explanation with Colin, the subject of Ferrers was not mentioned between them. Colin had discarded the idea of writing to him, lest the letter should be lost or fall into the wrong hands; but there was a tacit understanding that he was to meet him as soon as he returned to India, and tell him everything. Even this unsettled state of affairs brought comfort to Penelope. Her cheerfulness returned, and she was uneasily conscious that Colin must think her absolutely heartless when he heard her talking and laughing with Lady Haigh, who was quite aware that he was inclined to consider her Penelope’s evil genius. But one day there came news that put an effectual end to all cheerfulness for the time. Penelope was crossing the hall when she heard Sir Dugald, who was just coming out of the drawing-room, talking to Colin.
“After all,” he was saying, “it’s much too soon to give up hope. Many things might happen to interrupt communications. He may even be on his way back already.”
A groan from Colin was the only answer, and Penelope asked anxiously, “What is it, Sir Dugald? Is anything the matter?”
He looked at her before answering, and the look convinced her that Lady Haigh kept him informed, possibly against his will, of the course of affairs. “We are anxious for news of Ferrers,” he said. “Since the letter which told of his arrival at Gamara, neither the Government nor any one else has had a word from him.”
“And they think——?”
“They think—but we trust they are beginning to despond too soon—that he may have shared poor Whybrow’s fate, whatever it was.”
For a moment—a moment for which she could never forgive herself—Penelope was conscious of an involuntary feeling of relief. No more of those letters, which had caused her such indignant misery at first, with their calm assumption of the writer’s authority over her, and their wealth of affectionate epithets (mentally repudiated by the recipient), and which she had felt as a constant reproach since her talk with Colin. Then came a quick revulsion of feeling. To what horrors was she willing to doom this man who had loved her, merely to save herself humiliation and discomfort? She ran into the drawing-room, where Colin was lying on his couch with his face to the wall.
“Colin, he must be saved!” she cried. “Don’t let us lose time. They waited so long after the news of poor Mr Whybrow’s disappearance before doing anything. Can’t he be ransomed? There is Saadullah Kermani, the trader—he travels to Gamara, and would arrange it. I will give all my money—it isn’t much in the year, but we could realise the investments, couldn’t we?—and my pearl necklace is worth a good deal, and there are my brooches and things. You would give what you could, wouldn’t you? and I know Elma would help. Oh, and there is Mr Crayne. We can get quite enough money together, surely?”
“It’s not a question of money.” Colin turned a white, drawn face towards his sister. “If we knew that he, or Whybrow either, was in prison, there might be some hope. Whether he was seized in order to extort money or political concessions, we might come to terms. But if he disappears, as Whybrow did, without leaving a trace, and the Khan’s government deny that they know anything about him, what can we say? The only thing is for some one to go and search for him, and it must be done.”
“Oh, not you, Colin! not you!” cried Penelope, almost frantically.
“I shall not decide in a hurry. I mean to wait a week, in case the letters have been delayed by snow in the mountains, or by fighting among the tribes. If we hear nothing then, I shall write to the Government of India, asking to be sent to look for him.”
“Oh, Colin, you mustn’t go!” she wailed. “You are all I have now.”
“It may not be necessary,” he said. “I can’t say more than that.”
Penelope thought afterwards that she had never spent such a long week in her life. In terrible contrast to her former wish that Ferrers might not return was her feverish anxiety to be assured that he was actually on his way back. But no news came, and telegrams from Calcutta told that the authorities there had very little hope. They pointed out that they had agreed most reluctantly to send Ferrers to Gamara, and their forebodings seemed in a fair way of being justified. Nothing had been heard of Ferrers or from him by the end of the week, and Colin wrote at once to offer his services to go in search of his friend. The reply was prompt and decisive. The Government had no intention of sending any further mission to Gamara.
“I must get leave of absence, and travel as a private individual,” was all the comment Colin vouchsafed when he saw the joy which Penelope could not hide. “It will make things a little more difficult, but Government aid really doesn’t seem to do much good.”
“Oh, I wish I could speak to Major Keeling before he does, and beg him not to grant him leave!” thought Penelope, as she saw him mount his pony—he was allowed to ride a little by this time—and take the direction of the town; but it seemed as though Major Keeling had divined her wishes without hearing them. He was in his office, digesting an acrimonious rebuke from headquarters on the subject of the young officer upon whom he had seized to replace Ferrers, and his refusal of Colin’s request was sharp and short.
“Go to Gamara—six months’ leave? Certainly not. We are short-handed already. I wonder you have the face to ask it.”
“You can’t expect me to leave my friend to be tortured to death, sir.”
“What does it signify to you what I expect? You won’t get leave from me to go on such a wild-goose chase.”
“Major Keeling, I earnestly entreat you to grant me this six months. I cannot leave Ferrers to his fate.”
“What are you standing there talking for—taking up my time? You won’t do any good if you stay till to-morrow.”
“He is my friend. I must try to save him.”
“And your brother-in-law that is to be? It makes no difference.”
“No, sir, that is not my reason. In fact, my sister has determined to break off her engagement, and I shall have to tell him so, but——”
Major Keeling sprang up furiously. “What do you mean by coming here and trying to tempt me, sir? You shall not go to your death for Ferrers or any one else, unless it’s in the way of duty. Be off!”
Nothing but the enlightenment which broke suddenly upon Colin would have sufficed to make him leave the office without irritating the Commandant by further argument, but for a moment the discovery overshadowed in his mind even the thought of Ferrers. He had felt some natural curiosity as to the identity of the man whom Penelope preferred to his friend; but as she did not offer to gratify it he had not pressed her, thinking that Porter was almost certainly the person in question. Now it occurred to him that Penelope might be of use in asking for the leave which Major Keeling was so determined not to grant, but he repressed the thought sternly. He would do nothing that would allow Penelope or any one else to think that he recognised the slightest bond between her and the man who had supplanted Ferrers.
Leaving the office, he saw Sir Dugald riding past, and joined him, telling him of the unsuccessful issue of his application. Sir Dugald, who may have been primed beforehand by Penelope, was much rejoiced, and inwardly blessed Major Keeling’s wisdom, but was careful not to hurt Colin’s feelings.
“It would mean certain death for you, after all,” he said; “and you have your sister to think of, you know. Why not see what money can do? Let us go and see that old sinner Saadullah. He might be able to make inquiries for you, and he starts for Gamara in a week or two.”
They rode out to the piece of land on the north of the town which had been set apart as a camping-ground for traders and small bands of nomads, and threaded their way between the lines of squalid tents and through the confusion of camels, horses, and human beings, towards the encampment of Saadullah Kermani, which was somewhat withdrawn from the rest. Most of the men who were hanging about saluted the two officers with more or less goodwill, but a hulking fellow who was lounging against a pile of merchandise stared at them open-mouthed, and on being hastily prompted by a neighbour as to his duty, burst into an insolent laugh. Sir Dugald turned his pony sharply aside, and seizing the man by some portion of his ragged garments, shook him until his teeth chattered, then released him and ordered him to beg pardon unless he wanted a thrashing. Forced to his knees by his companions, the man stuttered out some kind of apology, adding in a sulky murmur something that the Englishmen could not hear.
“What does he say?” asked Sir Dugald of the trader himself, who had come up by this time.
“Nothing, sahib, nothing; he is the son of a pig, one who cannot speak truth. He utters lies as the serpent spits forth venom.”
“He said something about Gamara, and I wish to know what it was.”
“I said,” interrupted the cause of the discussion, “that the Sahibs who ride here so proudly, and ill-treat true believers, would find things rather different in Gamara, like their friend Firoz Sahib.”
“What do you know about Firoz Sahib?” demanded Sir Dugald.
“Only that he has turned Mussulman to save his life,” grinned the man. “Oh, mercy, Heaven-born, mercy!” as Saadullah and his servants fell upon him, all trying to beat him at once.
“No, let him speak,” commanded Sir Dugald. “Is this true that you say?” he asked the man.
“I know only that one morning Firoz Sahib was not to be found in the house that had been appointed for him, and it was said that he had insulted his Highness, and had been given his choice of Islam or death,” was the sulky answer.
“Did you hear anything of this?” asked Sir Dugald of Saadullah.
“It was talked of in the bazars, sahib; but many things are spoken that have no truth in them,” replied the trader deferentially.
“Well, we will see you again. I would advise you to teach that fellow of yours to keep his mouth shut.”
“It shall be done, sahib. He is a fool, and the grandson of a fool,” and Saadullah pursued the two officers out of his camp with profound bows. As soon as they were clear of the tents, Colin turned to Sir Dugald.
“This settles it,” he said. “I shall throw up my commission and go to Gamara.”
Fromthis determination Colin could not be moved. He wrote off immediately to Mr Crayne, asking him to obtain leave for him to resign his commission without delay, since Major Keeling remained obdurate, and join Saadullah Kermani’s caravan when it left Alibad for Gamara. Mr Crayne, whose anxiety for his nephew’s safety was embittered by the remembrance that it was he himself who had obtained him his perilous post, made a flying journey to the river station, and summoned Colin to meet him there, that they might talk things over. The old man was aghast when he heard Colin’s plans. He would attempt no disguise, seek no credentials from the Government, invoke no protection if danger threatened. Bible and Koran in hand, he would go to the wicked city simply as a friend in search of a friend, proving to the orthodox of Gamara from the books they held sacred their abuse of the duties of hospitality. Eager as he was that some definite step should be taken, Mr Crayne recoiled from sending Colin to what seemed certain death, and could hardly be dissuaded from dismissing the project as summarily as Major Keeling had done. But at last Colin’s entreaties induced him to send for Saadullah from Alibad, and after long and anxious consultations with the trader he began to see a glimmering of hope in the scheme. During the short time he had been on the border, Colin had acquired a high reputation for sanctity among the natives. His austere life, the ascetic qualities which made him unpopular among his comrades, his willingness for religious discussion, were so many causes for pride to the men of his troop, from whom his fame spread first to the bazar-people of Alibad and then to the tribes. He was not credited with the possession of miraculous powers, like Major Keeling, but it was very commonly believed that he was divinely inspired. The discussions which took place in his verandah might have bred ill-feeling but for the courtesy and tact with which he conducted them, and the bigoted Mussulmans who came to confound him and went away defeated took with them a feeling almost of affection for their antagonist. He might be a Kafir and a smooth-faced boy, but he could argue against the wisest Mullahs and send them away with a lurking doubt that what they had heard and rejected might in reality be a message from God communicated by an angel.
Since this was the case, Saadullah thought there was good reason to hope that Colin might be able to visit Gamara in safety. The undertaking was fraught with peril, of course, but it was significant that the only European who had in the course of many years been allowed to leave the city uninjured was an eccentric missionary who had followed much the same plan. There was little likelihood of rescuing Ferrers, the trader admitted; but if Rāss Sahib obtained the Khan’s ear, he might at any rate be able to ascertain his fate, perhaps even bring back his bones for burial. It was from Saadullah that Mr Crayne learned the unpalatable fact that Ferrers was the last man who should have been sent to Gamara, that his self-assertion and absence of tact would be a standing irritation to the Khan and his people, and that the sporting characters of the Alibad bazar had only disagreed as to the shortness of the time in which he would offer deadly insult to the prince or his religion, and duly disappear. With Rāss Sahib it was different, for he cared nothing for slights to himself, only to his faith, and his courage in opening discussion at the very seat of Moslem culture, coupled with his kindly and courteous bearing, ought to win him friends enough to ensure his safety.
Thus urged, Mr Crayne consented, with many misgivings, to further the project. He obtained leave for Colin to resign his commission, and persuaded the Government not to veto the journey. He saw that he had ample command of money, and intrusted Saadullah with a further supply, to be used in case his charge found himself in any difficulty or danger, and also authorised them to draw upon him should more be needed. Colin’s way was rendered as smooth as possible, and the resulting conviction that he was right in undertaking the journey made it easy for him to bear the contemptuous coldness of Major Keeling and the wondering remonstrances of his friends. He was very kind to Penelope, who could hardly bear him out of her sight, clinging to him, as it were, in a desperate endeavour to hold him back, while he put her gently aside, pressing on towards the goal he had in view. Her unavailing misery angered Lady Haigh to the point of fiery indignation, and at last she determined deliberately that she would at least make an attempt to bring Colin to a sense of the error of his ways. She gave Sir Dugald orders to take Penelope for a ride one morning, and fairly hunted them both out of the place, promising to overtake them before long, then pounced upon Colin as he rode up, and informed him that he was to have the honour of escorting her. It gave her a malign pleasure to note his evident unwillingness, though he could not well refuse to ride with her, and she wasted no more words until they were out in the desert.
“You are determined to take this journey to Gamara?” she asked him, slackening pace suddenly.
He looked at her in surprise. “Yes,” he answered simply.
“And not even the thought of your sister will make you change your mind? You are leaving her absolutely alone in the world.”
“She is not without friends. You and Haigh will always look after her. Poor George Ferrers has no one. Moreover, I feel that to some extent I am taking the journey in Penelope’s place.”
“You don’t mean to say that you expected her to go?”
“No, no, though she did cry out at first that she ought to go, not I. What I mean is that it was for her sake Ferrers went to Gamara, hoping the mission would lead to some appointment on which he might marry, and as soon as he is gone she turns round and declares that nothing will induce her to marry him.”
“If you asked my opinion, I should say that he went to Gamara because he had made Alibad too hot to hold him; but if you prefer the other view, I can’t help it. Mr Ross, tell me, what is there about Captain Ferrers which captivates you? You are not generally a lenient judge, but you condone in him things which you would rebuke unsparingly in your other comrades, and you can’t forgive your sister for refusing to marry him, though it’s clear it would mean lifelong misery to her if she did. Why is it?”
Colin looked at her in unfeigned perplexity. “He is my friend, Lady Haigh. When I was a little chap, and he a big fellow always getting into scrapes, we were like Steerforth and Copperfield,—no, I don’t mean that”—perceiving that the comparison might be interpreted unfavourably to Ferrers—“like David and Jonathan—he was David, of course. In those days Pen was as fond of him as I was. I may be unjust to her, as you seem to imply, but I can’t get over her fickleness. It was settled so long ago that he was to marry her and I was to live with them—what better arrangement could there have been? George has never changed, I have never changed, but Penelope has. What led to the change, you know best.”
“Not I,” returned Lady Haigh warmly; “except that it was a very natural repugnance to a lover who seemed to take everything for granted, and who, as we now know, never thought of her at all.”
“Lady Haigh,” said Colin earnestly, “you are doing him an injustice. He did not know of her arrival in India, was not expecting her; but if he had been allowed to meet her, and she had met him on the old footing, without interference, this sad alienation would never have taken place. You meant well when you warned her against him, but——”
“Mr Ross,” said Lady Haigh, settling herself firmly in the saddle, and punctuating her sentences by little taps of her whip on the pommel, “I meant well, and I did well. You would have sacrificed your sister to a man who was not worthy to black her shoes. I saved her.”
“You have always misjudged him, and I fear you always will. I know he has done many wrong and foolish things—he has told me so himself, with bitter regret. But he had cast them behind him; all he needed to help him to rise was the love of a good woman, and he and I both hoped he had found it. I begin to fear now that even before he started on his mission he must have felt some misgivings about Penelope’s affection for him——”
“Probably,” said Lady Haigh savagely. “Oh, go on.”
“Some fear that her heart was not really his. What is the result? This terrible, miserable rumour which is taking me to Gamara.”
“Then you actually hold your sister accountable for Captain Ferrers’ becoming a Mohammedan? Now will you kindly tell me what you think a man’s Christianity is worth if it depends on a girl’s feelings?”
“A girl’s actions, rather,” said Colin sorrowfully. “Think, he has met with a terrible shock. All his ideas of woman’s truth and steadfastness are destroyed. I know that ought not to destroy his faith; but he has always been one who depended upon the visible for his grasp of the invisible. And that is why I am going to Gamara, in the hope that he may yet be saved.”
“Do you really expect to bring him back with you?” she asked, awed.
“No. I feel that I shall not return,” he answered. “But I have also the feeling that in some way, even if it is only by my death, George will be brought back.”
“After this”—Lady Haigh spoke brusquely, that he might not see how much she was moved—“I quite understand that it is no use asking you to consider Penelope. She doesn’t count in such a case.”
“I have done what I can for her,” he replied. “I have left her all I have. And I suppose”—he spoke with evident distaste—“that some day she will marry the Chief.”
“Ah, I thought even you would scarcely venture to think she was still bound to Captain Ferrers. Well, Mr Ross, since you have got so far, you must do something more. You must leave a message with me that I can give her if that ever comes about. If I have to persecute you unceasingly till the day you start, I will have it.”
“No; that is too much. I may foresee such a marriage, I cannot prevent it, but I will not encourage it.”
“You will give me leave to tell your sister that you thought such a thing might possibly happen, and that you wished her all happiness in it. She has gone through agonies in trying to keep the promise which you imposed upon her, and she did keep it till it nearly killed her. I believe you think you are the only person who has a right to quote texts, but I ask you what good it will do if you are willing to give yourself up to be killed at Gamara, and yet can’t show common charity to your own sister?”
Colin rode on in silence with a rigid face, and Lady Haigh wondered whether he would refuse to speak to her again. She had caught sight of Sir Dugald and Penelope coming towards them, and felt that her chance was nearly over. Would he speak? She held her breath with anxiety. Suddenly he turned to her with a smile which transfigured his whole face.
“You are right, Lady Haigh, and I am wrong. I have judged poor Pen hardly, and she must have thought me unkind. If it—this marriage should ever come off, tell her that from my heart I prayed for her happiness and Keeling’s. And I thank you heartily for showing me what a Pharisee I have been.”
Lady Haigh scarcely dared to believe in her success, but she noticed a new tone of tenderness in Colin’s voice when he spoke to his sister presently, and the look of incredulous joy in Penelope’s grey eyes showed that she saw it too. “I have done a good morning’s work,” said Lady Haigh to herself.
For the few days that remained before Colin’s departure, Penelope was happy. The barrier which had existed between her brother and herself since their arrival in India seemed to have suddenly disappeared, and she felt she was forgiven. Ferrers’ name was not mentioned between them, but Colin was able to allude to the object of his journey without unconsciously reproving his sister by the sternness of his voice. Lady Haigh could not discover whether he had told her of his presentiment that he would not return, though she guessed that Penelope must have divined it, for the girl was clearly hoping against hope, unable to believe that the renewed confidence between Colin and herself could be brought to an end so quickly.
All too soon, as it seemed to Penelope, Colin started in the train of Saadullah Kermani, and life at Alibad resumed its ordinary course, sadly flat, stale, and unprofitable in the estimation of one at least of the inhabitants. Penelope’s occupation was gone. She had joyfully resigned her interest in Ferrers, she could do nothing for Colin but pray for him, and she missed daily, almost hourly, the interest which Major Keeling had been wont to bring into her life. He never tried to see her alone now—in fact, his visits to the fort had ceased, and all her information as to the affairs of the border was derived from the stray pieces of news extorted from Sir Dugald by Lady Haigh, who was bent on educating him up to the belief that she and Penelope took an intelligent interest in public affairs. Not that these were exciting at this time. The young officer whose services Major Keeling had requisitioned was peremptorily restored to his original regiment, much against his will, and the usual heated correspondence followed. The border was quiet—in the case of Nalapur much too quiet, Major Keeling considered, and his demand for two additional European officers was finally refused by the authorities. The Haighs moved into their new house, which was at last pronounced safe, and Major Keeling took up his quarters in the imposing but gloomy building he had erected for himself. He abjured punkahs and every other kind of device for modifying the heat of the place, but he had laid aside his heroic views in planning the Haighs’ house. The lofty rooms were fitted with every appliance that had yet been discovered for making a Khemistan summer less intolerable, and there was a largetai-khana, or underground room, for refuge in the daytime, and a spacious roof for sleeping on at night. Lady Haigh and Penelope found plenty to do in making the bare rooms habitable with the small means at their disposal. Those were the days when anything of “country” make was regarded by the English in India as beyond the pale of toleration; but Lady Haigh, looking round upon the remnant of her belongings which had survived the journey up-country and the hands of the native servants, came to a heroic decision. It was all very well for people down at the coast, or generals’ wives and otherburra mems, to have things out from home, but the subaltern’s wife must do her best with country goods; and she and Penelope worked wonders with native cottons and embroidered draperies, and the curious rugs which were brought by the caravans from Central Asia. Perhaps, as she herself confessed, she might not have been so courageous had it not been practically certain that none of the great ladies from the coast would ever see and criticise her arrangements, but for her part she did not think the native designs were so very hideous after all, or their colouring as barbaric as it appeared to most English people in those far-off days of the Fifties—devotees as they were of grass green and royal blue.
Into the midst of these domestic labours came the thunderbolt which Penelope told herself she had been expecting, but which was no less appalling. Saadullah Kermani’s caravan returned, without Colin. There had been no remissness on Saadullah’s part, no rashness on Colin’s; but there was a factor in the case the presence of which they had not suspected. Colin had entered Gamara in the humble and distinctive attire prescribed for Christians approaching the holy city, and had behaved with the utmost prudence, making no attempt to penetrate where he should not, or attack the usages of the place. His travelling-companions bore unanimous testimony to his gentleness when he was engaged in controversy by different Mullahs, and to the absence of bitterness when these took leave of him. Many came to visit him at the Sarai, and some even invited him to their houses. There was every hope that his presence would come to the Khan’s ears, so that he might be commanded to the palace as a guest, and have a chance of attaining the object of his journey, when one day some of his first acquaintances brought with them to the Sarai no less a person than the Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq. He had been one of those who had held controversies with Colin during flying visits to Alibad, and he had expressed his determination to vanquish the Kafir at last. His language had been violent in the extreme, his taunts and provocations almost unbearable; but Colin had kept his temper, and discomfited his opponent by appealing to the audience to contrast the tone of their respective arguments. The Mirza had departed in a rage, and the very next day, in passing one of the colleges, Colin had been assailed by a tumultuous throng of students, who poured out upon him, and, seizing him, demanded that he should abjure Christianity. Upon his refusal to repeat theKalimathey had set upon him with sticks and stones, and he was only rescued by a body of the city police, who arrested him and carried him off to the palace, the precincts of which included the prison. Since then nothing had been heard of him. Saadullah had made tentative and cautious inquiries in every possible direction, but the only result was to bring upon himself a warning from the head of the police that he also was suspected, as having brought the Kafir into the city, and would do well to keep his mouth shut and finish his business in Gamara as quickly as he could. By inquiry from the friends of other prisoners, it was ascertained that Colin was not in the common prison; but this only lent fresh horror to his fate, for to the awful regions beyond no one penetrated. And nothing had been heard of Ferrers, either good or bad.
When Penelope heard the news she fainted, and recovered only to beg Lady Haigh piteously to ask Major Keeling to come to her. She must see him, she said, when her friend demurred; and Lady Haigh, with some misgivings, sent off the note. She felt that she would like to warn Major Keeling when he arrived, and yet she did not know exactly what she feared, but there had been a wild look in Penelope’s eyes which frightened her.
“She is not herself. You will make allowances?” she said eagerly, as she took him into the drawing-room.
“Make allowances—I, for her?” he said, with such an accent of reproach that Lady Haigh was too much flurried to explain that she was anxious he should not be drawn into doing anything rash. It was some comfort to her to notice how big and strong he looked, not the kind of man who would allow himself to be hurried into unwisdom, and she could not wonder that Penelope felt him a tower of strength. But the words which reached her as she left the room made her stop her ears and hurry away in despair. She knew exactly how Penelope had run to meet him, white-faced, trembling, with dilated eyes, and seized his hand in both hers as she cried, “Oh, Major Keeling, save him, save him!”
“What is it you want me to do?” he asked her, the laborious speeches of condolence he had prepared all forgotten.
“I thought—oh, surely, you will go to Gamara, won’t you? You are so well known, and the natives have such a regard for you—you could make them give him up.”
He shook his head. The childlike simplicity of the appeal was almost irresistible, but he knew better than she did how hopeless such an attempt would be made by the very fame of which she spoke.
“Oh, don’t say you won’t do it!” she entreated. “He is all I have.”
“Listen,” he said. “You know I thought the journey so dangerous that I refused to the last to let your brother go. Yet there was a chance for him. For me there would be none, the moment I set foot beyond our own border. You will do me the justice to believe that I would not grudge my life if losing it could do any good, but it could do none. And even if it would, I could not go. I am in command here, and I cannot desert my post.”
She looked at him as though she had not heard him. “It is Colin,” she said; “all I have. And you said—you cared.”
“And you say I don’t if I won’t go?” he asked sharply. “Then you are talking of what you don’t understand. I could not leave Khemistan if—even if it was your life, and not your brother’s, that was at stake—even if it tore my heart out.”
Penelope passed her hand over her brow. “No,” she said feebly, “it would not signify then. But for Colin!”
“Sit down and listen to me quietly. I have pacified this frontier, and I am the only man who can keep it quiet. Nalapur is only looking for a pretext to break with us; if my back was turned they would invade us without one. My post is here; it is my duty to remain; I will not—dare not leave it. Penelope, do you ask me to leave it? If you do, I am mistaken in you. Look up, and tell me.”
Penelope raised her head as if compelled by his tone, and her eyes met his. “No,” she said helplessly, “it would be wrong. You must not go. But oh, Colin, Colin!”
She bowed her head again and broke into a passion of sobs, for her last hope was gone. She heard Major Keeling get up and walk up and down the room, and knew that her sobs were agonising to him, but she could not restrain them. At last she found him close to her again, his hand on her shoulder.
“Dear,” he said, “let us bear it together. When you are in the doctor’s hands after a fight, it helps if there’s a friend beside you, whose hand you can grip hard. Take mine, Penelope.”
Her sobs ceased, and she looked at him wonderingly through her tears. He went on speaking in the same low, deeply moved voice—
“I can’t bear to leave you to go through it alone. Let me help. You know I know what trouble is. Give me the right to share yours.”
“Now—when Colin may be tortured, starving, dying? Oh, how can you?” cried Penelope. “Oh, go, go away, and never talk like this again. I don’t want my trouble to be less. Why should I? Share it! how can you share it? you won’t even—no, I don’t mean that. I have only Colin, and he has only me.”
He looked down hopelessly at her bowed head. “I cannot desert my post,” he said, and turned to leave her.
“Oh no, no!” cried Penelope, following him. “It was wicked of me to say what I did. Only, please don’t talk like that again. Let me feel you are a real friend. Oh, you will help him if you can, won’t you?”
“I dare not encourage you to hope for your brother’s safety, but it might be possible to obtain news of him. If it can be done, it shall be. Trust me—and forgive me.”
Insteadof appearing in the gardens that evening, Major Keeling rode out, accompanied only by an orderly, to Sheikhgarh. He had never met the Sheikh-ul-Jabal face to face since the day of the eclipse and of his triumphant vindication, but important pieces of information had come to him several times by strange messengers, testifying to the friendliness of the recluse. Curious to relate, the destruction of the marvellous legend which had grown up about the supposed identity of the two men seemed to have had little or no effect. The dwellers on the border and the tribesmen alike possessed a strong love of the miraculous, and resented the attempt to deprive them of a wonder. Taking refuge in the fact that only a very few people, and most of those Europeans, had seen Major Keeling and the Sheikh side by side, they maintained with obstinate pertinacity their original theory that the one man led a double existence—as British commandant by day and head of the Brotherhood of the Mountains by night. From this belief nothing could move them, and as the result tended to the peace of the border, their rulers had left off trying to convince them against their will. It is to be feared that Ismail Bakhsh, the orderly, foresaw a large increase of credit to himself from this journey, by the unconcealed joy with which he entered upon it; and yet, marvellous as were the tales he told on his return, his experiences were confined to remaining with his horse at the point where visitors to the fortress were first challenged. To Major Keeling’s astonishment, no attempt was made to blindfold him on this occasion, the guards saying that they had orders from the Sheikh to admit Kīlin Sahib freely whenever he might come, and he rode with them to the gate of the fortress, noticing the care with which the place was defended. This time the Sheikh came to meet him at the entrance, and taking him up to the room over the gateway, possibly from fear of eavesdroppers in the great hall, sent away all his attendants as soon as the proper salutations had passed. He seemed anxious, and was evidently expecting news of importance.
“There is no message from Nalapur—no outbreak?” he asked eagerly, as soon as they were alone.
“I have heard nothing,” answered Major Keeling in surprise. “What news should there be?”
“It is well. Yet there must be news soon. The Amir and Gobind Chand are, as it were, crossing a gulf by a rope-bridge—one false step means destruction. But they will not return to firm ground.”
“But you sent me word that the Sardars refused to stand their exactions and oppression any longer, and that they had been obliged to promise to meet them, and inquire into their grievances.”
“True, and the assembly is to meet this week; but what will follow? Are Wilayat Ali and the Vizier men who will render back the gains they have extorted? Not so; they will divert the minds of the Sardars by making war upon one of their neighbours. And which neighbour will that be?”
“All right. Let them come!” laughed Major Keeling. “If they are fools enough to hurl themselves on our guns they must. I have done all I could to keep the peace. When is it to be—at the end of the week?”
“Nay, not so soon. They will but inflame the minds of the Sardars, and send them home to prepare for war. It cannot begin yet.”
“Then what were you afraid of? You seemed to expect danger of some sort.”
“I feared one of those false steps of which I spoke. The Amir and Gobind Chand might have acted foolishly in trying to seize or murder some of the Sardars, or the Sardars might have sought to avenge their wrongs by killing them. Then the country would have fallen into such confusion that I must needs act, and the time is not come.”
“Then you have an axe of your own to grind!” cried Major Keeling. “It can’t be allowed, Sheikh. You must not plot against a neighbouring power while you are on British territory.”
The Sheikh looked at him with something like contempt. “Why does Kīlin Sahib thus allow his wrath to bubble up? To what purpose should I plot against the Nalapur usurper? For myself I need no more than I have here.”
“But what do you mean? Why should you take action?”
“Does not Kīlin Sahib see that it might fall to me to use all possible efforts to restore peace if there should be civil war in Nalapur? I am known to all parties, but attached to none of them, and I am near of kin to the royal house.”
“I don’t believe that was what you meant, but you look honest enough,” muttered Major Keeling in English. Aloud he said, “Well, Sheikh, understand that you must not undertake anything of the kind on your own account. I am responsible for this frontier, and I may be very glad to make use of your good offices, but I can’t have you forcing my hand.”
“Fear not,” said the Sheikh. “For another month I can do nothing, and it is my strongest hope that Nalapur will remain peaceful at least as long. If there is opportunity, I will send word to Alibad before taking any step, but if Wilayat Ali and Gobind Chand move first, do not blame me.”
“I don’t like all these mysteries, Sheikh. What is it that holds you back for a month, and also keeps Nalapur quiet?”
“They are two different things, sahib. The lapse of time will set me free to act, but the Amir and Gobind Chand will not go to war until their embassy has returned from Gamara.”
“From Gamara? Why, that was the very—— What are they doing there?”
“Their embassy to the Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq,” said the Sheikh, evidently enjoying his visitor’s astonishment.
“But I came to speak to you about that very man. What in the world have they got to do with him at Nalapur?”
“Has Kīlin Sahib forgotten that the man was employed by Gobind Chand and his master as a spy upon me, and that after attempting to slay me he escaped? Disowned by Firoz Sahib, in whose service he had been, he durst not remain in Khemistan, and he feared to return to Nalapur, having failed in his mission. But both at Bab-us-Sahel and at Shah Nawaz he had gained much information as to the plans and methods of the English, and he knew that the Khan of Gamara would rejoice to obtain this. Therefore he fled thither, and by reason of the news he brought, and his own art and cleverness in making himself useful to the Khan, was speedily raised to be one of his councillors and keeper of the prison.” Major Keeling nodded assent. “But now the Amir and Gobind Chand need his services again, for he knows many things about the Brotherhood—of which he is a perjured member—and this stronghold of mine, and some months ago it came to my knowledge that they had sent messengers with rich gifts and great promises, to desire him to return to Nalapur. That he dares not do, for if he sought to leave Gamara after the favours he has received, the Khan would kill him; but if the gifts were large enough, doubtless he would tell the messengers all, or nearly all, that he knows. Therefore I say that Wilayat Ali and the Vizier will not make war until the messengers return.”
“But you may not hear of their return. They may come back secretly. They may have returned now.”
Again the Sheikh smiled pityingly. “Nay, sahib; was the Sheikh-ul-Jabal born in the town of fools? Following close upon the Nalapuri embassy went a messenger of mine in the garb of a holy dervish, who entered Gamara only very shortly after them, and was bound to remain in the city, performing the proper rites at each mosque and holy place in turn, as long as they were there, and then to attach himself to their caravan for the return journey. Having gone with them as far as Nalapur, he will change his disguise and return hither.”
“Then he has not returned yet?” asked Major Keeling meditatively.
“Have I not said it? Moreover, a secret word was brought me from him by one in Saadullah Kermani’s caravan to the effect that he thought the messengers would not leave Gamara for three or four weeks.”
“Three or four weeks after Saadullah? Then he may bring later news. This is the very matter on which I came to speak to you, Sheikh. You know that two of my officers have gone to Gamara and disappeared?”
“Firoz Sahib, who has adopted the faith of Islam, and Rāss Sahib, whom the people call the Father of a Book,” said the Sheikh calmly.
“Those two; and we—I—want to know the truth about them, not simply bazar gossip. When your man comes back, ask him if he has learnt anything. If he has been keeping watch on Fazl-ul-Hacq, he ought to have found out something, surely. If there is no news, it may mean that they are both in prison still, and you might be able to suggest some way of getting them liberated.”
The Sheikh stroked his beard slowly. “It may be so,” he said. “Nevertheless, you may be well assured, sahib, that the bazar talk is true so far as relates to Firoz Sahib. As to Rāss Sahib, they say he is dead, and I am ready to believe it. But when my messenger returns I will send him to you, and you shall ask him any questions you will. But when he returns, then will be the time to keep good watch along the Nalapur border.”
Quite agreeing with this opinion, Major Keeling took his leave, and as he rode home, thought over what he had heard. The still unexplained reason which kept the Sheikh from taking any active part in the affairs of Nalapur must be in some way connected with his vow of seclusion, he thought. Perhaps it had been taken for a term of years, which would end in a month. He was more disappointed than surprised by the Sheikh’s evident reluctance to help in taking any steps for Colin’s rescue, but he could not help feeling that there was a change in the man. Had he worn a mask hitherto, and was he now letting it fall; or were his feelings towards the English altering, and his friendship turning to hostility? Major Keeling had hoped that by means of the host of agents who kept the Sheikh in touch with all parts of Central Asia he would have been able to arrange at least that Colin should be ransomed; but he could realise the risk involved in any step that might reveal to the orthodox supporters of tyranny the presence in their midst of members of the heretical brotherhood. However, if the dervish brought no news, it might be possible to engage him to undertake another journey to Gamara for the express purpose of inquiring into Colin’s fate, and this was all that could be hoped for at present.
To this conclusion Major Keeling came reluctantly just as he reached the point from which Alibad could first be seen as he emerged from the hills. The sun had already set, but the desert was lighted up by a gorgeous after-glow, which was equally kind in bringing out the best points of the view and in hiding its defects. Alibad was no longer the cluster of mud huts which its ruler had found it. The white and buff and pink walls of the new houses shone out brilliantly over their screen of young trees, and the dun mass of the fort, with its squat turrets, seemed to brood protectingly above the lower buildings. The native town was a formless blur in the gathering darkness to the left, and on the right, along the line of the temporary canal which supplied the place until the great works already in progress should be completed, were blots and splashes of green, marking the patches of irrigated land where cultivation was in full swing. The programme which Major Keeling had drawn up when he came to Khemistan was in process of realisation, and that very fact chained him to the soil. He had not allowed Penelope to see how much he was tempted to undertake the mission she had proposed to him. It was the kind of thing that appealed to him most strongly—to throw off the burden of routine, have done with office-work, and plunge into the desert, where his hand would be against every man’s, and his life would depend alternately on his sword and his tongue. The proposal fascinated him even now; but before him lay the town which was at once the sign and the result of his labours. He shook the reins, roused Miani from a blissful contemplation of nothing, and trotted briskly home across the plain, followed by Ismail Bakhsh.
After this visit to Sheikhgarh there was another month of waiting. Major Keeling warned all his officers to be on the look-out for a fakir or dervish who might come with a message; but although several members of the fraternity presented themselves as usual in search of alms, and were given every opportunity to speak if they would, none of them had anything particular to say. The month had more than elapsed when one day a respectable elderly man, dressed like an attendant of some great family, and with a scribe’s inkhorn at his girdle, asked leave to present a petition to Kīlin Sahib. Applicants of this sort were always plentiful, owing to the breaking-up of the huge households maintained by all the native princes before the annexation; and it was Major Keeling’s policy to find employment for as many of them as possible, lest they should seek to obtain a precarious livelihood by going up and down among the ignorant peasantry and agitating against British rule. The man was admitted into the office, and Sir Dugald, who was sitting at a little distance, saw him put his hands together in a submissive attitude, and heard him begin to pour out a long rigmarole in low tones. But almost as Sir Dugald distinguished the words “dervish” and “Gamara,” Major Keeling rose from his chair.
“Come in here,” he said, opening the door of his private office. “Haigh, you come too. Now, Kutb-ud-Din, let us have your story.”
“The servant of my lord has little to tell him, but it is that which he is anxious to know. For when my lord’s servant was at Gamara disguised as a most holy dervish, so that he wore no clothes but a rough mantle, and painted his body blue, and left his hair and beard wild and long, he heard one day of a great sight that was to be seen in the square before the palace. And forasmuch as his religious meditation was interrupted by the passing to and fro and the loud speaking of those that hurried to see this sight, he asked them what it might be. And one told him one thing and one another, but all agreed that it was such a sight as would rejoice the heart of a holy man, and therefore my lord’s servant determined to go thither. And coming to the square, the people made way for him, so that he stood at last in a good place, and saw the Khan and a great company of soldiers and counsellors come out of the palace. And at the head of the Khan’s bodyguard he saw the Farangi, Firoz Sahib, of whose conversion all the city had been talking, so great were the festivities at his initiation——”
“Stop!” said Major Keeling hoarsely. “Are you certain it was Ferrers Sahib?”
“My lord’s servant will swear it, if my lord so wills. Has he not often beheld Firoz Sahib, both here and at Shah Nawaz? Moreover, his history was known to all in Gamara. It seemed to my lord’s servant that Firoz Sahib had been drinkingbang, for his eyes were bright and his face flushed, and Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq, the renegade, rode at his bridle-rein, as though to restrain him. And afterwards, when the people were slow to disperse, he ordered the soldiers to charge the crowd, and escaping from his friend the Mirza, rode down a Jew who stood in his way, so that all who saw him fled. But that was not until after——”
“After what? Go on,” said Major Keeling impatiently, as the man hesitated.
“Let my lord pardon his servant, if that which he has to say is not pleasing to his ears, for the dust under my lord’s feet can but tell what he saw. There was led out into the square, before the Khan and his court and army, another Farangi, wearing chains that would not suffer him to walk upright, and clothed in shameful rags; and a whisper went about among the people that it was the young sahib whom they called the Father of a Book.”
“And was it?” demanded Major Keeling.
“How can the servant of my lord say? It so chances that his eyes never rested upon the young sahib while he was among his own people. But this sahib was young and tall and lean, and white like a wall—yea, even his hair was white, yet reddish-white like that of the sahibs, not pure white like that of the people of this land——”
“White—in those few weeks!” breathed Sir Dugald.
“Yes, yes, go on,” said Major Keeling to the narrator.