“Murder—a woman!” it was a kind of hoarse scream.
“You have been attacked? No?” as his eye ran quickly over her speckless habit. “What is it, then? Sit down and tell us about it.” He led her to a chair, and waved the attendants away. “You have had a shock? A glass of wine!” he signed to a waiting servant. “Now let us hear what it is.”
“Compose yourself, for Heaven’s sake!” growled Richard Ambrose—not encouragingly, but the harsh tone proved more effectual than the Resident’s kindness in enabling Eveleen to pull herself together. With her fingers tightly pressed against one another she sat upright and spoke jerkily.
“’Twas a poor woman—just a bit of a girl. Her father and her husband had quarrelled. The horrid wretch—the husband, I mean—went straight home—and called her out. The creature came—and stood before him trembling. He took hold of her hair—her beautiful long hair—and twisted it—into a rope—andstrangledher with it—her own hair——” Her voice rose into a scream again.
“Yes, yes—very distressing,” Colonel Bayard patted her hand kindly. “These things will happen here, we know, but you are new to them. And you were passing, and saw it done?”
“Sawit?” she cried furiously. “D’ye think I would not have broke my whip over the brute’s head, and poked his eyes out with the bits after? No, I was passing, and heard the old women keening—her mother and her mother-in-law—and I went in there and saw—her poor face—and her hair—— And I made the syce ask them about it, and they told me, and I came straight back to you at once, that you might get the wretch found out and punished!”
“But, my dear lady, where do you think he is?”
“Why, in hiding, of course!” in surprise.
“Not a bit of it! A man don’t go into hiding in Khemistan for little accidents like that. I dare be bound the fellow is now boasting to his friends of the revenge he has taken on his father-in-law, and every one of ’em is sympathising with him. That’s all.”
“But d’ye mean nothing will be done?”
“Nothing whatever.”
“You mean you will do nothing?”
“My dear Mrs Ambrose, what could I do? Killing is no murder here, where a woman is concerned.”
“But it ought to be. You could go to the chief Khan——”
“He would merely laugh at me. ‘Murder, you say, sahib? Who was killed? Awoman? and the man’swife? and he was angry with her father? Why, of course he killed her. It was the natural thing to do.’ And that’s precisely what it is—in Khemistan.”
“And you let them go on like this? You say nothing——”
“What could I say? And what good would it do? It ain’t as though the poor creature were alive, and I could save her by intervening. It’s too late—unfortunately.”
He added the last word in deference to the stormy look in Eveleen’s eyes as she rose from her chair, knocking down the untasted glass of wine at her elbow.
“You needn’t say any more. I see how it is—perfectly. If Ambrose killed me, ’twould merely be, ‘Only a woman—only his wife—and he was angry withher—and it served her right!’” defiantly.
“If Ambrose killed you, I would hang him with my own hands, and you know it very well!” said Colonel Bayard, between jest and earnest. Then his tone changed. “But you have no right even to associate such a thought with your husband, Mrs Ambrose. It is abominably unfair to him, and only to be excused because you are a little unstrung at this moment.”
“Just look at his face, then!” cried Eveleen recklessly. “Is there black murder in it, or is there not, I ask you?” and she departed—leaving two discomfited men behind her—to cry her eyes out in her own room, until her husband, really alarmed, insisted on a visit from the doctor, and—so near is bathos to tragedy!—the administration of a composing draught.
That incident was closed. Eveleen made numberless irrevocable resolutions that never, no, never! in any circumstances whatever would she attempt to appeal again to the compassion, or even the sense of justice, of those two stony-hearted men—but evidently she was one of the people to whom things are bound to happen. Colonel Bayard had gone to pay his farewell visit to the Khans, attended by Richard Ambrose and other subordinates, and preceded bychobdarsbearing silver sticks and similar insignia of dignity, when the remaining occupants of the Residency became aware that Mrs Ambrose had another row on hand. They guessed it when she returned from her ride at a tearing gallop—the syce left behind somewhere on the horizon—and dashed up to the office verandah, demanding eagerly to see the Resident Sahib. It was clear she had forgotten all about his absence, for those who were peering at her through the tatties reported that she made a gesture of despair, and mounting again, rode round to her own quarters with a slow hopelessness very different from the ardour with which she had ridden in. She sent her horse away, but stayed walking up and down the verandah without going to change her habit, her sun hat thrown aside. The two men whose rooms were on the opposite side of the courtyard could see the white figure passing and repassing across the dark space left by the updrawn blind. Sometimes she came to the steps to call a servant, and sent him on some errand—evidently to see whether the Resident had returned without her hearing him, but in vain.
“If that woman tramps up and down much more, she’ll drive me distracted. What’s the matter with her?” demanded one of the watchers irritably at last.
“Couldn’t say,” was the laconic reply of his companion.
“Well, you might risk a guess, anyhow. Tell you what, I’m going to see. Are you game to come too?”
The other reflected. “I suppose Ambrose ain’t likely to consider it an intrusion?”
Captain Crosse characterised Scottish caution in unsuitable language. “I always knew Ambrose would make trouble by bringing his wife up here, but since he has brought her, one can’t in common humanity leave the unfortunate creature to walk her feet off for want of some one to help her. I’m going, and you have got to come too. Here goes!”
They went across to the Ambroses’ verandah, and Eveleen turned a despairing face upon them at the sound of Captain Crosse’s hesitating greeting, “Can we do anything, Mrs Ambrose? We were afraid something must be wrong.”
“Sure I don’t know what to do!” she burst forth. “I’m in the most frightful trouble. Do come in, the two of you, and tell me is there anything you can do. But I don’t believe anybody but the Resident will be any good, and it seems as if he’d never be back!”
“Sit down and tell us about it, ma’am,” urged Captain Crosse, while the young Scotchman pulled a chair forward. “To fret yourself into a fever will do nobody any good, and be precious uncomfortable for you.”
Eveleen hesitated, pushed back the damp hair from her temples, and dropped into the chair. “It’s because there’s no time,” she said despairingly. “Colonel Bayard said it was too late before, because the poor creature was dead, but this time she could be saved, only there’s no one to do it—— I suppose,” with reviving energy, “you wouldn’t come with me and rescue her?”
A glance had passed between the two men over her head, and now, as she sat up eagerly and grasped the arms of the chair preparatory to rising, Lieutenant Haigh said, with discouraging slowness, “But who is it you want to rescue, Mrs Ambrose—and what from?”
“The poor girl—child, rather. They carried her off—I saw the dust of their horses in the distance——”
“But who carried her off?” patiently.
“Sure how would I know? A band of Arabit horsemen—they brought apalki, and forced her in——”
“But who was she? and where did they take her? Try and tell us exactly what has happened.”
Eveleen glanced upwards, as though in search of patience, and still holding the chair, as if to anchor herself to it, spoke with exaggerated deliberation. “She was a pretty little young girl—I have often seen her; she would peep out in a shy sort of way and smile at me. To-day she was not there, but the old father—he’s a poor sort of fellow, that—was crying fit to break his heart and throwing dust in the air, and the mother—that’s worth two of him—was all bleeding where the wretches had knocked her about when she tried to hold her daughter back, and the neighbours would all be sympathising with them—but they ran away like mice, every one of them, when they saw me.”
“But who had carried her off, and whither?” repeated Sir Dugald Haigh. He was a poverty-stricken soldier burdened with an inherited baronetcy.
“Sure I told you”—with some irritation. “A band of Arabit horsemen, and they would be taking her to the Fort. The parents were inconsolable—they said she was to have been married next week.”
“They would be—they’ll have to return the gifts,” said Sir Dugald drily. Then his tone changed. “Well, ma’am, that puts an end to the business. When a girl—or a woman either, for it would have made no difference if the marriage was a week ago instead of a week hence—is taken to the Fort, there she stays.”
Eveleen gazed at him, horror-stricken. “Anygirl—and against her will—and no one minds?”
“That’s the way here,” curtly.
“You see, Mrs Ambrose”—Captain Crosse took up the parable—“it ain’t the same with these people as it is with us. The Arabits take a girl when they want her just as they take anything that pleases ’em from a shop in the Bazar. These women don’t mind that sort of thing—rather like it, in fact—think it a bit of an honour, as you might say.”
“If you had seen that poor old father and mother, you would never believe that!” indignantly.
“That’s just for to-day. It’ll be all right when they have got over it a bit. A ruler always exercises this power in the East—why, just as it was in the Bible, you know.” He spoke with increased confidence, feeling that the thing had been set on a proper footing. “I assure you there are thousands of these women in the Fort—place is swarming with ’em. So you see, it’s quite the right thing here.”
“But how can it be right just because it’s always done? And I am sure it’s not done in India.”
“Not in our districts, of course; but believe me, in some of the native states within our borders, not only would the girl have been taken, but the parents would have been killed for offering resistance, and the house set on fire—for a warning to others, you see.”
“I don’t see that makes it any better—horrid though it be. What is Colonel Bayard here for if it ain’t to stop things of this sort from happening?”
“’Pon my word, ma’am——!” began Captain Crosse, quite taken aback, but Lieutenant Haigh spoke slowly.
“You are making a mistake, ma’am. The Resident is here to seek to persuade the Khans to keep their treaties with us, so that we may be able to leave them in the enjoyment of their authority.”
“Authority to murder women and carry off girls? And he calls himself an Englishman and a Christian!”
This was high treason, but though Captain Crosse showed signs of flight, Sir Dugald argued patiently on. “You must know yourself, Mrs Ambrose, that there’s no better-hearted person in the world than the Resident. But he has enough to do with his proper business, and the Khans have no mind to make it easy for him. They choose to go on destroying villages to extend theirshikargahs, and plundering traders, and intercepting the river traffic by demanding tolls, and they do it, never caring a pin about the difficulties they are making for him.”
“Then he ought just wash his hands of them!” declared Eveleen defiantly. “If I were in his place——”
“My dear Mrs Ambrose, what is the matter?” Colonel Bayard and Richard came up the verandah steps, to find her confronting the two men. She looked at him stormily.
“It’s a fool I am to expect anything——!” she began, and stopped, unable to speak.
“Mrs Ambrose was unfortunately a witness—or nearly so—of the carrying-off of a girl to the Fort, sir,” said Sir Dugald; “and the lamentations of the parents have affected her sadly.”
“Positively, my dear Richard,” said Colonel Bayard, “you must not allow Mrs Ambrose to distress herself in this way. She will make herself ill, and our little society here will lack its brightest ornament.”
Eveleen looked at him with absolute abhorrence. “And that’s all you have to say about it?” she demanded.
“My dear lady, what can I say? The custom of the country permits the rulers to recruit their zenanas in this way, and how is a stranger to prevent it?”
“Go to the Khans and get her back! Tell me now, what’s the use of their calling you their father and their mother if they’ll not do what you tell them?”
“I fear their confidence stops short on the threshold of the zenana,” said Colonel Bayard gravely. “But suppose, to gratify me, they consented to the release of this girl—do you think she would choose to be released? Nay, she would hug her chains, as you consider them, and entreat to remain in the Fort.”
“The worse for her, then, the wretched creature! But sure you’d have brought the Khans to book, and shown them the law was stronger than they are.”
“What law? They would have been constrained by friendship, nothing more. The English law don’t run here. The will of the ruler is the law—at least, it comes to that.”
“And Colonel Bayard can reconcile it with his conscience to use all his endeavours to prop up a system under which such things can happen!” she cried. Her husband glanced round aghast to see the effect of this blasphemy, but the other two men had discreetly faded away, Colonel Bayard looked at her sadly.
“What can I say? I do my best for these people, but they will do nothing to help me—to justify me. Yet to use force—to compel them to virtue—would be an outrage, an iniquity. Ain’t it better for them to govern themselves, even badly, than to be governed, however well, by us?”
“Ah!” cried Eveleen suddenly, “that’s it, that’s it! You think of them and of us—and not for one moment of the creatures they misgovern, the women and the poor.”
“As Heaven is my witness, I do think of them—and constantly,” he replied, with deep solemnity. “It is my earnest hope to ameliorate their condition by influencing the Khans—in time. But never will I be a party to seizing more territory under the pretext of seeing justice done.”
“In time!” echoed Eveleen scornfully, but her husband interposed with crushing effect.
“That will do, my dear. The Resident will think you are an advocate of Women’s Rights, if you don’t take care. You will find it advisable to rest a little after all this excitement, and it would not be amiss to change your gown.”
When Richard spoke in that tone, he could have shifted an iceberg, so Eveleen was wont to complain, with some confusion of thought. On the present occasion, he certainly shifted her. She found herself sitting on the couch in her bedroom, all the fight gone out of her, while he stood before her, his face wearing what she called its hatefullest expression.
“Now look here, my dear,” he said coldly, “there has been enough of these heroics. Twice over you have badgered Bayard in a way that would have made any other man on earthjawab[dismiss] me on the spot, and it is not to happen again. Why he don’t forbid you to set foot outside the compound I don’t know.”
Defiance revived. “I do,” said Eveleen. “Because he knows ’twould be no good.”
“Believe me, you would not find it easy to pass the gates in the teeth of the guard.”
“As if I’d dream of trying it! I’d jump the wall, of course.”
He recognised the futility of argument. “At any rate, if he chooses to leave you full liberty, I am going to restrict it. You won’t be able to ride much longer in office hours, happily—the sun is getting too hot—but as long as you do, you will be good enough to avoid the villages. If you can’t ride past these people without interfering in their concerns, why—take another direction, if you please.”
“I don’t mind,” listlessly. “Sure it’s no pleasure to me to see such shocking things happening, and nobody with the heart to lift a finger to prevent them!”
“Do you mean to say that after what Bayard told you, you still expect——”
“Expect? I don’t expect anything of him at all. But will you tell me that if Sir Harry Lennox was here, there would nothing be done?”
“That old ruffian? Oh, I dare say he’d be capable——”
“You may call him all the names you like, but I tell you he would have hanged that murderer the other day, if it had been a Khan upon his throne. And to-day he’d have ridden up to the Fort and broken the gates down, and let all the women out.”
“And a nice thing that would be! Try to borrow a little common-sense, my dear, even if you don’t possess any. The Fort is full of women, and you talk calmly of turning ’em all out of doors—penniless, homeless, accustomed to a luxurious existence! Take my word for it, they wouldn’t thank you! A few might be silly enough to accept the offer of freedom, but they would precious soon come begging to be let in again. They have everything women can want—at any rate, these women—good food, fine clothes——”
“Food and clothes!” scornfully. “Why, I have food and clothes!”
“And ain’t you happy, pray?”
“I am the most miserable woman alive!” with tremendous emphasis and absolute—if transitory—conviction. For once Richard Ambrose was staggered. Astonishment, remorse, resentment, incredulity—she read them all in his face for one moment. Then he recovered himself.
“Pooh, pooh, my dear! you exaggerate,” he said sharply.
Morningbrought—if not counsel—a considerable measure of cheerfulness to Eveleen. To her buoyant temperament protracted gloom was impossible, and her husband smiled to remember his momentary alarm. In her full enjoyment of the happiness she had for ever disclaimed, she was as shallow as any of the native women whose cause she had championed. Unfortunately he could not know what was the root of her pleasurable excitement this morning. His command to avoid the villages had reminded her of a plan for continuing Bajazet’s education that had occurred to her when riding with Sir Dugald Haigh one evening—but had been carefully concealed from that prudent young man. So far she had never ridden what she delighted to call “my Arab” when in company with others. She meant the accomplishments of her little steed to burst proudly on the men who had laughed at him and slandered his ancestry. Colonel Bayard had had some jumps put up for her in the compound, and encouraged her in many unsuccessful attempts to take Bajazet over them with the assurance that your true Arab was never a good jumper. Much practice had at length enabled her to get him over them after a fashion, and now she wished to try him over water. The Resident himself was her companion on the early morning ride—a parting compliment, since he was leaving by the up-river steamer later in the day; and as he was a sound, rather than an adventurous horseman, she found it decidedly dull, its decorum redeemed only by the romantic wildness of the escort of Khemistan Horse. Her time came when he and Richard were safely at work in the office, and she could start out again on Bajazet, attended by the meek syce and an orderly of satisfactorily brigandish appearance called Shab-ud-din. They rode out beyond the belt of gardens surrounding the city, so far that Shab-ud-din began to be anxious, and tried to warn her of something. He knew no English, the syce very little, and Eveleen about as little Persian, but their efforts towards mutual comprehension were assisted by the sound and vibration of heavy guns not far off, and she understood that the Khans’ artillery was practising somewhere in this direction. Her attendants were satisfied when she turned aside towards the river again, though they did not seem quite happy when she reached her goal. The country out here was a kind of chessboard, cut up in all directions by irrigation canals, and she had marked one which seemed exactly suited to her purpose. Deep and wide where it left the river, it parted with so much water to smaller canals on either side that at the point she had chosen it was a mere trickle between quite manageable banks. Bajazet did not appear to like it at first—perhaps to his desert-descended mind water was something to be respected rather than leapt over—but after she had dismounted and led him across once or twice, he began to enter into the idea, and his mistress flattered him with the assurance that he was a great little horse indeed.
There was only one drawback to her satisfaction, and that was Shab-ud-din’s inability to comprehend that he need not follow her backwards and forwards across the canal. He was very loyal and very dense, and evidently felt that wherever the Beebee went it was his duty to go too. His youth had not been spent in the hunting-field, and his horse was much heavier than Bajazet, so that when Eveleen increased the length of the jumps by moving farther down the canal, the results became rather alarming. Two or three falls in the soft sandy mud happily inflicted no serious injury, but the banks suffered a good deal, and so did the channel.
Engrossed in her sport, Eveleen did not realise how time was passing until the increasing heat of the sun began to make itself unpleasantly evident. It really would soon be too hot to go out in the daytime, she said to herself regretfully, finding the prospect of the long ride back to the Residency the reverse of attractive. She must be getting near a village, too—at least, there were people running across the fields; so droll for them to be coming out to work at this time of day! Well, just one more jump, to take her to the right side of the canal for home, and this would be really a good wide one. Turning to Shab-ud-din, she did her best, by word and gesture, to explain to him that he had better ride a little higher up, and not attempt to cross here, but as she rode towards the bank she heard him pounding after her. It was his own fault, the foolish fellow! she could not pull up now, but she hoped he would fall soft—the fragmentary thoughts passed through her mind as Bajazet rose to the leap. But this time he was not to sail lightly over the obstacle—“like a bird,” as she delighted to say,—for a man who must have been crouching unseen in the water-channel started up, waving his arms and shouting. Had Eveleen not been taken by surprise the good little horse might have cleared the interrupter, but involuntarily she deflected him ever so slightly from his course. He faltered, jumped short, and as he staggered among the stiff clods of the opposite bank Shab-ud-din and his big horse came thundering down upon the two. Shab-ud-din would probably have come off in any case, but in his horror at the scene in front of him he must have tried to pull up, and forthwith executed a complicated somersault sideways which left him groaning in the mud.
With an instinct born of long experience, Eveleen had freed her foot from the stirrup when she saw disaster imminent, but it was not necessary for her to roll from the saddle, nor was she thrown from it. What happened—to her exceeding wrath—was that the man whose interference had caused all the trouble seized the skirt of her long habit and deliberately dragged her to the ground while Bajazet was struggling for a foothold. The shock pulled the reins from her hands, and she saw her steed, freed from her weight, reach the top of the bank safely and dash off in one direction, while Shab-ud-din’s, struggling up with an energy which sent the clods flying every way at once, laboured heavily up the side and disappeared in the other. The syce was nowhere to be seen, and Eveleen found herself sitting in the damp mud of the channel, helplessly entangled in her habit, with Shab-ud-din lying motionless close at hand in an attitude that spoke to her experienced eye of broken bones, and an angry crowd, who seemed to have arrived on the scene by magic, yelling and dancing with rage all about her. She was absolutely defenceless, for she had even lost her whip in the fall, and every word of Persian she had ever known was gone completely out of her head—even if these Khemi cultivators could have understood it. The only thing she could do was to adjust her hat—which was half-way down her back—for the sun was blazing down upon her, and then to look as much as possible as if she was not in the least frightened, which was wholly untrue. If she could even have risen to her feet, she felt that she might have overawed the mob, but what could she do when it was impossible to free herself and stand up without assistance? The men were all armed—some with rusty but murderous-looking swords, all with heavy iron-shod sticks—and to judge by their attitude, they had every intention of using them on her. She found herself speculating which of them would strike the first blow—the signal for all the rest to fall on her—and decided in favour of a truculent person who was prancing about and swinging a huge tulwar in most unpleasant proximity to her head. Would Richard be sorry? the question presented itself irresistibly, and brought its own answer—— Undoubtedly, but it would be because his wife hadn’t had the sense to die decently in her bed!
It would not have been Eveleen not to laugh at the picture thus called up, and the sight of her amusement gave pause to her assailants. They did not shout quite so loud, and the tulwar came down a little farther off instead of actually upon her. In this moment of comparative relief she saw the stranger. He was riding along the bank towards them—as fast as the insecure footing would allow, dashing the clods this way and that—and he was leading Bajazet. He was richly dressed, with a gorgeouspagristriped with gold, but his complexion was not dark—rather the brick-red of a European burnt by tropical suns. He shouted angrily as he came near, and the mob gave one glance of terror and dissolved helter-skelter. He turned and shouted to some one out of sight, and the rush of horses’ feet and clank of accoutrements seemed to show that he was attended by a military escort, which he was directing to pursue the fugitives. He dismounted as he came near—Eveleen’s syce appeared out of space to take the horses’ bridles—and stumbled down the rough bank towards her.
“I trust you ain’t hurt, ma’am? Bless my soul, if it ain’t Miss Evie—Miss Delany, I should say!”
The voice, with its Cockney accent, brought back vague memories of misty mornings, of purpling copses and vivid turf, of battered stone walls and untrimmed hedges masking sunken lanes—all the accompaniments of a day’s hunting in the old life. But why not an Irish voice? With a sudden effort Eveleen found the clue—recalled a young man, not a gentleman, who had come into the neighbourhood on some legal business, and having been bitten by the prevailing mania, had afforded a rich feast of amusement to the members of the hunt.
“It’s not you, Mr Carthew?” she said incredulously.
“’Sh, miss! They call me Tamas Sahib here, and it’s safer. To think of comin’ across you!”
“And they call me Mrs Ambrose,” she laughed, as he helped her up. “But why would you be going about dressed up like this?”
“I ain’t one of your lot,” he avoided her eye. “Master-General of Ordnance to their Highnesses—that’s what I am. The Resident he don’t know nothin’ about me, and I’ll thank you, ma’am, not to tell him nothin’.”
“As you please,” she said, rather perplexed. “But you’ll not mind my telling Major Ambrose—in confidence——” as she surprised a look of something like alarm. “Sure you must see he’ll wish to thank you for coming to my help,” with a touch ofhauteur. What was the man so mysterious about?
“As you please, ma’am. But you’ll remember I ain’t an Englishman here—just one of these people.” He had wrung most of the water out of her skirt by this time, and brushed off some of the mud—clumsily, but with evident goodwill. “You did better for me once,” as he looked disparagingly at his handiwork.
“The time I cot your horse for you when you were in the boghole? Ah no, nonsense! I didn’t even try to brush the mud off you, because you were all mud, every bit of you, were you not? But would you look at us, talking over old times like this, and leaving poor Shab-ud-din to lie and groan!”
“Let me see to him, ma’am. It’s no job for you.”
“That it is, when he came by his fall trying to help me. What d’ye think now? his collar-bone. I’d say it was, and maybe an arm as well—and how in the wide world will we get him home?”
“If you’ll be good enough to leave it to me, ma’am—believe me, you must. It’s for my own sake——” shamefacedly. “It won’t do for my men to catch me talking privately with you. If you’ll mount and follow me, they shall bring the poor chap in.”
“Follow you?” her eyebrows went up slightly.
“If you don’t mind, ma’am. That’s the way here, you know, and as I was saying, I’m one of ’em now.”
With what she felt was exemplary meekness, Eveleen allowed the syce to mount her, and waited while her old acquaintance rode to meet the wild horsemen who formed his escort. They were returning in triumph, bringing with them several of the fugitive assailants, who bore every appearance of having been roughly handled. It occurred to her suddenly that to deliver over Khemi villagers to a band of Arabits was probably equivalent to sentencing them to death, and she called after Carthew—
“What was it made the villagers so angry? What were they after?”
“You were breakin’ down their canal, and they thought you meant destroyin’ it, ma’am. I’ll teach ’em to make a fuss about what their betters do in future.”
“Now, now, ’twas my fault,” said Eveleen. “They have got a good beating, by the look of them, so let them go, and please give them ten rupees from me, to pay for the damage.”
“It’s encouragin’ ’em to do it again——” he began.
“They won’t get the chance, or I’m much mistaken—knowing Major Ambrose as I do,” with a sigh. “No, ’twas just to show them I wasn’t meaning to do any harm.” She watched Carthew as he met his followers, had the prisoners ranged in front of him and harangued them impressively, then received money from an attendant who produced it from some mysterious hiding-place in his girdle, and distributed it among them. It made her smile to see that he shepherded his troopers carefully back, evidently suspecting that otherwise they might follow the pardoned criminals and force them to disgorge. Leaving two men to look after Shab-ud-din, he led the way again towards Qadirabad, Eveleen following him, with the syce at her stirrup, and the escort bringing up the rear. The sun was very hot by this time, Bajazet was tired and stumbled more than once, and Eveleen drooped in her saddle, trying to nerve herself in advance for the ordeal of meeting a justly incensed Richard. She met him sooner than she expected, in a cloud of dust, with an escort of Khemistan Horse. Carthew drew aside, with an admirable air of contempt alike for the service he had rendered and for its object. Richard was angry.
“What have you been doing with yourself now?” he demanded of his muddy and dishevelled wife.
“I got a fall, and this—this gentleman—something in the Khans’ Artillery he is—helped me up.”
“Sardar Sahib”—Richard rode a little nearer the disdainful figure of the rescuer—“I am deeply indebted to you. Accept my acknowledgments.”
“It is nothing, sahib. I happened by chance upon the spot.”
“Don’t let him go!” Eveleen whispered anxiously. “There were some villagers—I spoiled their canal or something—he paid ten rupees for me—we must give it him back.”
“I don’t carry piles of coin about with me, my dear, but I imagine he will trust me. Or have you already given him your whip in pledge?”
Horror-stricken, Eveleen realised that she had not recovered her gold-mounted whip—the gift of the hunt on her marriage. “It’s gone—lost!” she said despairingly. “I must go back—or another day, perhaps—and look for it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort. I understand, Sardar Sahib, there’s a small matter of money between us. It shall be sent to your quarters in an hour without fail. But I am still infinitely your debtor.”
“The obligation is on my side, sahib. May you be fortunate!” and with due interchange of compliments the two parties separated.
“This is the last time you’ll ride out without an escort, my dear!” said Richard pleasantly. “It’s clear you ain’t able to take care of yourself. That’s the Yankee chap who commands the Khans’ Artillery, I presume? How did he contrive to be on the spot so pat?”
“How would I know?” listlessly. “But it’s English he is—not American. I know him.”
“You have the most extraordinary set of acquaintances of any female I have ever met! He gives himself out as American—that’s all I know. Where have you seen him before?”
“He used to follow the hounds one season, a few years ago. ’Twas just whenPickwickwas coming out, and everybody called him Mr Winkle, for he’d turn up on the most hopeless crocks you ever saw, and as often on the ground as in the saddle. Some sort of attorney’s clerk he was—hunting up evidence or something, but it wasn’t much he got, unless he found it in the mud.”
“His riding has improved since then, evidently—or he rides better horses,” drily. “What became of him?”
“My dear Ambrose, how would I know? I did hear a rumour that he had got into some trouble and enlisted, but ’twas likely nothing but scandal.”
“And then got into some more trouble and deserted—eh?”
“Sure y’are very ready to belittle the poor fellow!” Eveleen turned upon her husband. “I suppose that’s the measure of the value you set upon your wife—the way you treat the man who’s just saved her life?”
“You had not told me the extent of the obligation, my dear. But the greater it is, the more careful you had better be to maintain the distance he has fixed between himself and us. The fellow is undoubtedly a deserter from our artillery—whether from the Bengal side or this I don’t know; the native princes are always ready to entertain ’em to instruct their troops. I have told you he passes himself off as a Yankee—that’s to prevent our making enquiries, of course, and perhaps also to evade the suspicions of his present employers. They would smell a rat at once did he show any desire for intercourse with the Agency. There’s no manner of doubt he’s a deserter.”
“Ambrose, you wouldn’t contemplate laying information against him?” anxiously.
“What do you take me for, my dear? No doubt it’s my duty, but as you have reminded me, the fellow has placed me under a profound obligation. If you’ll remember the fact yourself, and be content to pass him without acknowledgment should you meet, so much the better for him.”
Eveleen did not agree with this at all. The tone in which Richard spoke of the “profound obligation” was disagreeable, and the thought of cutting her rescuer dead was more so. But she was too much subdued and dispirited to embark on further wordy warfare just now, though she made her own resolutions privately. Richard, observing her unwonted meekness, drew flattering deductions from it, and improved the occasion by intimating that she would do well to relieve the Resident’s mind by promising to confine her rides within orthodox limits in future. But this was too much to ask, and when Colonel Bayard came out anxiously to meet the rescue expedition and enquire how it had sped, his solicitude did not meet with the gratitude it deserved, since he incautiously expressed the same hope. What was to happen if she felt shemustgo out for a gallop when she was bound by a promise not to? Eveleen demanded indignantly; and thus faced by the old problem of the immovable object and the irresistible force, Colonel Bayard wisely confined himself to laying it down, in the hearing of his staff, that in no case was she to leave the compound in future without either an escort or European attendance. This was galling, and she sought her own rooms in much depression of spirit. But the misfortunes of this unfortunate day were not yet at an end. Richard, who had accompanied her in a considerate silence which she would certainly not have maintained had their cases been reversed, suddenly found his tongue.
“There was a letter for you in thedâk—here it is. That brother of yours is honouring you, I presume. Why don’t the fellow learn to write? Such a fist I never saw—nor anybody else neither. Here this letter has been up to Sahar and down to Bab-us-Sahel again—and all his fault.”
“The Delanys think more of fighting than of writing,” said Eveleen succinctly. It sounded so neat that she felt quite cheered.
“No doubt. I’ll wager anything the fellow wants more money, or he wouldn’t have written now. If he does, you had better leave it to me to answer him.”
“I’ll not do anything of the sort. He don’t want money, I’m certain, and if he did, he wouldn’t take yours.”
“H’m!” said Richard Ambrose infuriatingly.
“I tell you he wouldn’t look at it—not if you offered him millions, and brought it to him on your bended knees!”
“That”—with the strict moderation she found so trying—“is hardly likely. Well, my dear, I’ll leave you to enjoy your letter.”
But Ketty had something to say first, and she said it at length, as she removed her mistress’s mud-stained garments and disclosed an extensive system of bruises. In vain did Eveleen assure her that she had been worse bruised many a time after a day’s hunting, the handmaid remained of opinion that “Madam-sahibs no done ride that way.” As a Parthian shot, even as she with drew by command, she expressed the hope that Master would stop these rides, but by this time Eveleen was established on her couch in a deliciously cool muslin wrapper, sipping a cup of tea, and preparing to break the seals of her letter.
Alas, alas! Brian was in trouble still. By the most unfortunate chance in the world, at this very last moment the brother officer on whom he had relied to relieve him—at a price—of an elaborate fowling-piece had been invalided home, and was selling his own guns, and no other purchaser could be found. The sum at issue was a paltry one—three hundred rupees would cover it, but without those three hundred rupees Brian could not appear before Sir Harry Lennox and proudly declare himself free of debt. Simply and naturally he applied to the helper who had never yet failed him. Surely Evie’s husband could not refuse to advance so small a sum if she asked it? He might cut up a bit rusty, but it would only be for a minute or two. Alas! Richard’s wont was not merely to let the sun go down upon his wrath, but to cover that wrath up carefully to keep it warm for the night—so Eveleen had once declared aghast, in her astonishment at a method so unlike the quickly passing tempests to which she was accustomed. And moreover, even if she could have appealed to him two hours ago, it was absolutely impossible after the last words that had passed between them. Even for Brian’s sake—rather, perhaps, especially for Brian’s sake—she could not expose herself and him to the certainty of a refusal couched as Richard Ambrose would couch it. But something must be done, for at the end of his letter Brian supplied an additional reason:—
“So do your best for me, my dear girl, for I ambruk entirely, as old Tim the huntsman used to say. If you don’t, you will lose more than you bargain for—this is a dead secret. I hear old Sir Harry is bound for Kaymistaun before long, so stump up the tin somehow if you have any fancy for seeing“Your despairing brother,“Brian Delany.”
“So do your best for me, my dear girl, for I ambruk entirely, as old Tim the huntsman used to say. If you don’t, you will lose more than you bargain for—this is a dead secret. I hear old Sir Harry is bound for Kaymistaun before long, so stump up the tin somehow if you have any fancy for seeing
“Your despairing brother,
“Brian Delany.”
But how? Eveleen’s first thought was to apply to Colonel Bayard, but the thought was relinquished as soon as formed. He would press upon her three thousand rupees instead of three hundred if he had it, but he would certainly make Richard a party to the transaction—and then it would be at an end. She became as despairing as Brian himself as she ran over the names of the various men with whom she came in contact. Some of them would be unable to raise the money, having solved the problem of existing on chits eked out by a judicious distribution of their pay as it came in; some would be so proper that they would tell Richard at once; others would hold over her the threat of telling him, and do so at last. Clearly there was nothing to be done in that way. She must sell something—or, at any rate, get an advance on something, and that not from the Soucars who acted as bankers to the Agency, but from some firm without official connections. The idea sounded hopeful. Her own simple rural life had known nothing of pawnbrokers, but she had relatives in Dublin who, in common with the rest of their circle, were wont to “deposit” their ancestral jewellery—at the bank, it was politely understood—save during the brief Castle season, while the family plate was “stored” in like manner except when required for a rare dinner-party. She must certainly pawn something, since the few odd coins in her own possession, if hunted up from all the nooks and corners where they somehow found hiding-places, might possibly amount to five rupees, but more probably would not.
But what could she pawn? She had so little jewellery that Richard would be sure to notice it if any particular ornament was not worn for some time, and none of it was very costly. She knew little about values, but she feared it might need all her trinkets to serve as security for three hundred rupees. All save one, that is. Impulsively she rose, and going to her jewel-case, took out the turquoise disc. To the Western eye it was not particularly attractive, but the Oriental mind attached to it a sentimental worth. She recalled the day when she had worn it at Bombay to show Brian, who was staying with her, and the awe and reverence with which his bearer, a Northern man, had viewed it. His eyes were glued to it from the moment he first distinguished it amid the laces on her breast, and when she took it off and handed it to Brian to examine, the servant retreated a little, as though either afraid or consciously unworthy to approach. When his master demanded what was the matter, the man explained that the stone was undoubtedly the Seal of Solomon, bearing the Name at which all the demons trembled, and endowing its owner with power to compel their services. Nothing more was needed to make the brother and sister waste the whole evening, and all the sealing-wax in the house, in trying to produce a satisfactory impression, entirely without success. The bearer, appealed to with ribaldry by his master, pointed out that the markings on the stone might by the eye of faith be interpreted as forming the required letters. It was the seal itself, not the impression, that signified, he said, and to cut it, as the sahib suggested, would be impious in the extreme, since it already bore all that was necessary. He ended by adjuring Eveleen to keep it safely, and pointed out the value which must have been attached to it by the former possessor who had suspended it from its strong steel chain.
“Well, it’s not much use to me!” said Eveleen. “Not being Solomon, I can’t wear a ring the size of a soup-plate, and Ambrose don’t like to see it round my neck. It may be very nice and magical, as your man says, but what good’s that when I don’t know how it works?”
“Ah, sure the thing will come in some time,” said Brian vaguely. “Let me have a try with it. Rubbing, now—that’s what it wants, ain’t it? I’ll give it a rubbing it won’t forget in a hurry!”
But no amount of rubbing produced any effective manifestation, and now the stone was to be made useful in another way. Any pawnbroker would surely be willing to advance three hundred rupees on such a treasure. But the difficulty was to find him. Eveleen could not quite imagine herself scouring the Qadirabad Bazar for a pawnbroker—especially with a mounted escort at her heels—and she did not like the idea of trusting any of the servants. Then came a happy thought.
“Tom Carthew, of course! A disreputable acquaintance, Ambrose may call him if he likes, but who better can there be to help me do a disreputable thing? Tom Carthew’s the man!”
Theescort must have formed a high idea of the courage of European ladies when Eveleen led the way the next morning in the direction of the very canal where, as they had learnt from the syce, she had barely escaped with her life from the hands of infuriated villagers. But this time she had no intention of continuing Bajazet’s education—so alarmingly interrupted. What she wanted was to come across Carthew again, on his way back from his artillery practice. She took great credit to herself for refraining from sending to him directly, since Richard had said that would injure him, but it is to be feared that at the back of her mind was the determination to do so if necessary. Time was pressing, and Brian must have his money. Happily, however, it was not necessary, for Tamas Sahib came in sight with his escort while she was still well on the Qadirabad side of the canal. Both parties stopped short, and while Eveleen was hesitating whether to ride on towards Carthew or send a messenger to summon him to speak to her, one of his men detached himself from the rest and rode towards her party. But he made no attempt to speak to her, addressing himself instead to the Daffadar in command of the escort, who went forward a pace or two to meet him. The messenger delivered over something long and thin, wrapped in a silk handkerchief, and when it was handed to Eveleen with the Topkhana Daroga’s salams, she found it was the lost whip. But there was no time to waste in rejoicing, and she turned boldly to the Daffadar.
“Let the messenger bear my salams to the Daroga Sahib, and say that I beg him to approach and receive my thanks.”
The man looked surprised and doubtful, but her tone and bearing were so carelessly assured that there was no room for misunderstanding. He repeated her words to the messenger, and when he had ridden back and reported them, Carthew came forward in his turn, with evident reluctance.
“Glad to have got you your whip, ma’am,” he said, with the bluffness that covers embarrassment. “The villagers had it hidden, but I made ’em give it up. And now, if you’ll excuse me goin’ back——”
“But I want you to do something for me first,” Eveleen broke in, anticipating a hasty withdrawal at the close of the sentence. “Can you tell me of a pawnbroker?”
“A pawnbroker, ma’am?” Measureless astonishment was in his tone.
“Yes, a pawnbroker—or a moneylender, at any rate. I want to raise some money—at once.”
“But—the Major——” he stammered.
“I don’t want Major Ambrose to know anything about it. It’s for my brother—you’ll have seen him at home?”
“And a fine young gentleman he was,” mechanically. “But you don’t understand, ma’am—it ain’t the thing——”
“I tell you I must have it. If you won’t help me I must ask the servants. But”—with the air of one making a huge concession—“I don’t mind handing the jewellery over to you, so that you can get the money as if for yourself.”
“But the look of it, ma’am! How could I put the money in your hands? The Major must become aware——”
“Very well, then—tell me where the man lives, or show me the way there, and I’ll do it myself.”
“You can’t, ma’am, believe me. You don’t seem to see——”
“I see what must be done, and that I’ll have to do it if you won’t. That’s plain, ain’t it?”
The unhappy Carthew pondered the matter. “Thereisa fellow,” he said reluctantly at last, “that has a garden somewhere this way. If he should so happen to be there to-day, it would be better than goin’ to his house in the Bazar. Have you the—the goods with you, ma’am?”
“That I have!” She handed him the little parcel from her saddle-pocket. “And it must be three hundred rupees, you’ll remember—no less, and I want to send it to Poonah.”
“A letter of credit,” he murmured vaguely. “And these—this is your own, ma’am?”
“Every bit my own—given me by the General. Major Ambrose has nothing to do with it. Then I’ll be riding about here, if you’ll bring me the money or the letter or whatever it is?”
“If I might send it to the Residency——?” feebly, but he was wax in her hands. The old tradition of the hunting-field was too strong. She scorned the suggestion.
“Didn’t you tell me yourself it wouldn’t do? No, just give it me here, and we’ll be done with it.”
What the Daffadar and his men thought when they saw the Daroga ride back to his escort, and found themselves following at a discreet distance, did not appear. Eveleen was determined to keep her emissary in sight, lest he should make use of the narrow lanes between the garden walls to take to his heels, and afterwards return the jewel with regrets. She had no particular confidence in him—merely a lordly feeling that since he was here, he must do what was required of him, and be well looked after while he did it. He had always been inclined to shirk his fences, and her kindness to him after the boghole disaster was a debt of honour, since it was purely at her incitement he had dared the leap. She saw him halt at a gateway and demand admittance, then ride in, and she began to walk Bajazet up and down, keeping a wary eye on the gate meanwhile, the escort following her movements faithfully. Sooner than she expected she saw Carthew emerging again, and rode forward to meet him.
“You won’t tell me you have not made him do it? You must think of somebody else, then.”
“It ain’t that. The old chap seems uncommon pleased, that’s a fact. But he wants to know how you got hold of the thing—afraid he might be accused of stealin’ it, I suppose”—as wrath flashed from Eveleen’s eyes—“and if it’s brought you good luck since you had it?”
“What in the world would that matter to him?”
“I don’t know, ma’am—unless he’s afraid of keepin’ it in his house if it’s been unlucky with you.”
“That it hasn’t, then. Why, didn’t I get married since it was given me?” If there was irony in her tone, it did not reach Carthew, who grasped eagerly at the idea.
“The very thing, and no mistake! And how did the General get the thing, do you know, ma’am?”
“’Twas at Seringapatam—that’s all I know. He may have killed the man that had it, or he may have bought it from some one that did.”
“That ought to be all right. You’ll get the money, ma’am, never fear! The letter to be in favour of Lieutenant Delany, I presume?” She nodded. “Oh, and I was forgettin’. The old fellow seems half inclined to make you an offer for the thing outright—so much money down. Would you choose to accept of it?”
“That I won’t! I wouldn’t part with it on any account. Tell him I’ll redeem it the first chance I get. Ah, and listen now. If it’s luck he’s thinking of, tell him the luck’s mine, because the seal belongs to me, and if he loses it—better say ‘loses,’ not ‘sells’—I’ll keep the luck, and he’ll have the thing without it. That’ll frighten him.”
“As you please, ma’am,” and off he went again, to return after a time with a document which was naturally quite unintelligible to Eveleen, but which he assured her was a letter of credit, drawn up in due form, on a Poonah firm with which her brother was sure to be well acquainted. “And I was to tell you, ma’am, that if you should wish to sell the trinket at any time, he made no doubt of being able to find you a purchaser at a very handsome price, but he would advise you not to let the chance go by, as the offer might not remain open long.”
“What does he mean? That sounds like a threat,” said Eveleen quickly. “Well, I’m not going to sell it, and I won’t be threatened by any old pawnbroker in Qadirabad. You told him that, I hope?”
“I warned him—that I did,” but there was something uneasy and yet helpless in Carthew’s voice which made her look at him. She waited a moment to see if he would say anything more, but in vain.
“Well, I am greatly obliged to you, Mr Carthew. I don’t know how I’d have ever managed by myself. I’ll tell my brother how much he’s indebted to you. Good morning!”
It was not an age when ladies shook hands with all and sundry, and Carthew did not expect it. He accepted his dismissal with something—it might almost seem—of relief, and the two parties separated.
As she made her way home with the precious document in the saddle-pocket, Eveleen realised the need of getting it to Brian as soon as possible. His letter to her had consumed so much time in its wanderings up and down the river that in any case he must run things very fine. If all her trouble was not to be in vain, she must send the letter of credit off by the steamer which left for Bab-us-Sahel that evening, and she groaned, for she was little more of a penman than Brian himself. But it was consoling to feel that he would make no complaint of brevity on her part so long as the enclosure was satisfactory, and the letter was duly despatched, with the assurance that not even for him could she ask Ambrose for more money, but her dear boy might be sure that for his sake she would sell, if necessary, anything but her wedding-ring. The letter once gone, she was quite happy, knowing nothing of the whirlwind of talk her proceedings had let loose in the servants’ quarters. As so often happens, Richard, the other person most concerned, knew nothing of it either, and being much engrossed in the duties of his new position as head of the Agency in Colonel Bayard’s absence, did not even notice the excitement that prevailed.
It was not until some weeks later that Eveleen heard of her pendant again. The hot weather was coming on, and her daylight rides had ceased perforce. Only in the early morning hours was exertion possible, and even then it cost her an effort that astonished her. The year before she had been at Mahabuleshwar, so that this was her first hot weather in the plains, and the blazing sun and relentless heat filled her with a kind of terror, enhanced by the suddenness of the transition from comparative coolness and night frosts. She was lying listlessly on a bamboo couch one day, unable to do anything—for the least exertion made her pant painfully—intent only on getting through the dreadful hours somehow until evening brought some relief, when Richard came in. It was an unusual hour for him to appear, for he stuck to the office as rigorously as his chief had done, and he took her by surprise. For once he beheld her without the innocent make-believe of wellbeing and energy—quite unconscious on her part—which had served hitherto to hide from him how much the heat was trying her, and she saw his face harden suddenly into decision. But he spoke of something quite different, with an assumption of bluff humour which did not suit him at all. Richard Ambrose was not a humorous person. Like the legendary Scotchman, he joked “wi’ deeficculty.”
“I fancy you won’t feel inclined to raise money on your jewellery again in a hurry, my dear!” Her eyes, accustomed to the dim light, could see him distinctly as he groped across the bare shaded room, whereas he was only able to distinguish the tell-tale inertness of the white figure on the couch. As always, his voice and presence acted as a tonic, and Eveleen sat up.
“Y’are greatly pleased with yourself about something, Ambrose! Will you tell me what it is?”
“Oh, you shall hear it, I promise you!” He dropped into a chair, but found it impossible to go on wearing the mask. “What possessed you to go and borrow money from one of these people here?” he demanded wrathfully, “And through that fellow the Daroga, too! Have you no sense of what is suitable in your position?”
A challenge to fight would never find Eveleen wanting. “My position?” she repeated slowly. “My position was that I wanted the money, and had to get it somehow.”
“Since you were ashamed to ask your husband for it. Oh, don’t be afraid; I can guess what it was for. That brother of yours again, of course! If he ain’t ruined, it won’t be his loving sister’s fault.”
“As it happens,” with great dignity, “’twas to save him from ruin, and I’m proud to have done it.”
“Of course! It don’t occur to you, I presume, that what the fellow wants is a regular hard time, under a commander who’ll keep his nose to the grindstone, instead of peacocking on the Staff? With you eternally helping him out of every scrape he may choose to get into, he hasn’t a chance. Well, don’t say I haven’t warned you!”
“But sure that’s the very thing I’m doing—helping him go where he’ll be well looked after. Helping him with the money, I mean,” she added in a panic, fearing she had betrayed herself. But Richard, to do him justice, was not suspicious.
“Have it your own way, my dear. You have your own way of doing things, and I suppose you’ll stick to it. Of course it was too much to expect you to consider me in your anxiety to serve your brother?”
“I did consider you,” bluntly. “Sure I’d have asked you for the money if I hadn’t.”
“You wouldn’t have got it, I assure you.”
“Well, didn’t I save you the unpleasantness of refusing?”
“I wonder you didn’t take that as a reason for robbing my desk! It don’t matter, of course, that every tongue in the Agency and in the Fort is buzzing over my wife and myself, and inventing new scandals every day?”
“Oh, people will talk!” with superb detachment. “If there’s nothing handy to talk about, they’ll make it up. The Agency people know there’s no harm about us, anyhow, and as for the Fort, I’d like to know what business it is of theirs?”
“That’s it, precisely. You have poked your nose into Khemistan politics, my dear. You may have discovered by this time that there are two parties among the Khans—old Gul Ali’s, which wants peace with the English, and the one headed by young Kamal-ud-din, which would like to turn us out neck and crop. It has worried me no end lately to find Kamal-ud-din and his set all so uncommonly cock-a-hoop, and I can tell by Bayard’s letters that he’s worried too. Well, to-day the reason came out, when I saw Kamal-ud-din in durbar wearing that blue dinner-plate of yours. I thought I couldn’t be mistaken, but I made up my mind to come home and ask you before saying anything, in case it was merely the fellow to it. I fancy they were rather disappointed that I didn’t kick up a dust, but afterwards they invited me into the garden to see a new pavilion they are building. All the young Khans and their hangers-on were there, and I saw they were egging on little Hafiz-Ullah to say something. Presently he burst out, with a nasty little giggle, ‘The Istunt Sahib has not congratulated my cousin on recovering the talisman of his house.’ Kamal-ud-din was smirking so vilely that I couldn’t doubt any longer the thing was yours, and that you had let me in for something unpleasant——”
“I don’t see why. They might have stolen it,” broke in Eveleen.
“And then directed my attention to it, while you had said nothing of losing it? No, my dear, pardon me; I am beginning to know your ways by this time. I took a good look at the object, and said in a bored sort of voice, ‘Curious! I could almost believe it had a look of a jewel that belonged to my wife, and that I bade her get rid of, because English people don’t wear such things.’ They were a good bit taken aback at that, but one of the hangers-on put in, ‘Yes, it came from the Istunt Sahib’s house.’ I looked him down and said—precious sternly, I promise you,—‘You mean his Highness has bought it from the goldsmith Mrs Ambrose sold it to. I hope he didn’t let him make too much on the transaction.’ They saw there was no change to be had out of me—the Munshi told me afterwards they had their story all pat of your having sent the thing to Kamal-ud-din with your salams, and if I had shown any sign of anger or surprise, out it would have come—and began to offer explanations in a hurry. The talisman had been carried off fifty years ago by a captain of the guard who quarrelled with the Khans of that day, and contrived to escape with his life. He was heard of afterwards as a soldier of fortune in South India, but no one knew what became of him and the stone at last. I was able to supply the rest of the story, of course, and they were grateful, having a lurking doubt whether they had got the right thing after all. It seems the stone brings good luck to its possessor, which is the reason of all the secret jubilation that has been worrying me. When they had said all they had to say, I smiled superior, and remarked what a satisfaction it was to Mrs Ambrose and myself to have been the means of restoring such an interesting relic to his Highness’s family, and so came away.”
“But we have not restored it to them, and we won’t! I never sold it—only pawned it.”
“Precisely what I thought, my dear. That’s what I meant by saying that you wouldn’t pawn your jewellery again in a hurry.”
“But he’s not going to keep it?”
“Pardon me, he is—very much so.”
“You gave away my pendant to this creature?”
“Must I remind you, my dear, that what is yours is mine?” This was literally true in those days, but it was a sore point with almost every woman, and tactful husbands did not insist upon it overmuch. Richard Ambrose realised this immediately. “Not that I would press that for a moment—you know me better. But you would not wish to detain another person’s property?”
“It’s not his property—it’s mine. I came by it honestly, and if you think the General didn’t, you’d better say so! I won’t have my things given away without so much as ‘by your leave’!”
“Now pray don’t work yourself up about nothing at all. You shall have another brooch—or whatever you like to call it—that you can wear, as you couldn’t this, and with better stones. No doubt the General came by it honestly, but it’s certain it was stolen property to start with. Now the rightful owner has got it back, that’s all.”
“Well, he’s not got the luck that goes with it!” triumphantly. “I warned the old thief of a pawnbroker that if he parted with the stone I’d keep that. And so I will!”
“Be quiet!” said Richard sternly, for her voice had risen. “Do you want to be murdered? That’s what will happen if you talk like this.” She looked at him aghast, and he proceeded to improve the occasion, pleased with the effect he had produced. “Now listen to me, my dear. It’s about time you left off behaving in this childish way, and settled down like a reasonable being. Since I brought you here you have given more trouble than all the other women in the place put together. If the Resident wasn’t soft to the point of folly where a lady is concerned, you would have been sent down the river again—or even back to Bombay—in double quick time. But because he’s a fool on this point, there’s no need I should be. I tell you plainly, I have no fancy for being stabbed or poisoned purely for the sake of breaking your luck, but that’s what will happen——”
He stopped perforce, for Eveleen had flung herself upon him with a shriek. “Ambrose! you don’t mean it? They wouldn’t hurt you because of my silliness? I’ll write—I’ll go and tell them——”
“My dear! Pray”—he freed himself with some difficulty—“do try to exercise self-control. Nothing will happen to either of us if you will only behave with ordinary prudence. The matter is happily ended now, and needs no intervention on your part. But if I had not belittled the talisman—had I shown any desire to regain it—we should all probably have had to fight for our lives to-night. I have instilled into Kamal-ud-din’s mind a doubt of its value which it will take some time to repair. The stone is where it belongs; be content with that. And if I may venture to suggest it, think before you act in future.”
“Oh, I will, I will! I’ll think forhours. But why would you say we’d be fighting for our lives? Who with?”
“The Khans and their Arabits, of course. Who else?”
“Ambrose! d’ye mean we might be besieged here—actually a siege—and have adventures, like the ladies who were carried off into Ethiopia? Why, you talked as if ’twas a punishment bringing me up here, and sure I’d rather be here than any other place in the world!”
He looked at her hopelessly. “Sometimes I really despair of you, my dear. But most of those ladies’ husbands had been killed, if I remember rightly, so perhaps that’s the reason—— No, pray! it is too hot for demonstrations of such fervour. I beg your pardon—— There!”
Thus rudely checked in throwing herself upon him again, Eveleen dropped back upon the couch. “It’s no use!” she said in a small miserable voice. “Whatever I do—nothing will please you. And you say these cruel things, breaking my heart entirely. What will I do? what can I do?” she faced him fiercely. “And I’d lie down and let you walk over me if ’twould give you a moment’s pleasure! Will you tell me what I’ll do? Don’t sit there like a graven image with the toothache and look at me as if I was off my head!”
“Sometimes I think you are!” the words were on Richard’s lips, but some feeling of compunction made him choke them back. He had the advantage over his wife that he did not always say what he thought. But he looked physically and mentally exhausted as he lifted his hand slowly. “Pray, my dear! But the fault is mine. I should not have kept you up here so long. You are overstrained; I fear an attack of fever.” She gazed at him in astonishment, almost suspicion. “If you really wish to please me——”
“Oh, I do, I do!” she assured him fervently.
“Then you will go down the river by the next steamer. I asked Gibbons t’other day whether his wife would receive you in her bungalow at Bab-us-Sahel, and he assures me she’ll welcome you heartily. There in the sea-breezes you will recover your calmness of mind—I trust.”
“But sure I don’t know Mrs Gibbons!” with dilated eyes.
“What does that matter? She is an excellent woman, most kind and motherly—everybody’s friend.”
“But what will I do there?”
“My dear, how can I say? What do other ladies do? Engage in useful and elegant feminine occupations, I presume. You will be able to show me the results——”
“But d’ye mean you won’t be there?”
“How could I? My work keeps me here. But I shall—er—hope to pay you a visit—perhaps more than one——”
“Major Ambrose,” tragically, “will you never under stand that I didn’t marry you and come to India to be poked away in other people’s bungalows like a bit of old furniture? Why, if ’twas only to torment you——”
“It don’t occur to you, my dear, that I might desire a little respite? That’s a joke!” he added hurriedly.
“You may well say so! Are y’ not ashamed of yourself?”
“I admit I ought to be. Here I suggest going to considerable trouble, and some expense, to establish you in comfort away from this place, where no European female could exist when the hot weather is at its height, and you receive it as an insult. What more can I say?” He rose.
Eveleen was after him in a moment, twisting him round to face her. “Ah, now, don’t you know that when you speak to me like that you can turn my heart in your fingers? Sure I’m the most reasonable being in the world if you’ll only remember to consult me before making these grand arrangements of yours instead of after!”
“Indeed!” drily. “And is there any likelihood that you would fall in with ’em?”
“Not the slightest! But I’m doing it now.”