“Don’t quarrel with my stationery,” he said. “The General has aneconomy fiton, and has locked up all the writing-paper, and I must send you a few lines. Why would I always be writing to you about camels, I wonder? but believe me, I’d give a year of my life for you to have seen the things that have left me near dead with laughing at this moment. Three hundred and fifty men of the Queen’s —th mounted on camels, two to a camel, and camels and men all strangers to one another. But they were not mounted long. I give you my word, the whole country was speckled over with spots of scarlet and dun, wrestling in every variety of contention, and whether the language of the soldiers or of the camels was the worst, I would not like to say. And there was poor old Colonel Plummer looking at the scene with the liveliest disgust I ever saw depicted on a human phiz—he was in the Dragoons once, you may remember. But he plucked up heart and plunged into the fray, reconciling his men to their mounts, and the camels to one another, till he got ’em into some sort of order, and he is now putting his fantastic force through a few simple evolutions. He’s a great old sportsman—almost as great as my old lad, who is near bent double with rheumatism when he crawls out of his little tent to mount his horse, and unstiffens bit by bit as he rides, till you’d swear he was the model for a statue of the Duke. A fine set we are, I assure you—with our camel-men and our two howitzers drawn by camels, and our detachment of horse to frighten off the desert banditti from our slow-moving column. We have provisions for a fortnight, water for four days, our tents—common soldiers’ tents—and nothing in the world else. Won’t we be a sight to make the ladies stare when we come through this?”
“Don’t quarrel with my stationery,” he said. “The General has aneconomy fiton, and has locked up all the writing-paper, and I must send you a few lines. Why would I always be writing to you about camels, I wonder? but believe me, I’d give a year of my life for you to have seen the things that have left me near dead with laughing at this moment. Three hundred and fifty men of the Queen’s —th mounted on camels, two to a camel, and camels and men all strangers to one another. But they were not mounted long. I give you my word, the whole country was speckled over with spots of scarlet and dun, wrestling in every variety of contention, and whether the language of the soldiers or of the camels was the worst, I would not like to say. And there was poor old Colonel Plummer looking at the scene with the liveliest disgust I ever saw depicted on a human phiz—he was in the Dragoons once, you may remember. But he plucked up heart and plunged into the fray, reconciling his men to their mounts, and the camels to one another, till he got ’em into some sort of order, and he is now putting his fantastic force through a few simple evolutions. He’s a great old sportsman—almost as great as my old lad, who is near bent double with rheumatism when he crawls out of his little tent to mount his horse, and unstiffens bit by bit as he rides, till you’d swear he was the model for a statue of the Duke. A fine set we are, I assure you—with our camel-men and our two howitzers drawn by camels, and our detachment of horse to frighten off the desert banditti from our slow-moving column. We have provisions for a fortnight, water for four days, our tents—common soldiers’ tents—and nothing in the world else. Won’t we be a sight to make the ladies stare when we come through this?”
That was the last news from the column for nearly three weeks, though messengers still arrived from the main body, which was encamped about Shahbaz Khan’s fortress of Bidi—thus holding his family hostage, though this was not stated, in case of any attempt at treachery on his part. But there was no call to dash into the desert and rescue Sir Harry and his force, and even the tongue of rumour was silent in face of his daring move. Then at last there came a summons from Captain Franks to Eveleen. He had been warned by an express messenger to start at once for a wooding-station about thirty miles down the river, there to pick up Colonel Bayard and Major Ambrose and take them on to Qadirabad. If Mrs Ambrose wished to go too, would she kindly lose no time? Mrs Ambrose was at the landing-stage little more than an hour after receiving the message, and found everything in a bustle, horses being embarked in flat-bottomed boats, which theAsteroidwas to tow, and the troops to whom they belonged crowded on board the vessel herself. There did not seem to be an inch of room to spare anywhere.
“Are your horses to go, ma’am?” asked Captain Franks distractedly, as he welcomed her to her tent, and in the same breath bade the mate beware lest the lubbers on board that flat should knock all the ship’s paint off.
Once more Eveleen showed herself triumphantly reasonable. “No, I’ll borrow,” she said, and told the syces to go back. It was a very disturbed night that lay before her, for even when theAsteroidcast off at last, the human cargo squabbled grievously over its scanty accommodation. But in the morning the trials of the past hours were forgotten when she was invited up to the paddle-box to look out over the plain covered with stunted trees which extended southwards, and watch for the arrival of the envoys. TheAsteroidreached the meeting-place first, and it was not till some hours later that a moving cloud of dust in the distance heralded the appearance of mounted men at the far end of the clearing which was due to the insatiable demands of the steamers for wood. There were three men perched on camels, looking perilously high up and absurdly unsafe, and a small body of horse.
“Sure it can’t be them!” cried Eveleen, as the camels knelt and the three riders dismounted and limped towards the primitive wharf. “These are blacks—not Europeans.”
“Never seen a European fresh from a desert trip before, ma’am?” asked Captain Franks jovially. “Look at their hair and eyes, and you’ll see.”
“It is, it is. And my brother too. Sure it’s a nice little family party you’ll be carrying this voyage, captain!” and she waved her hand gaily to the advancing three. They ought to have been pleased when they recognised the white figure welcoming them from the paddle-box, but it was quite obvious they were not. Richard Ambrose pulled up suddenly, and said something to Colonel Bayard, who shook his head, and Brian gave a subdued yell, and tried to hide behind the other two.
“I don’t want female society!” he wailed. “I want baths, and baths, and baths, and clean things, and to lie in the shade with a cheroot and a bottle of beer and all the saltpetre in Khemistan to cool it. Why would a man have to talk and behave pretty when he don’t want to? Major Ambrose, sir”—imitating the General at his gruffest—“pray why don’t you keep that wife of yours in better order?”
“My misfortune!” responded Richard briefly, as he came up the gangway. “No, my dear, pray don’t touch me”—warding Eveleen off as she ran down to the deck. “I will come to you again presently. At this moment I am not fit to speak to anybody. I did not expect to see you—or any lady—on board here.”
“I am to blame, I fear,” said Colonel Bayard, evidently calling to mind that last conversation. “But I own”—with a gentle reproof which would have stricken most women to the heart—“I had not looked to find my anxieties doubled by the honour of Mrs Ambrose’s company on our expedition.”
“Ah, now, won’t you say the pleasure?” Eveleen called after him, as the three were met and eagerly welcomed by the officers on board, and disappeared with them.
“Seems almost as if they weren’t expecting to see you, ma’am,” said Captain Franks, in a puzzled voice.
“That’s just it. They never thought I’d come. But that only shows they don’t know me—eh?” said Eveleen cheerfully.
But she did not return to the paddle-box, choosing rather to sit at her tent-door, on the little piece of deck that was sacred to her use, in case Richard should be in the same mind when he returned. Not that she would mind Captain Franks—or any one else hearing anything he had to say; but if the poor man was determined to make an exhibition of himself, ’twas kinder to let him do it in private. It was also kinder, no doubt, to take the initiative in the conversation when he appeared, that he might have another moment in which to recover his temper.
“That’s better—a thousand times better!” she was looking at him critically. “You were quite coffee-coloured—black coffee—just now. Now y’are tea-coloured, and I suppose the tea will get weaker and weaker till you have your natural complexion again? And it’s nice to see you looking respectable and like yourself. Did you—ah, now, did you really come back in those rags expecting I’d mend them?”
“Not quite such a fool!” snapped Richard. He was really very angry, that was clear, and any sense of guilt Eveleen might have felt evaporated promptly. “Is it quite beyond you to understand that I am exceedingly displeased to find you here?”
“Didn’t I tell you I’d come the next time without asking your leave? Sure y’ought have known.”
“Perhaps I ought. At any rate, pray believe that if it had been possible to go back and put you on shore again it should have been done.”
“But there’s no difficulty in believing that!” innocently.
He restrained himself with an effort. “Can’t you realise that were you a child, these mad escapades would be viewed more leniently? But for a female of what should be a discreet age——”
“Discreet?” she snatched the word out of his mouth. “When I behave the way you’d consider suitable to a female of discreet age I’ll be dead and gone! Maybe you’ll be satisfied with me then, Major Ambrose!”
“Not I. I shall be dead long before that,” sardonically, and Eveleen screamed with laughter. Perhaps it was as well that Brian came round the tent into the reserved space at the moment.
“Sorry to interrupt your private conversation,” he said, “but positively there’s nowhere else to go.”
“It’s not private,” cried Eveleen, still overcome with mirth—“except on Major Ambrose’s part. He’s just made a joke, and he never will do that when any one else is there, though he knows how I delight in his jokes. But sit down, Brian boy, and tell me all about everything, while Ambrose thinks of some more jokes for the next time we are alone together. Did y’ever get to Sultankot, now?”
“We did,” responded Brian promptly. “But nobody else ever will.”
“Do you tell me that, now? And why?”
“Because we blew it up. I wonder wouldn’t you have heard the noise at Sahar. Sure we were all bothered in our hearing for days after.”
“But what a thing to go all that way to capture the place, and then blow it up! Was the garrison inside?”
“All the garrison there was—which was none. No, ’twas a mighty fine place for all the young Khans to escape to, and talk big about what they’d do when they met the General. But when they got his card, and his message that he proposed to do himself the honour of paying ’em a visit—why, they were not at home.”
“But tell us now how it happened. Did you see them running away?”
“Not the least taste of a sight of one of ’em. ’Twas the most mysterious, queerest thing in the world—Ambrose will tell you so too”—Richard grunted. “’Twas like coming suddenly on the stage of a theatre without any actors. There we stood—Sir Harry and the staff—on the edge of the sandhills. Down below us—like as if ’twas in a cup, and near enough to touch with your finger—was the fortress, beautifully built, all the towers and ramparts so clean-cut you’d say it had only been finished the night before, and the morning sun shining on it in a sort of romantic way made you think of something in Scott. There! I meant to ask Keeling what it was—he knows Scott off by heart—and I forgot. The road down the cliff was full in sight, and there were the troops moving down into the valley, the camels’ feet making no sound, the soldiers struck with awe, or something of the sort. At any rate they were all dumb too, but ’twas ‘Eyes right!’ with every man as he came out of the shadow of the cliff, as if they were approaching the saluting-point at a review. I never saw anything like it. And still there was no sound from the fort, no sign of a human being even, while the troops formed up and advanced—no answer to our summons. So at last we found the gates open, the cannon all freshly loaded and primed, huge quantities of powder, grain enough to feed an army, wells of good water—and not a soul anywhere! ’Twas like an enchanted place. You longed for the sound of a bugle to break the spell, even if it meant a rush of the enemy upon us out of hiding. But there was no enemy to rush out; they had all made themselves scarce a few hours before, when they saw we were really coming, and it seemed we had nothing to do but leave our friend Shahbaz in possession, and come back. But the General didn’t see it that way. He likes Shahbaz all right, but he had a shrewd notion that his heart wouldn’t precisely have been broke if we had all been swallowed up in the desert, and that he’d be just as well without a strong place like that all to himself—so difficult to get at, too. So Sultankot was sentenced to be destroyed, and I will say this for Shahbaz, that he took it like a sportsman! We had uncommon fun doing the business, for we plugged shell into the place—just so that we mightn’t have dragged the guns all that way for nothing—till it reached the powder, and pop! Shahbaz was as busy as any of us, taking his turn to lay the gun, and we all shouted and laughed like mad, while the General stood by, grieving over the place like an old prophet in spectacles, because it had taken so much trouble to build, and the builder must have been so pleased with his job. It’s the wonderful old chap he is! Y’ought have seen him on the way there, Evie—coming straight from writing his endless letters with his hands all crippled to turning out Her Majesty’s Europeans to drag the guns up the sandhills that were too much for the camels. They run ’em up one steep place of a thousand feet or so in five minutes, all joking and cheering, and old Harry dashing the briny drops from his manly eyes, and swearing he loved the British soldier more than any man on earth. Where the ground was not so steep we used teams of sixty men and fourteen camels to each gun, and got ’em up like winkin’. The men turned the least bit rusty on the way back, and I don’t wonder at it, after all they had gone through,—but he can do anything with ’em. Y’ought have heard ’em cheer him when he went for a Madras Sapper who was pretending to make a road for the guns—knocked him down, took his spade from him and set to work himself, and talked to him—my word! the fellow was green with fright though he couldn’t understand a syllable!”
“But why would the men turn rusty?” enquired Eveleen anxiously, for Her Majesty’s —th was an Irish regiment.
“And why wouldn’t they, with a fortnight of such marches and such work, and sand to eat and drink and breathe—and very little else? Why, the dry air cracks your boots so that you carry about with you a private desert on each foot, and the sand gets between you and your clothes till you feel your shirt is made of sandpaper! And talking of your clothes, you may be thankful you and they are well scoured with sand, for there’s no such thing as a clean shirt. You turn the one you have on your back inside-out when it gets too shockingly dirty, and when t’other side has got considerably worse you turn it back again, and so on till you’re like a set of colliers.”
“Now do you wonder we are the colour of coffee?” demanded Richard suddenly.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were as black as a coal! And no wonder y’are thin, poor creatures, if sand is all you’ve had to eat!”
“Well, not all,” admitted Brian. “But we calculate that each man’s teeth have been ground down a quarter of an inch by the sand he’s chewed with his food—more or less according to his appetite. And never, never will we get the last of the sand out of our hair till we’re all bald! D’ye wonder then the General had no difficulty in getting complaints when he went round hunting for ’em as usual? But he turned the men round his little finger easily, and they went back to duty as meek as lambs when he had fired ’em off one of his heroic orations, full of Assaye and Corunna.”
“Well, but now, what will have been the good of it all?” cried Eveleen. “You have destroyed a place that was not doing anybody any harm, and the people that were doing the harm have all escaped.”
“Don’t say that to Bayard, I beg of you!” said Richard quickly. “To his mind the one good point of a bad business is that no lives have been sacrificed.”
“Did I hear my name mentioned?” said Colonel Bayard’s voice, and he came round the corner of the tent, throwing away the end of his cheroot as he did so. “May I intrude, Mrs Ambrose? Richard, you and I must have an explanation; there has been no opportunity hitherto. You shall do us the honour to judge between us, ma’am.”
Brian rose hastily. “I think, Colonel, you will speak more freely without me,” he said with some formality. “Any criticism of Sir Henry Lennox offered in my hearing ’twould be at once my duty and my pleasure to resent. So I’ll leave you,” and he departed.
Colonel Bayardlooked after Brian with a sigh. “Your brother is highly conscientious, ma’am, but I hope I know better than to use improper language about his chief in his presence. Nor have I anything worse to say of the General than that I believe from my soul he had no evil intention in putting me in my present disagreeable position.”
“Ah, believe me, his one thought was to atone to you for any slight Lord Maryport might have seemed to offer,” said Eveleen earnestly. He sighed again, impatiently.
“Then why this strange behaviour on his part? I was upheld by the consciousness of rectitude, reconciled to the Governor-General’s unjust treatment by the prospect it gave me of a speedy reunion with my wife—actually on the point of departure for home. Then I am summoned back in the most peremptory manner, compelled to sacrifice my passage and relinquish my hopes. And for what? I believed, all my friends believed, the Bombay papers proclaimed their hearty concurrence—that Sir Henry had recognised his own incapacity for the task allotted to him, and desired the Governor-General to command my return. There was nothing peculiar in this save the singularity of such a frank acknowledgment on his part—which I conceived accorded strictly with the candour of his nature as I had experienced it,—and it explained the haughty tone of Lord Maryport’s letter. The assiduous attentions of the Khans on my way up the river showed that they took the same view, and I made haste to join Sir Henry and relieve him, as I imagined, from the burden of a duty unsuited to his talents. What was the reality? I make no complaint of finding myself second where I was formerly first, though I own it grated upon me; but in our first interview it was made clear to me that Sir Henry desired my services purely in a minor capacity. I was to be nothing but aputli[puppet] in his hands. Tell me, I beg of you, whether this was his attitude from the first, or whether he changed towards me when he perceived the delight with which my return was welcomed?”
He had so obviously decided in his own mind in favour of the second alternative, that Eveleen and her husband both found it difficult to answer him. Richard spoke hesitatingly at last. “I tried to hint at what I believed to be the General’s true state of mind in one of my letters, you may remember.”
“Did you? It’s possible. But if I noticed it, I set it down to your habitual caution. But Mrs Ambrose—why did she not warn me three weeks ago? I made no secret then of the feelings that inspired me.”
“Ah, forgive me!” cried Eveleen, conscience-stricken. “I tried—indeed I tried—but you would not understand. And how would I tell you such a thing as that straight out?”
“No, I suppose it would be impossible to an Irish person,” he spoke as though to himself. “But what I can’t make out is”—with renewed vehemence—“how Sir Henry can have asked for me, knowing my views and my friendship with the Khans, and knowing also that all his intentions were diametrically opposed to the policy I have consistently pursued?”
“No, there you do him an injustice,” said Richard quickly. “He had no such intentions—he was as favourably disposed towards their Highnesses as yourself. You and he were agreed upon the necessity of forcing them to observe their obligations—but doing so in the most considerate manner. I give you my word, I believe there has been too much consideration. Had you been with us instead of at Bombay, and witnessed the ingenious provocations, the childish artifices to which the Khans have resorted, as though determined to tire out our patience, you must have decided, with the General, that they had exceeded all limits of toleration.”
“‘Et tu, Brute!’” said Colonel Bayard mournfully. “‘Mine own familiar friend——’”
“Pray don’t think I am alone in this. You have met a good many of the Khemistan Europeans in these three weeks. Is there one of them that takes your view of the case in opposition to the General’s?”
“The General is the disposer of benefits nowadays,” irritably. “Nay, forgive me—I am unjust. But these youths are all agog for war—naturally enough; Sir Henry has trained ’em for it. Of course they rejoice in the prospect of hostilities.”
“Not I. I have seen war in Ethiopia, and know what it means. Am I likely to wish to bring it upon Khemistan if it can be avoided? But I tell you plainly, I believe a temporising policy here, pursued further at the present juncture, would lead to a retreat and a disaster which, following upon our Ethiopian misfortunes, would lose us India. The Khans—and especially Gul Ali—have played with us too long already.”
“I could forgive Sir Henry everything,” cried Colonel Bayard vigorously, roused by the name, “but his treatment of Gul Ali. To affect to hold the poor old man to a renunciation extorted from him by force by that villain Shahbaz Khan is an outrage of which I had fancied him incapable.”
“But sure he did resign the Turban to Shahbaz!” said Eveleen in perplexity.
“True—most solemnly,” agreed her husband. “But when he quitted Shahbaz’s hospitable roof, he saw fit to change his mind, and declare the renunciation a farce.”
“And no wonder!” cried Colonel Bayard warmly. “When it was only brought about by the pressure imposed on him by that most abandoned scoundrel——”
“We have often agreed that Shahbaz was the ablest of the Khans,” said Richard imperturbably. “You said to me once you saw no hope for the dynasty but in him.”
“True, but he had not then shown himself in his real—his most iniquitous colours. To force his innocent and venerable brother to cede him the Turban by threats——”
“His innocent and venerable brother having failed to rob him of his heirship by intrigues——” crisply.
“Ambrose, you are hopeless!” cried Colonel Bayard warmly. “The General has bewitched you. Mrs Ambrose, in your gentle breast I know I shall touch a chord of sympathy with the aged Prince’s misfortunes. Listen, I beg of you. I was riding with the advanced guard from Bidi—where I caught up the force—when we met a solitarycossidmounted on a camel. He recognised me, and dismounting, threw himself at my feet, and bewailed the miserable lot of his master. With the General’s permission I volunteered to seek out my old friend, and convey to him the assurances of safety and kind treatment from Sir Henry, which it occurred to me Shahbaz Khan must have kept back. You had said to me that you suspected something of the sort, ma’am; do you remember? Well, I found Gul Ali encamped in the jungle—a few wretchedrowties[small common tents] sheltering the few retainers who remained faithful to him. Our appearance—your brother accompanied me, by the way—produced at first the utmost consternation, the fugitives fearing an attack. But my name restored confidence, and the Prince met and embraced me, and conducted me into his miserable dwelling. Old and sick, exposed to the heavy rains—this was the plight of the man I had last seen enthroned in his palace. Briefly he unfolded to me his brother’s perfidy. As I expected, Shahbaz had induced him to abdicate by the strongest assurances of Sir Henry’s hostile disposition towards him. I pledged him my honour that he was mistaken, and he would fain have accompanied me there and then to make his submission. But I knew he would find Shahbaz with the General, and fearing his timidity might betray him once more, I persuaded him to send his son—not Karimdâd, of course, but one of the younger ones—and a nephew instead.”
“That was the mistake!” said Richard sharply. “Had he but met the General face to face——”
“Easy enough to see where another man has gone wrong.” Colonel Bayard spoke with some displeasure. “Well, ma’am, sherbet was served, and we parted with the usual compliments. My one aim was to lead the young Khans to Sir Henry before they could be intimidated by Shahbaz. Alas! it did not occur to me that he might corrupt them instead, though when we met him he embraced them cordially, and begged a visit after their audience. I took them to Sir Henry’s tent, where we all sat on the carpet together, since there were no chairs. The General, who had met the youths very civilly, addressed them kindly, but with severity—through his Munshi, not through me—nor did he make the slightest show of consulting me. Seeing me thus set aside, and reading in his decided tone that he regarded them as rebels, is it any wonder the young Khans were seized with alarm? They left his presence—I suggested to him to show his goodwill by shaking hands with ’em, which he did very readily—to seek Shahbaz, and I grieve to say they were persuaded by that villainous plotter to betray their aged parent into his hands. They saw Shahbaz enjoying Sir Henry’s favour and possessing all the tokens of power, and in return for his bribes they fell in with his designs. I despatched a spy to Gul Ali’s camp to mark their return there, for I feared all was not well, and it was as I feared. They insisted upon the General’s angry tone and the curtness of the terms he had used, and declared it as his command that Gul Ali should surrender himself again to Shahbaz at Bidi. Asked what part I, their friend, had taken in the interview, they replied that even were I sincere in my professions—of which they hinted a doubt—it was clear I was devoid of any power to help. Do you wonder that the unfortunate old man feared to offer the personal submission for which Sir Henry had stipulated? Once again he made his escape—and so unremitting is Shahbaz in his villainy that he even succeeded in bribing his brother’s Munshi to substitute a defiant message under his seal for the letter he had despatched in excuse for his non-appearance. Sir Henry was highly irritated, and lent an ear all the more readily to the poisonous suggestions of Shahbaz. With a view of clinching matters, he replied to the letter with a direct refusal to communicate further with Gul Ali unless he gave effect to his forced renunciation by recognising his brother as Chief Khan.”
“But sure ’twas the wisest thing he could do!” Eveleen had been bubbling over for some moments with the desire to speak. “Wouldn’t you say the unfortunate old creature was silly? He can do no good for himself or anybody else.”
Colonel Bayard was painfully taken aback. “I didn’t expect this from you, Mrs Ambrose. Is the unhappy Gul Ali to be branded as a fool because unfortunate? His misfortunes all spring from the misdeeds of others.”
“Ah, but do they? Is he able to retain the fidelity of a single supporter, will you tell me? Has he taken one bit of the advice you have given him, or kept any single promise he has made? I grant you he’s unfortunate, but I’d say with all my heart he was incapable as well!”
“A Daniel come to judgment!” said Richard drily.
“And if he ain’t incapable,” pursued Eveleen, rushing on before Colonel Bayard could speak, “he’s treacherous, believe me. As Ambrose says, you don’t know the things he has been doing—stopping thedâksand attacking our boats on the river, besides the army he’s been getting together. And when poor Sir Harry sends word that the army is to be disbanded, all the old horror will do is to say there’s no army to disband.”
“Precisely. How can he disband an army if he hasn’t got one? I grant you that in their childish way the Khans have sought to lead Sir Henry to think they were raising troops, but this was purely make-believe, designed to deter him from attempting decisive measures against them.”
“Then they were finely mistaken in Sir Harry! But believe me, they have been assembling their Arabit hordes for months. We have heard too much of them to doubt that. Ah, don’t let your kind heart set you against the General and all of us who see that unfortunate old deceiver as he really is, and not as you do—an angel with wings a weeshy bit muddy!”
“I have brought this upon myself, I suppose——” with a pique he could not disguise. “But don’t be afraid, ma’am. I value my friends too highly to part company with ’em over a difference of opinion, and I trust they’ll extend the like compliment to me. This last effort to preserve the authority of the Khans and prevent bloodshed I’ll carry through with my whole heart. If it fail, my work here is done. I am merely, as Sir Henry has more than once reminded me, a commissioner under a peace treaty, and if there’s no treaty, I am at liberty to go home.”
“Now why would such a nice man be so unreasonable as all that?” asked Eveleen mournfully as he left them.
“Why, my dear, ain’t all nice people the same, in your estimation?” Richard’s tone tried to be jaunty—not very successfully.
“Like yourself? Well, I wouldn’t say quite all—but a good many, certainly. But sure Bayard will never be able to call Sir Harry unreasonable after this. Did y’ever see anything like the way he has given in to him time and again?”
“I own I never thought he had it in him to be so patient. If Bayard succeeds in persuading the Khans to consult their own interests and submit, they will have the General to thank, not themselves.”
“And if they won’t consult their own interests, and will not submit, there’s not a soul on earth can accuse Sir Harry of dealing with them hastily.”
“I don’t say that. People can say strange things. But if the Khans have an anna’s worth of sense in their foolish heads, they will submit—having stood out to the very last moment.”
“Well, I’m sorry for it!” said Eveleen. “Why, now”—as he looked at her in amazement,—“have you forgotten I was against the silly creatures from the first? Ever since Bayard said he had no power to make them treat the women properly, don’t you know?”
“I had forgotten, certainly. Now I have some faint recollection——”
“Y’are very flattering!” sharply.
“If you expect me to remember all the contradictory speeches you make on all sorts of topics, I fear, my dear——”
“When you talk like that, you make me feel I’d doanything—anything in the wide world—to make an impression, to let you feel you had to reckon with me.”
“My dear, pray don’t! I assure you it ain’t necessary any longer.” Whether his alarm was real or pretended she could not distinguish. “Henceforth your wildest utterances shall be most carefully weighed. You forget you have already carried out your threat—by presenting yourself here. If we get through, I promise you won’t find me disregarding your threats again.”
“You don’t put itverynicely,” she complained. “But tell me now—d’ye really think we’ll have to fight?”
But apparently Richard repented his freedom of speech. “Not a bit of it!” crushingly. “What I’m afraid of is that you will be actually and literally bored to death.”
And not a word more would he say, though Eveleen tried coaxing and reproaches in turn. Indignant though she was at the time, however, there were moments, after they had reached Qadirabad, when she began to feel his prophecy might come true. Whatever excitement there might be for the men, who rode daily to the Fort to discuss Lord Maryport’s treaty with the Khans in durbar, life at the Residency was the very acme of dulness for the woman left at home. If Eveleen had expected to be able to resume her former pursuits, she was mistaken. She blamed herself bitterly for not having brought a horse—difficult though it might have been for poor Captain Franks to find room for it—for the lack of one played into the hands of her natural enemies. Any man who prevented, or sought to prevent, Eveleen from riding when she wished to ride was a natural enemy, and all the members of the Mission—soldiers and Politicals alike—were immovably united in the determination that she should not go outside the walls. The only exception to this rule was the permission to go out by the water-gate, cross an uninviting tract of sand which was really part of the bed of the river, but now dry, and thus gain access to theAsteroid, which lay in a meagre trickle called a channel. But this excursion was as unsatisfying as the ride round the garden, which was the only one allowed her—if not quite so tantalising,—and she did not repeat it. If she was not to sink to the lowest depths and gossip with Ketty, she must find her interests in that dreary treaty, which seemed to be debated for hours day after day, but never signed. Poor Colonel Bayard might have been the Khans’ bitterest enemy, instead of their most tried and persevering friend, by the way they treated him. His championship of their cause—expressed indiscreetly, perhaps, to Gul Ali and his retainers—was made an excuse, and a perpetually recurring one, for tormenting him. Was he really in sympathy with the deposed Chief, whose honours had been so shamefully filched from him? Oh, well, if he said so, it must be presumed to be true, but Gul Ali had heard rumours—— And in any case, if he was on the side of the oppressed, why was he representing their chief adversary, the Bahadar Jang? Would he show his friendship by getting Gul Ali replaced in his position of supremacy, and punishing the presumptuous Shahbaz? Over and over again, by varying paths, the discussion was led dexterously to this point, at which the harassed emissary could only reply that he had no power whatever to interfere with the Governor-General’s decisions; the utmost he could do would be to urge the expediency of modifying them. This was not at all what was wanted, and the bald question invariably followed: If you are a friend, and yet can do nothing to help us, why are you here? The reply that he had hoped to make submission easier by entreating instead of imposing it was not at all in accordance with the Khans’ idea of a friend’s duties.
It almost seemed as though Colonel Bayard might have gone on indefinitely presenting the treaty, and the Khans talking about it, had not the spur been applied which the envoy had been dreading. He had written feverish letters almost daily, entreating the General to return to Sahar with his force—or at least to remain stationary, and not pursue the route he had taken on leaving Sultankot, which would bring him to the river about half-way to Qadirabad. It was the death blow to his hopes when the news came that not only had Sir Harry emerged safely on the river bank from the desert, but his flying column had been joined there by the troops he had left at Bidi. The effect on the Khans was no less marked. Their Vakils sealed that very day the pledge which bound them to accept the treaty.
“Did y’ever see a man look so miserable when he’d got what he’d been fighting for for a week?” demanded Eveleen of her husband when Colonel Bayard had brought the draft home—not at all in triumph—and laid it up in his desk. “You’d say he was sorry they have signed, instead of glad.”
“I believe you. He don’t know whether to blame Sir Henry most for his show of force, or their Highnesses for permitting themselves to be affected by it.”
“But sure they couldn’t have gone on hesitating for ever!”
“He had hopes, I’m certain, of inducing the General to promise that if they would sign the treaty, Gul Ali should get back his Turban. Of course Sir Henry has no power to promise anything of the kind—it rests with the Governor-General, and he will never grant it.”
“Well, if I was poor Bayard, I’d be glad the matter was settled and out of my hands.”
“Pardon me—not if you were he. You would be more unhappy than ever, because you had not succeeded in averting the misfortune. There’s a sort of twist in his mind where his dear Khans are concerned. To him, they and the General alike are pawns in the hand of Shahbaz, who is the greatest villain existing, and advises all to their destruction.”
“But sure they are all dead against Shahbaz!”
“That’s merely another proof of the man’s cunning. Bayard has persuaded himself that Shahbaz is so steeped in plots he can’t eat his pillau without some ulterior object, while his poor simple brother and nephews, beguiled by his subtlety, are innocent lambs asking to be shorn. Lambs, indeed! much more like wolves, they look to other people.”
“Then you think there’s danger?” Eveleen’s eyes were sparkling.
“I do think so, and I’ll tell you why. Perhaps it will make you more contented to stay indoors, as you are told. The city is swarming with Arabits, whose demeanour is as uncivil as they dare, though for the moment they are held in check. Through some extraordinary blindness, Bayard don’t see them—as a danger, at any rate. Not an armed man in the streets, he writes to the General. They all have their swords and shields—what does he expect of ’em? muskets and revolving pistols? Their matchlocks are close at hand, I haven’t a doubt. And all our spies bring in word of fresh bands—either concealed at a convenient distance from the city, or pressing towards it from all quarters. Kamal-ud-din alone, they say, has assembled ten thousand men, and is approaching by forced marches. And here are we allowing ourselves to be played with, while precious time—every day of which augments the Arabit hosts—is lost!”
“Now I wonder why wouldn’t you tell Bayard that?” asked Eveleen curiously.
“Do you think I haven’t?” he laughed shortly. “I try to bring the reports to his notice, but he has no eye for ’em—too much engrossed with the unmerited sufferings of that crew at the Fort. I wonder what will be their next expedient for gaining time? He will allow himself to be taken in by it, I’ll wager, through sheer remorse at having conquered ’em so far!”
But perhaps the Khans thought their hold on Colonel Bayard was wearing a little thin. At any rate, their next step was taken entirely without his assistance. When he opened his desk in the morning, that he might take the draft treaty with him to the Fort, the treaty was gone—without any sign of violence, or even the forcing of the lock. In this the thieves had overreached themselves. There were only two keys to the desk, one of which was in Colonel Bayard’s own possession, the other in that of his Munshi. The Munshi was a Qadirabad man, and had returned to his home there when his employer left Khemistan for Bombay, so that the Khans had had some three months in which to exert upon him the various methods of persuasion in which they excelled. Arrested promptly, he was so grievously surprised and terrified that he made a full confession. For a handsome consideration, he had unlocked the desk in the night and turned his back for a moment, then locked the desk again, having seen and heard nothing. That was all he knew, but the work had all to be done again.
For once, however, Colonel Bayard refused to take the part of his gentle protégés. To corrupt his servant and break into his house, that they might destroy the draft they had signed of their own free will, was too much even for him. The treaty was gone, but in durbar that day he took a high tone which brought the Khans to heel like whipped dogs. They apologised piteously for the misdeed of some unnamed retainer, who had been led away by the hope of helping his masters to bribe the Munshi and steal and destroy the paper. They had known nothing of the crime, they declared, and to prove it they would set their seals the very next day to the treaty itself—not a mere draft this time, but the whole of Lord Maryport’s requirements. Having made this tremendous concession, it would not have been the Khans if they had not promptly endeavoured to nullify it by demanding that Gul Ali should have the Turban restored to him; otherwise, they said, it was quite unnecessary to make a new treaty, since they had never broken the old one. But Colonel Bayard was still sufficiently disgusted and disillusioned to reply with a curt negative, and returned with his staff to the Residency through streets ominously filled with a sullen throng, who surged up to the very horses of the escort, and muttered curses on the Farangis.
When they went to the Fort the next day, there was not a man of the Mission who did not feel doubtful whether he would ever return. The crowds in the streets were larger and more menacing, and it was with the utmost difficulty that a passage was forced through them. The demeanour of the guards and attendants showed a scarcely veiled insolence, and round the walls of the audience-chamber were ranged a small army of wild-looking Arabits, armed to the teeth. After their long acquaintance, the Khans ought to have known Colonel Bayard better, for this suggestion of physical force was the one thing needed to stiffen his temper. He refused even to enter the durbar-hall till the additional guards were withdrawn, and declined to be placated by the suggestion that they were there to do honour to the treaty. The Khans were evidently flurried by his coldness, and affixed their seals in some haste, Gul Ali only pausing to remark in heartrending tones that he had laid his life and honour and everything he had at the feet of the British, and they had taken it all away. Colonel Bayard’s generous heart responded instantly to the plaint of ill-usage, and he spoke impulsively. He could do nothing in the matter of the Turban—he only wished he could—but he would beg Sir Henry Lennox to visit Qadirabad and hear what the Khans had to say, in the hope that he might accord as an act of grace what could not be given as a right.
The effect of his hasty speech was electrical. The Khans broke into radiant smiles, and Khair Husain modestly expressed their unworthiness to welcome the shining presence of the Bahadar Jang. His gestures were so emphatic as almost to seem extravagant, and Brian, by a meaning look, directed his brother-in-law’s attention to a slight confusion among the servants at the door. The trays of sherbet were just being brought in, which were the signal for the conclusion of the interview, and as far as the two men, watching without appearing to do so, could see, they were hastily carried out again and then brought in a second time—or possibly others substituted. What was the reason? Poison was the first thought in the minds of both, and it seemed as though it was also in that of Khair Husain, for in a rather marked way he drank from his cup first, and then passed it to Colonel Bayard. The Englishman had seen nothing of the by-play, and accepted the honour as a mere graceful compliment, but it seemed to Richard and Brian that Khair Husain directed an eye towards them as he drank. When they left the audience-chamber, they were surprised to find a band of Arabit horsemen drawn up facing their own troopers. Little Hafiz Ullah Khan, the youngest of the princely family, who was escorting them to the gate, explained volubly—
“It is thosebadmashesoutside—we cannot control them. They are angry because the treaty is signed and my great-uncle’s wrongs have not been redressed, and they might show rudeness. Therefore we send an escort of our own to see you safely through the town. Would the Bahadar Jang be likely to shed the light of his radiant countenance upon us if he heard that his servants had eatengali[abuse] in our streets?”
The reasoning was very clear, but it was abundantly obvious that the mob were prepared to use much more substantial weapons than abuse. All down the long Bazar from the gateway of the Fort to the city gate, the Mission had practically to fight its way. At Colonel Bayard’s earnest entreaty, his companions succeeded in getting through without drawing their swords, but in two or three ugly rushes they were forced to defend themselves by laying about them with the scabbards. The troopers of the Khemistan Horse were hard to restrain, but they found some alleviation of their discontent in backing their horses among the crowd, with a callous disregard of toes and shins. The Khans’ cavalry did more talking than anything else, but the only time Richard Ambrose had leisure to listen to them, what they said was significant—“Let them pass. These men are nothing. Wait till the Bahadar Jang comes!” Something suspiciously resembling a torrent of curses accompanied the name, but it might have been directed at the crowd, whose own language was blood-curdling. It was not until half the distance had been covered that stones began to fly—the partially demolished house of a man who had presumed to become unduly rich and had suffered for it affording a supply of missiles. Then indeed the riders had a hot time, for to the stones and iron-shodlathisin the street were added stones and curses from the roofs. Most of them received blows more or less severe, and Richard had his cap knocked off and got a nasty gash on the forehead. Happily Brian was in time to prevent his being knocked off his horse, for any man who went down in that yelling, swearing, spitting crowd would have small chance to rise again. But the gate was nearly reached, and the Arabit escort—with the first sign of common-sense that had distinguished them—made a semicircle and beat back the mob while their charges were filing through the narrow portal. Once safely outside, and dignity consulted by riding a short way as if nothing had happened, they pulled up beside a well to repair damages. One of the troopers of the escort had an arm broken, and while Colonel Bayard and the surgeon were looking to him, Richard submitted unwillingly to the ministrations of his brother-in-law, which were necessary because the blood running down his face prevented him from seeing.
“I cot your eye in the durbar just now,” said Brian hastily. “Would you say you thought what I did?”
“I think the General has saved all our lives without knowing it.”
“But you wouldn’t say he’d come here?”
“I should say the Khans will have to live a good bit longer before they catchthatold weasel asleep.”
Afterthat exciting ride home, profound peace reigned about the Residency for a whole day, as though the Khans wished to give time for the impression to sink in. Then their Vakils arrived again, in a high state of alarm, with which they were desperately anxious to infect the British. The Khans were absolutely powerless to restrain the Arabits, they said—as Colonel Bayard had had some slight proof already. Their feelings were outraged by the signing of the treaty, and they would only accept it on the condition that Gul Ali was at once acknowledged again as holder of the Turban, and that Sir Henry’s troops, which had advanced steadily down the river bank till they were now within a few marches of the capital, should be instantly withdrawn. Otherwise, the ambassador would do well to surrender the treaty and depart, for the Khans could not protect him. To the mingled wrath and despair of his officers, the threatened loss of the treaty—which had been so hard to win—induced Colonel Bayard to write urging Sir Harry not merely to come to Qadirabad and re-establish Gul Ali on themasnad, but to withdraw his army into the desert—as far as the remote fortress of Khangarh, near the British border,—that his peaceful intentions might be made thoroughly clear. He told the Vakils what he had written, pointing out that it would have no effect unless the Khans could keep the Arabits under control, and they accepted the warning and withdrew with all gravity, though their errand must have seemed to them successful to the point of absurdity.
The next day Eveleen was in the garden—in the uncomfortable state popularly described as finding herself at a loose end. She had tried to nurse Richard, but Richard as an invalid was neither grateful nor gracious. She wanted to fuss over him, and he ruthlessly declined to be fussed over. He did not wish to be read to—perhaps this was not surprising, since the only available reading consisted of back numbers of various Bombay papers, singing the praises of Colonel Bayard and patronising the General’s wisdom in perceiving in him the only man to deal with the situation,—he did not wish to be talked to or otherwise amused; all he asked was to be let alone and allowed to smoke in peace. Thereupon Eveleen naturally went off in a huff—thereby, as she realised presently with disgust, assuring him precisely the selfish tranquillity he craved—and established herself in a shady spot, where a masonry platform had been built under the shelter of two or three large trees, to recover her equanimity. It was unfortunate for this purpose that her position brought her in view of her old antagonist the gardener, who had cheerfully ascribed the lack of garden produce to the Beebee’s interference at the beginning of the cold weather. Nevertheless, after the manner of his kind, he was able to supply vegetables—at a price,—and Eveleen raged in vain when he exhibited blandly his empty garden-beds. She was quite sure that he had sold everything they contained, and was now suborning some other gardener to do the same, though it was not quite clear who in Qadirabad would be likely to have a taste for European vegetables. Perhaps it was Tom Carthew, she thought, and wondered idly how he was getting on in his uncomfortable, half-and-half, secretive life.
As so often happens, the thought was followed at no great distance by the appearance of its object, though Eveleen did not perceive this at first. What she saw from her point of vantage was an interested group of women and children near the stables, gathered round a man who seemed to be selling something. It was most probably sweets, she thought, and remembering that she had not yet given the people in the compound the treat which was their due after her long absence, she told Ketty to fetch the man. It was altogether beneath Ketty’s dignity to enter the domains of the syce-folk, but there was a servant close at hand, specially detailed by Colonel Bayard to watch over the safety of her Madam-sahib, and she despatched him on the errand. It was rather a disappointment to find that the pedlar was not selling sweets, but glass bangles—designed for what seemed impossibly slender wrists—strung on rods according to size. Still, these would please the women, at any rate, and she sent Ketty to the house for her purse while she made her selection. To her astonishment, the moment the ayah was out of hearing, the pedlar spoke in English—low and hastily.
“Don’t look at me, Miss Evie; I’m risking my life to be here, but it’s to save yours. What was the Major thinkin’ of to bring you with him at a time like this?”
“He didn’t bring me; I came,” returned Eveleen with dignity. “Now why would you be risking your life, Tom Carthew?”
“Because they had it all ready to murder the Colonel and the gentlemen two days ago, and though they were put off it then they mean to do it now. You tell the Colonel, ma’am, not to trust Khair Husain Khan. I’ll tell you how he’ll know what the rascal’s up to. He’ll come and offer to post a guard of his servants to protect this place—and if you accept, the guard will murder you all in your beds.”
“Now I wonder will the Colonel believe it?” mused Eveleen, her heart beating a little faster than usual.
“He’d better. Why, ma’am, it was touch and go t’other day. The Khans had made up their minds to cut up the Colonel into little pieces, because he pretended to be their friend and was deceivin’ ’em. Then when he made ’em send away the guards, they had the sherbet ready to poison him—and they’d have done it too, but for what he let drop about bringing the General here. They are fair set on gettin’ hold of the General, and it won’t be cuttin’ into little bits for him. They’ve sworn to put a cord through his nose and drag him round the city at the tail of young Hafiz Ullah’s horse, for the people to see, and after that—well, they call him Satan’s brother after his getting to Sultankot as he did, never runnin’ across any of the bands that was looking for him.”
“I wonder now, did they look very hard?” There must be no showing the white feather, though Eveleen’s hands felt clammy, and her thoughtful voice was a little shaky.
“They say they did, anyhow. Well, you can guess what they think is the proper way to treat the devil. But will the General be coming, ma’am?”
“I’d say he would not.” Relentless cross-examining of Richard and Brian had convinced Eveleen of this. “But sure the Khans will do nothing till he has written to say so?”
“You might have said that yesterday, but something has happened this morning to change their minds. There was a lot of Bharri chiefs on their way here, and they came slap up against the General’s army. Whether it was just brag, or they wanted to pick a quarrel, I don’t know, but they made to ride straight through the camp of the Khemistan Horse, and got taken prisoners. When the news came in, all the Khans cried out at once that it was war now, and the General wouldn’t come. That’s all I know.” His eyes were on the approaching form of Ketty, and he began to rearrange his wares.
“No, but tell me quickly, what do they mean to do?” urged Eveleen.
“I’ve told you what they mean to do to the General. For his army, they swear they have men enough to drive it into the river, without drawin’ a sword—just pushing. Then cut the throats of every English man, woman, and child left in Khemistan. That’s what they mean to do.”
“But you can’t stay with them! Come here to us.”
“No, ma’am, I’ve made my bed and I must lie on it. Make the Beebee understand that I am a poor man, and cannot possibly sell at the price she offers,” he went on whiningly as Ketty came up. “Why must I be ruined because I cannot afford a shop in the Bazar?”
The invitation to bargain roused Ketty’s keenest instincts. Metaphorically she shouldered her mistress out of the fray, and fell upon the unhappy bangle-seller tooth and nail. She brought him down from annas to pice, and then pice by pice until he declared truly—though she naturally thought it was falsely—that his wares had cost him more to buy. Then she suddenly reflected that the Madam-sahib’s wealth and importance would suffer in the estimation of the servant people if she was known to drive too keen a bargain, and with a royal air accepted on her behalf his last offer, informing him unkindly that it was in consideration of his obvious wretchedness. Eveleen, standing by and fuming, had to curb her impatience still further and bid the pedlar follow her to a spot commanding a nearer view of the stables, whence she watched him fitting the bangles to the arms of the recipients, and received their grateful salams, and then only was she free to return to the house, and burst in upon Richard with her news. It was just as well he was not the serious invalid she had wished to make him, for she could not possibly have kept her story in any longer, and he had to remind her—as soon as he was able to understand what she was driving at—that the source of the warning must remain a secret. This had not occurred to her, and she was so much shocked at her own carelessness that she consented—though sorely against the grain—to postpone warning Colonel Bayard until he came of his own accord to smoke a cigar with Richard. To send for him would have aroused suspicion as readily as to go to speak to him in his office and ask that the native clerks might be sent out of hearing, and the delay had also the advantage of allowing Tom Carthew time to get back to the city before suspicion could be aroused.
But it was very hard to wait, and when Colonel Bayard came at last, his reception of the great news was disappointing in the extreme. At first it seemed as if he would not believe it at all.
“There’s no likelihood whatever of Khair Husain’s offering to send troops to protect the Agency,” he said. “It would be a gross insult, and he wouldn’t dream of it.”
“But why should the Daroga suggest such a thing unless it had been discussed?” asked Richard, for his wife was too much taken aback to remonstrate.
“The man wants to safeguard his own neck, of course. He thinks, very naturally, that Sir Henry is determined to destroy the Khans, and is afraid he will suffer for being mixed up with them. So he tries to establish a claim on our gratitude in advance by making up this tale.”
“But sure he was risking his life by coming to warn us!” cried Eveleen, with flashing eyes. “Would you take no notice of what he said?”
“Happily,” said Richard, in his coolest tones, “we shall be able to test his truthfulness very shortly. If Khair Husain does offer to send troops, the warning is confirmed.”
“But if Bayard has made up his mind not to take it?” Eveleen spoke before Colonel Bayard could. He raised his hand in protest.
“Not made up my mind, ma’am—you’re mistaken there. I should hardly feel justified in ignoring such a warning—yet to refuse the offer would be a precious strong step to take. Khair Husain would naturally feel himself ill-used.”
“But if you accepted it, we wouldbeill-used,” said Eveleen triumphantly. “Would you really like that better? And didn’t you yourself just this minute say the offer would be an insult?”
“My dear Richard, there was a great casuist lost in Mrs Ambrose.” Colonel Bayard managed to keep his indulgent air, though Eveleen felt, and looked, as though she would like to box his ears. “And what, ma’am”—kindly—“would be your idea of the proper procedure when the offer had been refused?”
“Of course, I’d like greatly to be in a real fight,” said Eveleen regretfully. “But”—summoning all the forces of duty and self-denial to her aid—“I know you gentlemen will all cry out with one voice that’s my bloodthirsty nonsense.” Deeply shocked, Colonel Bayard negatived the suggestion with a deprecating hand. “Ah, don’t I know it? So I’ll be moderate and sensible, and only say I suppose we ought all get up the river again in theAsteroid.”
“And betray my trust here?” It was his turn to triumph. “No, ma’am, I came to Qadirabad by the General’s orders”—he disregarded a sound as of dissent from Richard,—“and here I stay until either I am turned out or Sir Henry sends me orders to leave. But my first duty—Ambrose, I know you will be with me in this—is to assure the safety of the lady who has laboured so pluckily to save our lives, as she believes. I will send word to Franks that Mrs Ambrose will sleep on board to-night.”
“You think there’ll be a fight, and you won’t let me be in it?” Her undisguised anguish and dismay brought back Colonel Bayard’s sunny smile.
“Precisely!” he said, the last vestige of his ill-humour vanishing. “Why, what curs you must think us, ma’am, to be willing to expose you to a peril against which you have yourself warned us!”
Richard laughed—he could not help it—and Eveleen glared from one to the other. “I’ll never speak a word to either of y’again—unless I have to!” she declared wrathfully, and swept majestically from the room. For the rest of the day she refused to be comforted or placated, and made Richard very angry—because he felt she was making him ridiculous—by declining to address him directly, and sending him messages through Ketty, though they were on the same verandah. Therefore he triumphed in his turn when, after being summoned to be present when Colonel Bayard received a Vakil from Khair Husain Khan, he was able to meet her again with a fine air of mystery.
“Something very queer about this——” shaking his head solemnly as he sat down. “Giving warning is one thing, but playing the enemy’s game——! Now why should she——?”
“Who are you talking about?” demanded Eveleen quickly. He ignored the question.
“To offer precisely similar advice! Can she be in league with their Highnesses? Yet how communicate with ’em? Something strange here——”
“Major Ambrose, are you talking about me?” Eveleen had flown to the side of his chair, and was shaking him.
“My dear, I thought I was an invalid?” meekly. “May I not speak of you, if it’s forbidden to speak to you?”
“Ah, then, don’t be such a tease! What’s it all about?”
“Does it flatter you to know that Khair Husain thinks precisely as you do? The Vakil advised Bayard most earnestly to be off by water at once if he would not accept the guard of troops, for the Khans can’t restrain the Arabits any longer.”
“It’s flattered I am, indeed! But I won’t be if Bayard took his advice when he wouldn’t take mine.”
“Don’t be afraid. He swore he wouldn’t budge an inch nor post an extra sentry—told ’em to do their worst, in fact. So you are likely to enjoy your wish and see a fight.”
“I never said I’d like to see one,” indignantly. “I said I wanted to be in it!”
“Well, seeing it is the next best thing, surely?” But Eveleen did not think so.
“If I’d known I would be punished for saving all our lives, I wouldn’t have done it,” she said tragically to Brian as they walked down to the river after dinner. It was thought better for her to make her unwilling exit in the dark, lest hostile watchers, seeing it, should interpret it as a sign of fear.
“Be aisy, then,” returned Brian. “You couldn’t have kept it in.”
“Couldn’t—eh? What are y’after now?”
“You had to give the warning, I tell you. You couldn’t have held your tongue, if it was to save all our lives, and ’twas just the opposite in this case.”
“D’ye tell me I couldn’t hold my tongue if ’twas necessary? A fine brother y’are—to insult your own sister!”
“We’ll consult Ambrose, if you like. Will you say he wouldn’t agree with me?”
“Of course he would. Gentlemen always agree with one another.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have him agree with you, when all his experience went the other way, would you?”
“Wr-r-r-retch!” said Eveleen, with such a terrific rolling of herr’s that Richard turned round and asked if she couldn’t get a few more in. She disdained to reply, and happily at this moment they reached the sandbank to which theAsteroidwas moored, and were met at the foot of the gangway by Captain Franks in a high state of pleasurable excitement.
“Welcome on board, ma’am! I have good news for you, sir——” to Colonel Bayard. “There! d’ye hear that?”
“A steamer’s whistle?” in astonishment.
“Precisely, sir—the whistle of theNebula, no less, with the Light Company of Her Majesty’s —th on board, sent off post-haste by Sir Henry, as soon as he saw things were getting risky here.”
“A welcome reinforcement, indeed!” said Colonel Bayard heartily. “We must see that the news gets to the Khans at once. They will find it easy enough to restrain the Arabits now. But how did you hear of this, captain?”
“Why, sir, finding the river so low, Captain Warner was afraid of running aground in the dark, so he sent his mate and two men in the dinghy to find us and see where the channels were, and I sent my mate back to pilot ’em in.”
“Well done. We must get ’em ashore at once—make a regulartamashaof it, so that the spies in the bazar may take exaggerated reports to the Fort. This is an enormous relief to my mind.”
“And incidentally to mine,” remarked Richard to Brian, as Colonel Bayard handed Eveleen up the gangway to the deck, whither Captain Franks preceded them to receive her properly. “Has it struck you that we three become civilians from the moment Montgomery and his fellows arrive?”
“D’ye tell me that? Ah, I see it! The Colonel is a mere Political, you and I nothing but Staff—ornamental but powerless. Senior officer in command of European troops takes charge. What a do!”
“Better restrain your joy a bit. We don’t want the notion to occur to Bayard, or he’ll order theNebulato stand off till daylight, by which time——”
“We’ll be smashed entirely,” supplied Brian. “I believe you, my boy! Whereas if the Khans hear large reinforcements have arrived in the night, they’ll wait till morning to attack, so as to get a good look at ’em first.”
With much shrieking of whistles and a lavish display of lights, theNebulawas welcomed to her anchorage, and that the effect was not wasted was clear from the array of villagers, roused from their beds by the noise, who lined the bank above the Agency and watched the landing with awed and not altogether pleasurable interest. Brian pointed them out to Richard with a grin.
“Choused—eh?” responded Richard. “Every man of ’em went to bed expecting to have the looting of the place in the morning, no doubt. To see seventy-five Europeans, when you expected only to have thirty dismounted sowars to deal with, must give you a bit of a shock.”
Brian nudged his elbow. “D’ye hear what Montgomery’s saying? We ain’t out of the wood yet.”
“You are well supplied with ammunition, I trust, Colonel?” the —th Captain was asking. “We came off in such a hurry that half-way here I found to my annoyance we have nothing but the ten rounds apiece in the men’s pouches.”
“Well, we could not stand a prolonged siege, certainly,” laughed Colonel Bayard, “but that will matter less, as I am convinced we shall not now have to fight at all.”
But Colonel Bayard was wrong. Whether the Arabits were really beyond their masters’ control, or whether the spies in the village just outside the Agency wall had gauged the extent of the reinforcement and adjudged it negligible, morning light showed that the place was surrounded, though the various bodies of horse and foot whose presence could be distinguished betrayed no indecent alacrity to come out into the open or approach too near. There was nothing in the nature of a surprise, for Captain Montgomery lacked Colonel Bayard’s pathetic faith in the Khans, and even a night attack would have found the garrison prepared. Unfortunately there was no time now to take the precautionary measures which should have been put in hand before. Save on the side of the river, assailants might find cover in every direction almost up to the walls, and at two points the compound was actually commanded from without—by the native village which had grown up as a sort of adjunct to the stables, and on the opposite side by a house forming a kind of outpost, where the doctor had formerly lived, and which was too much detached to be occupied effectively by so small a garrison. Reluctantly Montgomery dismissed the idea of blowing it up, since the powder could not be spared, and left it outside the line of the defences. The two strong points were the Residency itself and a range of office buildings, high and flat-roofed, which had fortunately been placed so as to command both the village and the all-important landing-stage. Montgomery observed caustically that it was quite impossible Colonel Bayard could have put it there deliberately, so that its defensive value was a happy accident. From it communication could be maintained with the steamers by means of flag signalling, and thus it was that Eveleen was able to keep in touch with the events of that long morning from the shelter contrived for her close under one of the paddle-boxes. TheAsteroidwas a most peaceful craft, since her builders had evidently considered bulwarks unnecessary for river work, and her flush deck afforded no protection whatever to any one upon it. She mounted a twelve-pounder gun, for which a breastwork had been built up forward of boxes and cases of all sorts, and a similar wall was erected about Eveleen and Ketty, outside which they were forbidden to stir. Since the paddle-box cut off all view of the shore, Eveleen insisted on having one look before she was built up in her cell; but there was not much to see, even from the top, since the lowness of the river left the Residency on a kind of mud cliff considerably above the vessel. But she could see little puffy clouds of smoke, rising and dissipating themselves slowly in the morning sky, and followed by reports—more or less loud as they came from the heavy matchlocks of the enemy, or the muskets which the —th were firing through the loopholes they had cut in the mud wall with their bayonets. On the right the reports sounded more distant, but almost continuous—a sort of perpetual popping; but on the left shot answered shot, as the enemy fired from cover among the village houses, and the European marksmen replied from the office roof. Captain Franks hurried her down, refusing to let her stay another moment, but she extracted from him that the attack on the right was what he feared most, owing to the expenditure of ammunition necessary to keep down the fire from the Doctor’s House. He did not tell her, but there was another danger at this point, in the shape of a nullah which formed a kind of covered way right up to the wall, and which could be enfiladed only from the Doctor’s House, so that a body of resolute men might assault with but little fear of loss. It was noticeable, however, that the enemy, in spite of their enormous superiority in numbers, betrayed no desire whatever to come to close quarters, seeming satisfied with obliging the besieged to expend their ammunition—largely wasted, of course, owing to the ample cover around. The firing had gone on for close upon three hours, and Eveleen, stifling in her nook among the boxes, had assured Captain Franks piteously several times that she would rather be shot than cooked, when a new sound, making itself heard in a momentary lull, caused the Captain to prick up his ears—a sound of rumbling and clanking.
“Guns, or I’m a Dutchman!” he said to himself, and noticed how the signalman—who but the moment before had been assuring him cheerfully that there were masses of the enemy in the village, but they durst not leave cover; that the orchard was full of them, but not one could even lift up his head to look over the wall; that the three men guarding the gate into the bazar from the stables had not even had to fire a shot—stiffened up suddenly and listened. Captain Franks listened too. Where would the guns get to work—from the bazar square, whence they could not merely knock the defences to pieces, but cut off the retreat of the besieged? But no, the enemy were taking no risks, and the old sailor was conscious of a kind of vicarious shame on their behalf as he realised that they would not face the fire from the office roof. The rumbling and clanking continued along the road that flanked the landward wall of the compound, and then seemed to drop. “The nullah!” said Captain Franks, and turned to decipher the signals which were appealing urgently for his attention.
“‘To fall back from the front of the compound on the Residency, and withdraw in an hour, when baggage has been evacuated.’ So we cut our stick!” said Captain Franks. “What now? ‘Captain Delany will proceed on boardNebula, and endeavour to rake nullah.’ Easier said than done, if you ask me!” But he passed on the signal to his subordinate, and presently Brian and his orderly ran down the path and across the sandbanks. Once they were on board, theNebuladropped down a little way till she was level with the nullah, and her people passed a strenuous hour in trying to give their pop-gun sufficient elevation for its shots to clear the cliff and drop in upon the enemy guns. No very marked effect seemed to be produced—certainly there was no direct hit,—but that a certain moral suasion was exercised seemed clear from the fact that they did not open fire. Meanwhile, the baggage-parties were busy as ants upon the cliff path and the hard sands. Horses came down—to be put on board the flat-bottomed boat by which they had come,—wounded men, to be made as comfortable as possible on the shadeless deck, with the sun blazing down upon them, for the only alternative was the oven-like depths below. Then came the servants, to huddle together wherever they could find room, whitey-brown with fear, some chattering spasmodically, some awestruck into silence. As the baggage began to arrive—all sorts of things, of all shapes and sizes,—there was work to be done, and Captain Franks and his mate fell upon the servants with voice and threatening fist—feebly cheered by the delighted wounded—until they roused themselves sufficiently to help in piling packages to serve as a bulwark. Then came a slow-moving party bearing still burdens shoulder-high, and several rigid forms were laid reverently on the deck forward, and covered with a tarpaulin.