She summoned Abdul Qaiyam from the verandah, received his advice to apply a littleghito the burn, and bade him send word that the Farangi lady craved leave to wait on their Highnesses; but as he went out again with disturbed face, she found herself clasped round the knees by the agonised Ketty, pallid with terror.
“Madam no done scold! No good. No help here. Khanum done kill Madam, kill Master, kill all.”
“Scold her? and why would I scold her? What good would that do? What would I scold her about?”
“Wash-balls,” moaned Ketty, drawing back and looking as though she doubted her mistress’s sanity.
“Oh,those! I won’t be saying a word about them, of course. Throw them away—— No, put them by; I may be glad of them myself yet. Why, Ketty, you silly old woman, don’t you see I want to put myself right with the ladies? They are making a horrid mistake about me, and well they may; and how can they be shown it unless I speak to them myself?”
“Done kill Master,” repeated Ketty miserably.
“If they do, they’ll certainly kill us as well, and then all our troubles will be over. But they won’t, for I’ll leave the blue stone round his neck, and Bearer to see that no one touches it. Here, put a pin in this.”
As an additional security, she fastened her improvised skirt with the girdle of her dressing-gown, then caught up anotherchadarand wrapped it round her head and shoulders, and waited impatiently for the bearer’s return, while Ketty, abandoning her tragic attitude, took up once more her familiar strain of grumbling. It seemed an immensely long time before Abdul Qaiyam returned, for the ladies must have been astonished by the suddenness of the visit, but at last he came back, bringing with him one of the negro attendants of the zenana. Under this man’s protection, after charging the long-suffering bearer with many injunctions as to his master’s safety, Eveleen crossed the courtyard—or rather, slipped from one patch of shade to another, and thus skirted round it, encountering various Arabits who hastily averted their eyes or took cover within the buildings. Ketty followed, looking exactly as if she was going to be hanged, so her mistress told her, and at the zenana door they were admitted by another negro, who handed them over to a number of old women. These offered perfunctory salutations in an unknown tongue, scrutinising the visitors greedily the while, and led them to a large vaulted room partially underground, where the ladies were passing away the hot hours as best they might. Eveleen had learnt enough from Ketty’s gossip—though it was difficult to tell whom she found to gossip with—to know who were the principal personages before her. There were three young girls—rather meek and abashed-looking—who sat together as though they found each other’s company a support. Two of them were wives of Kamal-ud-din, and one was his brother’s. Then there was Jamal-ud-din’s mother, a lady with a dissatisfied expression, who sat as near as possible to the chief place occupied by her superior, the mother of Kamal-ud-din. The Khanum was the pleasantest-looking person there, with an assured manner which showed to advantage beside the fidgetiness of her companion. To her, even as her lips uttered the words of salutation, and without being invited to approach, Eveleen moved swiftly forward, and dropping on her knees, laid hold of the Khanum’s silken draperies.
“I seize the Lady’s skirt and claim her protection,” she said in her best Persian. “Let her spread her mantle over my husband and me.”
Every one looked virtuously shocked that a woman should be so abandoned as to refer to her husband as such, but apparently the impropriety furnished a not disagreeable excitement, for the ladies gathered a little closer and listened eagerly. The Khanum alone remained unmoved.
“How is this, then?” she asked. “Is not the sick Farangi thy brother, lady?”
“Not a bit of it!” Eveleen sat back on her heels, still holding the Khanum’s dress, and felt—without realising the reason—the thrill that went round as she lifted her eyes to her audience. “My brother is only a boy. This is my husband, that I’ve followed over land and sea, after he came back for me when I’d waited twenty years for him.” Ketty followed as interpreter, but Eveleen began to suspect that her Persian was about on a par with her English when she saw the blank look on the ladies’ faces. She did her best, therefore, to repeat what she had said, and between the two some measure of understanding followed. The Khanum looked more sympathetic.
“It is told me the Farangi ladies are like the Turki women north of the mountains, who ride unveiled with their lords—even to war,” she said, and Eveleen followed the words anxiously and painfully. “But how is it this Farangi Sahib was not slain?”
“He was sick—not wounded in battle,” explained Eveleen. “I was taking him to the sea to heal him, for the sea heals all the ills of the English.”
This was quite comprehensible. “Naturally, since they come up out of it,” said the Khanum graciously.
“And we were betrayed into the hands of the Khan’s servants and brought here,” Eveleen ended rather lamely, and the benevolence became less marked.
“My son does not make war with sick men and with women. Why should ye have been brought hither?”
“They said——” Eveleen tried hard to put the story of the Seal of Solomon into manageable Persian, but found the task beyond her powers. “It was all a piece of foolishness,” she said unhappily.
“What was foolish? the tale of the precious thing—dear to my son and his whole house—the colour of which has passed into thine eyes? Why say this now, when by thy malediction upon what should have caused good fortune, thou hast brought so much evil upon my son and all the brotherhood?”
“Ah, but it couldn’t really——” Eveleen was beginning, and then realised that no amount of argument, even if she were equal to it, would disabuse the ladies’ minds of their belief either in her power or in that of the stone. “I was angry,” she confessed. “My husband gave the talisman to the Khan without consulting me.”
“And it was thine own possession?” asked the Khanum, with evident sympathy.
“My very own—given to me when I was married by the uncle who brought me up.” There was quite a chorus of sympathy now, but Jamal-ud-din’s mother struck a jarring note.
“And if it was,” she said querulously, “what better can his Highness, the son of my sister, do than what he proposes—namely, to restore the stone and take thee into his zenana, thus uniting thy influence with the fortunes of his house?”
Eveleen flushed angrily—the ladies watching as if fascinated the red spreading through the white skin. “We need not speak of that; it is not the custom of my people,” she said, controlling herself with difficulty. “Khanum, look——” she raised the heavy masses of hair from her temples, and showed the streaks of white that were making their appearance there. “I am old—old enough to be the mother of his Highness. Let me go with my own lord, whom I love, and who came to seek me after so many years.”
A little discussion arose. Jamal-ud-din’s mother held to her view of the case, Kamal-ud-din’s wives—not unnaturally—taking the other, though timidly and with due deference to their seniors. One of them thought that as the Farangi woman had a husband already, it was unnecessary to provide her with another; the other was cynically inclined, and said that in a world where such a thing as constancy was hardly to be found, it was a pity to make away with the one man who had proved himself faithful. The Khanum, listening and pondering, made it clear at last that she took a wider view of the matter.
“Is it true that by my son’s command, the Farangi Sahib is in no danger of death for the present?” she asked.
“That was his promise, Khanum.”
“And the gratitude that is his due—hast thou shown that? In return for the boon of life for thy lord, is good fortune once more to smile upon my son’s house?”
Eveleen was taken aback. “I wish him—and have wished him—all possible happiness,” she faltered.
“And success in his war with the English?”
“Nay,” wretchedly; “that I cannot do. Yet have pity, Khanum. Set not the life of my husband in the scale against”—a happy thought—“that of my brother.”
“The son of thy mother?” asked one of the girls with interest.
“The son of my mother, lady, and given into my arms by her when she died.”
Even the Khanum seemed moved. “Thou art indeed in a sore strait!” she said. “Rise, lady, and return to thy lord. For the present my skirt is over thee and him. It may be that good fortune will attend my son. If so, I will entreat him for thee. If not, I will send for thee again, and we will speak of this.”
It was a sore strait indeed, and Eveleen could hardly see for tears theattarandpanthat were presented to her as she retired, nor utter the words of farewell. At any other time she would have been amused by the bearer’s incredulous delight on seeing her return alive and unharmed, and Ketty’s obvious disgust at the unimportant part she had been allowed to take in the proceedings, though she returned from the zenana the richer by a fine new cloth—the gift of the Khanum. She could not even be amused at herself for totally forgetting alike the Khanum’s present of clothes and the poisoned soap that accompanied it, nor at the ladies for ignoring them so completely. She could only tell herself that she had degraded the English name in vain by her humiliation, and that the General’s victory, which she was patriotically sure would come, would certainly be set down as the result of her malignity.
That she was right in this, at any rate, was proved only too soon, when she was summoned again to the Khanum after a night of turmoil in the town, when the shrill wailings of the women penetrated into the fort and were answered by like cries from the zenana. Sir Harry had defeated Jamal-ud-din’s force and held the boy prisoner, and Kamal-ud-din had been too late to rescue his brother. The Arabits in the courtyard cursed and spat at her as they turned their heads aside, and in the zenana Jamal-ud-din’s mother, noisy and dishevelled amid a group of sympathisers—yet not without a certain satisfaction in finding herself for once the prominent person—met her with bitter words and angry threats. Was this her gratitude? the ladies demanded hysterically. Was she so blind as to imagine that now she was in Kamal-ud-din’s power she could go on working her spells against him, and yet expect to escape unpunished? With monotonous reiteration the mourners repeated the question in different words, the only calm person present being the Khanum, who had consulted propriety by appearing ceremonially dishevelled, but sat apart from the noisy group, wearing the peculiar air of detachment which distinguished her. But she made no attempt to protect Eveleen.
“Go, go!” shrieked Jamal-ud-din’s mother at last, having exhausted her store of insults—and it was not a small one—“but think not to escape. Had I my will, thy head and that of the Farangi without would already be speeding to the camp of the Brother of Satan, whom ye call Bahadar Jang, to confront him at his table. But ye areprotected”—with terrific scorn—“by the son of my sister. Yet take warning. If one hair falls from the head of my son, no protection of his Highness will serve thee—or thy lord—from the vengeance of the women, and these hands”—most realistic claws extended—“will be the first to tear.”
Eveleen knew well enough what she meant. There were women everywhere around—not merely the Princesses, in their transparent muslins, and silks that a single violent movement would tear, but hard-faced old women, of the race of those whose mission it was to finish up the wounded in frontier warfare. She had often heard shudderingly of their horrible methods of torture and mutilation—picking out the wounded man’s eyes with the long needles used for applyingkohlto the eyelids was one of the mildest,—and the thought of the little dagger occurred to her again. Not for herself, there would not be time for both, but for Richard. She looked involuntarily towards the impassive Khanum, who spoke coldly.
“Go, and we will send for thee again. But bethink thee well ere thou bring further evil upon this house.”
Returning wretchedly to the dungeon, Eveleen found, with a certain warming of the heart, Carthew waiting to see her—or rather, shuffling uneasily about the room, a look of rooted misery on his face. It must have cost him so much effort to show himself on the side of such desperately unpopular people, that she hated herself for thinking that he had come because he feared she would make his allegiance even more conspicuous by sending for him. The natural contrariety of Eveleen’s disposition caused her spirits to rise immediately on beholding his depression, and she greeted him with a very fair imitation of cheerfulness.
“I’m glad to find you in such good spirits, ma’am,” he said—in a tone very far from glad.
“And why wouldn’t I be, when the General is well on his way to come and rescue us?”
Carthew shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish to damp you, ma’am, but I doubt the General’s ever getting this far.”
“But why? You can’t think he’d leave us in the lurch?”
“Not if he knew it, I’m certain. But how is he to know where you are?”
Eveleen stared at him. “But why not? Where else in the world would we be than here?”
“But why should he think to find you here? For anything he knows, if you escaped the storm at all you’re on t’other side of the river.”
“The other side of the river!” she repeated, her eyes dilating. “But how would we be there?”
“Didn’t I tell you, ma’am”—miserably—“of the plot I made to catch Captain Lennox for the Khan—when it was you they meant all the time? I had to lay a false trail to keep the General from sending the Camel Corps to cut us off between the river and this, and so I did it by bringing in the Codgers into the business, through that old Parsee that was with you.”
“The poor little good old man? D’ye tell me he was in it? Sure I’ll never believe in anybody again!”
“Not in the plot against you, but he was bringing supplies to the Khan from his aunt—one of Gul Ali Khan’s wives—in Qadirabad. Paying his army has swallowed up the Khan’s own treasure, pretty near, so he got word to this old lady, and she promised him jewels to a fairish amount. Old Firozji was to carry ’em about him, and I gave him all the directions—how he was to get protection by sailing in a British officer’s company, and make sure there was no trouble with the Codgers by engaging some of ’em to guard him. At one of the halts on the river—he was not to know beforehand which it would be—a messenger from the Khan would meet him with a certain password, and he would give up the jewels to him. The rest of the plan we arranged with the Codgers. They were to capture the boats by surprise, and do what they liked with ’em, but the old Parsee and the British officer were to be brought across the river onmussucksand handed over to us. That was my idea, but you know it was yourself, and no officer, that the Khan was after. The Codgers had the password, so that old Firozji would come quiet, and when he had given us the jewels he was to be let go, so that he could tell the General his boats and everything had been stolen, and he had escaped with nothing but his life to bring word of Captain Lennox being prisoner. It was the Codgers made things go wrong, though why they should have brought you across the river in the boat I can’t say.”
“I made them—with a pistol,” said Eveleen in a low voice.
“Then it was well you did, ma’am, or you would have come across tied on to amussuck, and your good gentleman there would never have been heard of again. But I suppose it was that stirred up the Codgers, making ’em think they’d been choused somehow. They killed the old Parsee, anyhow, and collared the jewels themselves, instead of handing ’em over, and then made off, leaving me to find everything had gone wrong.”
“Well, if y’ask me,” said Eveleen vigorously, “I think it served you right entirely. Are you not ashamed of yourself, Tom Carthew, to be plotting this way?”
“Don’t, Miss Evie, don’t! Ain’t we all in the same boat? If I failed to get the jewels, wasn’t it because somehow or other I got hold of the Major as well as yourself—and then listened to you and let him be brought here? And if you ain’t bringing ’em the good luck they looked for—why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff your thoughts are on the Major, not the Khan.”
“I would just think so!”
“Well, there you are, you see. If there was ever any chance of the General getting within twenty miles of this place, do you think the Major would be there to see it? Why, it’s he keeps you from doing your duty by them—that’s the way they look at it.”
“But you wouldn’t think—after all this time——?”
“It’s my fault again. I told ’em he was dying, you see—couldn’t live above a day or two—and I believed it. But he’s alive still.”
“Of course he is! And sometimes—I almost think there seems a little weeshy bit of difference—a sort of change in his eyes—as if his soul was trying to find its way back, don’t you know?”
“Miss Evie, don’t—for pity’s sake! The one chance for you is that he stays as he is. I don’tthinkthe Khan would finish off a man in that state—I hope he wouldn’t. But if once he saw him beginning to get better——”
“Y’are a nice old croaker, Tom! Then the General must come quick, before he gets better—eh? But what did you mean by saying there was not a great chance of his coming?”
“Why should he? The river is rising again, he dursn’t let himself be cut off away from his camp, he don’t know of any particular reason for coming here. He won’t come. He’ll turn back and make for Qadirabad—you’ll see.”
“I won’t, then! I believe the General will come in time and save us. Y’ought be ashamed of yourself for trying to make me unhappy about it. I tell y’ I won’t be miserable—there!” But whether, when she was again comparatively alone, Eveleen was quite as valiantly positive as she professed to be, Ketty could have told.
Three days later the blow fell—just the reverse of the last one. The town rang with rejoicings and blazed with lights. From the zenana came presents of fruit and sweetmeats, jewels and rich garments, with a special message from the Khanum herself: “The mother of his Highness send thanks and greetings to the Farangi lady, who had brought blessing when to blind eyes she seemed to be bringing a curse.”
It was some time before a diligent quest for information on Ketty’s part made this cryptic message clear. The reason for the general rejoicing was soon discovered. The Bahadar Jang was sick unto death. All his people stricken about the same time were dead already, and he must soon follow. Depression and disintegration had already set in among his forces, as was shown by the conduct of the body of troops detached to cut off the Khan from Umarganj. It had halted for no reason, and remained passive, and Kamal-ud-din had passed it safely, and would arrive in an hour or two. This was the news as it was communicated to the public, but to one or two cronies of his own the messenger had imparted the further tale of young Jamal-ud-din’s dishonour—his offer to assassinate his brother to win favour with his captor,—and this it was that had moved the gratitude of the Khanum. Now they knew where they were, she said, and her son could guard himself in future. The capture of the boy, which had seemed such a disaster, was a blessing in disguise, since it had revealed him in his true colours. And to this she adhered, though Jamal-ud-din’s mother stormed and raved and tore her hair as she vowed that the treachery must have been suggested by the enemy, and that her son had feigned to assent to it only through fear of death.
Eveleen cared nothing for Jamal-ud-din and his mother and step-mother. The news of the General’s illness—perhaps death—and Kamal-ud-din’s return came upon her like a thunderbolt, in nowise lightened by the knowledge that both events were in all good faith ascribed to her favourable influence. At last she had tried hard enough—and behold the result! They would never let her go now that she had so signally proved her value to them. She had signed Richard’s death-warrant as surely as though she had set her hand to paper, for though they might contemptuously decline to take his life, how could he live on in this state without her tendance? She might escape dishonour herself, thanks to the little dagger, but how could she save him?
She sprang up wildly at last, and meeting the surprised glance of Ketty, who had been hugging herself in the complacency natural to the bearer of appalling tidings, bade her harshly to go out—make enquiries—bring more news. Ketty was nothing loath. The present popularity of her mistress shed its lustre over her, and she knew she would be a welcome guest among the wives of the soldiers in the courtyard. Out she went, and Eveleen, who had stood rigid with her hand to her heart, crossed the room again and sank on her knees beside her husband. Pride was gone now.
“O God,” she sobbed, “it was my fault—all my fault. But that’s the very reason I need Thy help. I can do nothing, I deserve nothing. I have ruined myself, but not him——O God, not him! Let him be saved—whatever happens to me—whatever—whatever.”
Exhausted by the vehemence of her entreaty, she knelt in silence, panting painfully. Then her outstretched hands touched one of Richard’s, clasped it and let it go, and then in the semi-darkness she passed them gently over his face—as though for the last time.
“So often I have said I’d die for him, and now I have killed him!” The words were forced from her, and she broke into a low hopeless sobbing, with her head on his breast. Was it fancy—madness—or did she really hear his voice close to her ear, speaking dreamily and as though he was but half awake?
“What is it? My dear, don’t, pray don’t!”
“Don’t what?” she asked in amazement.
“Don’t cry—so sadly. I can’t—bear it.” He was certainly speaking, in a drowsy voice like one newly awakened from a long sleep. Eveleen gave a cry.
“Ambrose, can you hear me? Are y’awake?”
“Gently—hush, pray. I was afraid—of something. It must have been—this.”
“Is itafraidyou were? Will you tell me have you been in your right senses all this while, when I thought you could hear nothing?”
“I don’t think so,” doubtfully, but the voice was stronger. “There have been times—— Sometimes I think I must have heard—— Perhaps I might have waked—— But I heard Carthew say—the one chance for you—— Something on my mouth—sort of padlock——”
“Then why in the world wouldn’t you break it? D’ye think I’d mind what happened me if I’d had the chance of hearing you speak? Ambrose, I’d like to shake you!”
“Pray do—but for Heaven’s sake don’t speak so loud. Not unless we are out of the wood by this time. Are we? Surely not; or why were you crying in that—that lamentable way?”
The familiar dry tone brought Eveleen to her senses. She sat back and looked at him in dismay.
“Indeed, and if you did keep silence because you were afraid of my foolishness I wouldn’t wonder. I deserve it. To think of my calling out that way! But Bearer’s outside to warn us if anybody comes near, and every one’s too busy to care about us just now.”
Richard’s hand came on hers with a sudden heavy pressure. “Listen!” he murmured.
“Let the exalted magnificence listen to the words of this humble one,” pleaded the voice of Abdul Qaiyam. “In very deed there is no one within. The Beebee talks with herself.”
“In such a voice as that? Stand aside, old man. If this is true, I will ask pardon. Out of the way!”
A hand lifted the grass blind, and Kamal-ud-din stood in the opening, in his hand the drawn sword with which he had just threatened the old servant.
Thesun had risen some time, and the waves of heat were rolling up to the assault of Colonel Bleackley’s camp in the shadeless desert, but the bored and discontented officers who were lounging about the mess tent made no move to retire to their own quarters. They had no spirit even for what jealous civilians called “Arabit-hunting,” the perpetual diversion of Sir Harry and his circle—which meant recalling the exploits of this or that comrade in the battles, and how many of the enemy he had killed. The few words exchanged among them were not of a character flattering to the commander of their column.
“Shoving his responsibility off upon Delany!” growled Captain Keeling savagely. “We ought to be in Umarganj now, and should be if he had done his duty.”
“More just to say Delany shouldered the responsibility of his own accord,” said the measured tones of Sir Dugald Haigh. “But it ought not to have been left to him.”
“Well, he’s paid for it, poor chap!” muttered some one else. “Must have broke down somewhere, or he’d be back by now.”
“Wouldn’t choose to be in Bleackley’s shoes when old Harry talks to him about this business!” said another cheerfully.
“If the General don’t take it up, I’ll expose him myself!” snarled Captain Keeling, with the public spirit which so endeared him to his superiors.
“I believe you, my boy!” cried the rest in chorus, which broke off into shouts of welcome as an exhausted young man rode a very meek horse painfully into the space before the tent. With unwonted discretion, Brian declined to state the result of his mission otherwise than by nods and winks, but by the way he brandished the despatch which he insisted he must deliver to Colonel Bleackley forthwith, the others guessed he had been successful. But while he waited for his audience he could not resist telling the rest how uncommonly cool they were here—which was naturally soothing to men who felt that they were rapidly frizzling away,—and to prove his words, describing the terrible mortality in the General’s camp. That Colonel Bleackley heard what was said was clear when he had read the despatch, though his bearer professed to have awakened him from sleep.
“You are acquainted with the contents of this, I suppose, Captain Delany?”
“I am, Colonel. The General would likely think it better in case the despatch got destroyed.”
“Sir Henry was of course unaware when he wrote that my spies report Umarganj to have been evacuated by the enemy. I doubt whether I am justified in pushing forward, on the strength of an order dictated in the state of health you describe. In case of the General’s death I might incur very grave censure.”
Brian felt Captain Keeling bristling behind him, and anticipated him hastily. “Believe me, Colonel, if Sir Henry were unhappily to succumb, he’d rise from his grave to haunt y’ if you did not push forward.”
“You are acquainted with his probable course of action in any circumstances whatever, apparently.” Colonel Bleackley looked at Brian without any particular affection. “Better go and rest and get something to eat. So valuable a person must not come to harm, if I am to escape the attentions of the General’s ghost.”
Brian went off vowing angrily that he was not going to rest—not he! A snack of something to eat, and he was good for the day’s work yet. Besides, it was no use trying to sleep in this heat; he had tried it at the other camp, and it meant dying before you could wake up—in the case of other people, he explained hastily in answer to interested enquiries. But whether it was that the double journey had taken more out of him than he knew, or that it really was cooler here—owing to the drier air—than near the river, it is certain that he was fast asleep when Captain Keeling lifted the flap of his tent and looked in, and on being addressed merely grunted and went to sleep again.
“Poor beggar! let him sleep. He deserves it,” said Sir Dugald Haigh, looking over Captain Keeling’s shoulder.
“I know he deserves the best we can give him. That’s why I thought he ought to come on this reconnaissance.”
“And you’re disappointed because the poor chap ain’t made of cast steel and whipcord like yourself? After all, he’ll be in at the death, thanks to Bleackley.”
“Hang Bleackley! I’ll swear I could take the place by acoup de mainwith my men and your guns—and to be forbidden to approach too near, or pursue the enemy——”
“Got to engage ’em first—find ’em, too. Well, when you do, the guns will be up in support, if I have to drag ’em through the sand at my quad.’s tail.”
“All serene. I count on you.”
Brian’s slumbers that day were disturbed by rolling thunder, which worried rather than troubled him—it was so persistent. He was never really awakened, however, and arose at sunset, refreshed but rather injured, to find to his astonishment that there had been no storm at all. The thunder of which he had been intermittently conscious was that of Sir Dugald Haigh’s guns, with the support of which the Khemistan Horse had attacked a strong Arabit force covering Umarganj and driven it from its position. Forbidden beforehand to follow up his victory, Captain Keeling, with murder in his heart, could only send to inform his superior that the way to the town was now open, and entreat to be allowed to pursue the retreating foe and cut off Kamal-ud-din’s retreat. He had not been in the fight—so Captain Keeling had learnt from the prisoners he had taken,—but he was certainly in the town, and his capture would end the war at one blow. But Colonel Bleackley scented stratagems and ambushes, and flatly forbade his subordinate to do more than bivouac for the night on the ground he had won. The next day the whole force moved forward majestically—also slowly,—the Khemistan Horse acting as advanced-guard instead of reconnoitring ahead of the column. Brian, riding with Captain Keeling, had little conversation with him, for the Commandant was too much disgusted to talk. He was quite certain Kamal-ud-din would have seized the opportunity to make good his escape, and all the work would have to be done over again. They rode on grumpily in the broiling heat, their eyes mocked by the most enticing mirage imaginable in the circumstances. A stately castle rose from the margin of a pellucid lake, in which its battlemented turrets were faithfully mirrored. Behind it towered mountains which it could have been sworn were snow-capped, and on either side were waving palms and green undergrowth. Both men were well accustomed to deceptions of such a kind by this time, and were not unduly disappointed when the delightful prospect faded suddenly, revealing a straggling mass of mud hovels surrounded by a mud wall and clustering about a mud fort. This was Umarganj, the goal of their efforts—but a goal without reward, as Captain Keeling perceived when he handed his telescope to his companion and pointed out a group of men waiting in the shade of the gateway facing them.
“Townspeople—on the watch to surrender the place,” he growled. “Kamal-ud-din and his Arabits have cut their stick, of course.”
“I wonder now was he gone when the spies brought that tale to Bleackley yesterday?” said Brian.
“Not he. Spread the report in the hope Bleackley would think he was a day late for the fair and go home. You put a stop to that, happily. Then my young gentleman leaves the fellows we defeated yesterday to fight a rearguard action and allow him time to get away, and clears out comfortably while we have our proper meals and go to bed in nice time!”
Brian laughed at the savagery of the tone, and they rode on, to be met by the men they had seen—a number of the notables of the town, whose protestations of their devotion to the General and the British, and their delight in surrendering, scarcely carried conviction. They were a ragged, wild-looking crew, and the place was so miserable and poverty-stricken that both men were conscious of a mean joy in the thought that Colonel Bleackley would consider its possession a very poor return for the long march it had cost. But one of the ambassadors—possibly reading some depreciation in the faces of the conquerors—approached them ingratiatingly.
“The Sahib and the Beebee are quite safe, and their servants,” he said. “And”—with a smirk—“we have a prisoner to hand over who will rejoice the heart of the Padishah—on whom be the blessing of God!”
“The Sahib and Beebee!” repeated Brian in astonishment. “What Sahib and Beebee? It can’t possibly be——”
“Not your sister and her husband—how could it be?” demanded Captain Keeling crushingly. “They are miles away on t’other side of the river.”
“I don’t know. I did hear at H.Q. that Puggy had come in swearing he would stake his reputation they had never been on that bank at all, but he had gone out on another errand, and I had no time to hunt him up. If it could be——!”
“Who is this Sahib?” snapped Captain Keeling to the man.
“This slave cannot tell his name, Sahib, but he is sick, and his Beebee enjoys the gift of good fortune.”
“I wouldn’t exactly have thought that!” muttered Brian. “But I must see—I’ll ride on. Good heavens, if it might be! How in the world would they get here?”
“You had better wait, unless you want to be chased and put under arrest. Here comes the great Bleackley to take over the negotiations. Now for a triumphal entry!”
Quivering with impatience, Brian had to wait while Colonel Bleackley—through an interpreter—questioned the deputation, and learned that Kamal-ud-din, with his family and such of his forces as remained faithful to him, had left the town the night before. Of the Arabits who declined to follow his fortunes farther, most had gone their several ways, after plundering where they could, and besides the townspeople there were left only a few who were tired of fighting, and the wounded from yesterday’s action. Renewed assurances of the town’s delight in welcoming the British convinced Colonel Bleackley that no treachery was to be feared, and he announced his intention of taking possession of the fort. Led by the Khemistan Horse, the expedition entered the town and marched through the streets, to be greeted by a weird apparition as it approached the fort gate. An elderly native—a down-country Mohammedan from his dress—was dancing wildly on the battlements and waving hispagrilike a streamer. Catching sight of Brian, he turned the stream of blessings he was pouring on the column generally into a more personal channel, and Brian recognised his brother-in-law’s bearer.
“If you’ll believe me, it is them after all!” he cried joyfully. “Come down, y’old sinner, and show us where your Sahib is.”
Descending with miraculous speed by some unseen staircase, Abdul Qaiyam appeared in the gateway, his turban neatly rolled as though by magic, his aspect composed and stately. “The Sahib and the Beebee await the young Sahib,” he announced in his most important voice.
“Go and find your sister by all means, Delany,” said Colonel Bleackley, and Brian followed his guide to the courtyard guarding the zenana door, where Richard lay on his charpoy on the verandah, with Eveleen beaming proudly at his side, Ketty beside her, and a nervous figure lurking in the shadows behind.
“Hillo, Delany!” said Richard.
“So here y’are at last, Brian!” cried Eveleen, most unjustly. “No thanks to you we’re here to meet you!”
“I believe you, ma’am! No thanks to me y’are here at all, but to your own wicked wayward will. Well, this is a sight for sore eyes! How are y’, Ambrose? Now tell me all about it, Evie.”
Shaking hands with Richard and kissing Eveleen simultaneously, Brian settled himself between them. “Now that’s first chop! Give you my word I never thought I’d have this pleasure. Sit down here, Evie, and tell me all the story of your perverse doings, and how you managed to crown ’em all by letting yourself be found at Umarganj instead of among the Codgers.”
Eveleen needed no second invitation to embark on so congenial a theme, and with Richard putting in a dry word or two here and there in a weak voice—to serve, as he remarked once, as rocks in the path of the cataract—her narrative poured forth, with characteristic disdain of order and chronology, and frequent promises to return later to such and such a point and explain—the moment for which never came. Still, having extorted permission to tell her tale in her own way, she did arrive at last at the evening of Richard’s return to consciousness, and Kamal-ud-din’s most inopportune appearance on the scene.
“If you’ll believe me, Brian, I wasfrightened”—with the solemnity needed to carry conviction of so improbable a fact,—“really terribly frightened. The instant before I was scolding Ambrose for not letting me know the very moment he had his senses again, and I had plenty more to say, when there stood that—thatincongruousyouth,gloomingat us with great angry eyes, and a drawn sword in his hand!”
“And I leave you to guess what your sister did,” said Richard, taking advantage of her pause for effect.
“Why, I’d say she’d spring up and take her stand nobly in the front of you, and treat that incongruous youth to the rough side of her tongue,” said Brian.
“Well, then, I did not!” said Eveleen triumphantly. “You’ll never guess it. I’m ashamed of myself entirely when I think how I’d ever do such a thing. I just ducked down behind Ambrose, and cried, and cried, and cried!”
“Y’old impostor, Evie!” shouted Brian.
“I wasnot. ’Twas all I could do—to think how everything had gone wrong just as it was getting right. And poor Ambrose lying there getting soaked with tears, and not a chance of saying a word because of the noise!”
“As you may imagine, your sister is colouring her narrative a bit,” supplied Richard. “’Matter of fact, the Khan was as much taken aback as we were, and began to look most uncommon foolish. It was unnecessary for me to say anything—even had I had the chance.”
“Do I understand, then, that Evie wept and wept until her tears would float him out of the place, still looking foolish?” demanded Brian.
“You do not. The Seal of Solomon was still hung round Ambrose’s neck, and the chain cot my hair as I cried. That reminded me of the thing.”
“It would,” acquiesced Brian gravely.
“And I jumped up, and took it off Ambrose, and held it out to the youth and said, ‘Ah, take it, take it, and my blessing with it! All the luck you can have I’ll wish you with all my heart, and if it’s my poor eyes y’are set on I’ll give them to y’on a plate like St Lucy, and go groping blind all the rest of my life, but don’t take me away from Ambrose here!’”
“Precious moving!” remarked Brian. “And I hope Kamal-ud-din was duly moved?”
“He was not.” Eveleen paused, and Richard filled the gap.
“Unfortunately my wife spoke in English, you see—which is not one of the Khan’s accomplishments. Otherwise her rash offer might have been accepted, and you would have found a shocking spectacle to greet you.”
“Ah, you may talk and make a joke of it!” said Eveleen, with tremendous energy; “but I meant it, and I’d have done it too.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. But how was the sacrifice averted?”
“I ventured to put in my oar,” said Richard. “Seeing the youth look puzzled and angry, I summoned up my best Persian and laid the compliments on with a trowel. I told him the terror of his name had frightened my wife into thinking him capable of things he would never dream of doing. I blamed myself for giving him the seal when it was not mine to give, and begged him humbly to hold me responsible. I pointed out that Mrs Ambrose was now quite willing to surrender it—as a spontaneous tribute of esteem and admiration. I congratulated myself on recovering my senses in time to unite my sentiments with hers in making the gift.”
“Sure you never heard such an oration!” said Eveleen to Brian. “It flowed on, and gained strength as it flowed—like a river—and I only understanding a word here and there. And the poor Khan looking more and more sheepish under the weight of compliments! And the whole thing no good at all in the end!”
“No, I deny that!” said Richard vigorously. “If it didn’t convince the young gentleman, I shall always swear it brought him into an amiable frame of mind.”
“And how would he show that? Up to the present, he don’t seem to have had much chance, between the two of you.”
“He asked,” said Eveleen with dignity, “was the Beebee willing to give him the seal of her own free will?Icould understand that, and I nodded my head as fast as I could go.”
“Quite forgetting that y’ought have nodded up instead of down?” chuckled Brian. “’Tis a scatter-brain y’are, Evie!”
“Well, he knew what I meant, because I held the thing out to him with my sweetest smile, and he took it, and said to Ambrose his mother had warned him he’d better accept a gift offered with goodwill than seize an unwilling wife, and I was so thankful I didn’t interrupt the proceedings to tell him he’d never have had a wife in me.”
“Sure it’s well he’s a good boy and minds his mamma,” said Brian, his tone a little puzzled.
“Ah, but that was not all, then. I wondered would you see it. He said to Ambrose: ‘The Bahadar Jang gave life to me, his enemy, when he sent to warn me that my brother was seeking to compass my death. In return I leave him his people, safe and sound.’ Then some more compliments, and away he went. And that was the last we saw of him—except a cloud of dust vanishing to the southward yesterday evening. But who’s this coming in—Europeans?”
“The great Bleackley coming to pay his respects to the rescued lady, no doubt. And Keeling—you know him. Why, my dear girl, what’s the matter?” for Eveleen had sprung up in terror.
“It’s Tom. I ought have told you before. I was coming to it. But they’ll likely not notice.” She shook an agitated finger at the figure in the background. “Just pretend he ain’t there, Brian.”
But evidently Colonel Bleackley was better informed than she hoped, for when he had greeted her and Richard and congratulated them on their escape and demanded a full account of their adventures later on, he said blandly—
“You have that renegade Thomas here, I understand. Like the fellow’s impudence to take refuge with you. Wonder he ain’t ashamed to show his face. The man who trained the Khans’ artillery and fired on the Residency, I mean.”
“But sure he has saved our lives again and again. He’s only here now because he came back to save us when he might have escaped,” urged Eveleen hotly. “Ah, now, Colonel Bleackley, let the poor fellow go!”
But Colonel Bleackley shook his head. “Impossible, my dear madam, impossible! How could I answer to the General for such a piece of folly? He will wish to deal with the fellow himself, I am certain, and make an example of him.”
“Don’t you trouble yourself, Miss Evie,” said Carthew, coming forward in his shuffling way. “It was bound to come. I’ve never done anybody much credit yet, but I’m glad it’s through helpin’ you and the Major that I’ve got caught. Leave it at that.”
But nothing was farther from Eveleen’s intentions, and the moment Colonel Bleackley was gone—Carthew having been removed in custody earlier—she attacked her brother again on the subject.
“He must be let go, Brian—you must give the General no peace till he pardons him. He had actually escaped—he went away with the Khan, leaving us, as he thought, perfectly safe. Then one of the servants let out that the younger Khanum—Jamal-ud-din’s mother—had left word with the town authorities, and bribed them, to kill us and make out we’d never been here at all, and poor Tom came riding back post-haste to warn us. We were quite quiet and happy, not keeping any watch or anything, but he got us into the tower beside the gateway, where there was a little bit of a room with a tiny door, and there we stayed all night—fearfully hot. The townspeople came prowling round the empty courts and places, but Tom cocked his pistols very loud when they came near us, and they were frightened. They must have thought you were not coming to the city when you didn’t advance yesterday, for this morning they sent word that ’twas all right, we were quite safe, for you were coming, and when we sent Bearer up to the top of the gate to look, he called out that ’twas so, and he danced for joy! But when poor Tom tried to go away again the way the Khan had gone, the people stopped him and wouldn’t let him go, and he came back here. We must save him, or we’ll be disgraced for ever. Ambrose feels just precisely as I do about it.”
“Well, my dear, I think if Carthew could make up his mind to face a trial——”
“But he can’t—you know he can’t. It ain’t his fault if he was born a coward, and if it is, we have reason to be tender to his faults if any one has. If you won’t help him escape, I will.”
“I will,” said Brian; “but I won’t be melodramatic about it. I’ll just get hold of the General.”
And get hold of the General he did—when the expedition retraced its steps to the riverside camp,—riding ahead to bear the news of all that had happened. Officers and men streamed out joyously to welcome Eveleen and her husband—Colonel Bleackley thought it was to welcome him, and smiled on them graciously,—and Sir Harry himself rode out on Black Prince, looking old and shaky, with his worn blue coat hanging loose upon him, but his face wreathed with smiles.
“I was never so delighted in my life!” he cried, as he shook hands vigorously with the rescued ones. “It has been touch and go with me, but I began to mend when I heard Haigh’s guns in the distance—showing, as I hoped, that Kamal-ud-din had been brought to action, and now the sight of Mrs Ambrose has wrought a complete cure! No time to waste if we are to leave that plague-spot in time to get across the river, but at least we can frizzle through the rest of the hot weather in the shade at Qadirabad, instead of out in the desert.”
“Y’ought take a little rest at Bab-us-Sahel yourself, Sir Harry,” said Eveleen. “’Twould do you great good.”
“Well, well, all in good time. Lord Maryport has been kind enough to bid me build a house there and do my work in a better climate than Qadirabad. You and Ambrose may go down by road now in safety if you choose, for the King of the Codgers has thrown up his hand. Vowed to Doveton at Bab-us-Sahel that he would never come in to make his submission with less than seven hundred retainers at his back, the old rascal! but I sent him word he was to present himself in Qadirabad without a follower of any sort, and he’s coming! So you may go when you like—but with an escort this time, if you please, ma’am——” Eveleen had the grace to look ashamed. “Keeping us all on the rack with anxiety on your behalf—as if the hot weather wasn’t trying enough by itself,—and taking up the services of my whole espionage to find you, without even letting ’em have the satisfaction of doing it! It’s to that brother of yours you owe it that you’re here, do you know that?”
“I do, Sir Harry, I do. Knowing him yourself, would you say he was one to hide his trumpet under a bushel?”
Sir Harry considered the metaphor gravely. “Perhaps not, ma’am—perhaps not. But I owe him not a little gratitude for schooling that fighting brute Dick Turpin for me. The beast is a reformed character nowadays, by the look of him. I shall hear of it from the Bombay papers, no doubt—a regular shout of execration of the wicked officer who all but killed his horse. Or they’ll go a step farther, and say he did kill him. Why not? paper and ink are cheap, and truth is precious dear. Some day I shall see it set forth solemnly in print that I eat an Arabit baby for my breakfast every morning, and insist upon having ’em fat—ever since the mild and restraining influence of the accomplished Colonel Bayard was so unfortunately withdrawn!”
He spoke in jest, but as though with prevision of the paper warfare that was to embitter the remainder of his life. The Flag might fly from the round tower of Qadirabad, and in the cool chambers where the Khans had passed their time drowsily in drugged slumber their supplanter might work ten, twelve, eighteen hours a day upon plans for the sanitary, economic, moral betterment of Khemistan. But the flow of poisoned comment from Bombay was to know no rest, and the famous Bayard-Lennox controversy, which raged unabated throughout both men’s lives, and still divides historians, was to leave the home authorities doubtful whether the annexation of Khemistan had not after all been a piece of high-handed rascality perpetrated by the General on his own authority, and to rob him and his force of their well-deserved honours. Sir Harry could not see as far as this, however.
“But I’ll do something for your brother myself,” he added mysteriously. “He shall go down to Bombay in September with my nephew Fred, and help him bring back my wife and girls. That’s a task to his mind—eh? Don’t you tell him, ma’am—let it come as a surprise. Where’s the fellow gone?”
“Here he is,” said Eveleen, rather nervously, for Brian had rejoined them in company with a sallow man in native dress, who seemed to shun the curious glances thrown at him. “And this is the person who saved our lives, Sir Harry.”
The General looked searchingly at the renegade, then spoke briskly. “An American, I understand, Mr Thomas?”
It was the chance of escape, and Eveleen breathed again. But for once Carthew held up his head and squared his shoulders. “No, General; I can’t deny my country even to save my life. I am an Englishman.”
“Nothing to boast of in your case, I fear. I am sorry to see you here. At Qadirabad I shall be compelled to place you under strict arrest, pending an enquiry into your case—at Qadirabad, do you understand?”
If Carthew did not understand, Brian and Eveleen did, and the next morning the two, going out for an early ride, halted near a tent on the outskirts of the camp, mysteriously left unguarded. Brian led a spare horse with well-filled saddle-bags, and when they rode on again this horse had a rider. Out of sight of the camp, on the southward route leading eventually to Kamal-ud-din’s refuge in the Delta, the three halted.
“Tom, you wouldn’t come back even now and face it?” asked Eveleen anxiously. “The General would see you had a fair trial, and we would all bear witness——”
“I can’t, Miss Evie.” Carthew’s habitual stoop and shifty manner had returned. “I can’t face it. I’m shamed enough. The private soldiers point their thumbs at me. They all know who I am—the chap that fired on his own people. No, thankin’ you kindly, I’ll go where everybody else is as bad as me.”
“God bless you, Tom—even there—wherever you go!” and Eveleen and Brian shook hands with him, and watched him ride away in the cool light of the dawn.
* * * * * * * *
“I’m greatly pleased you have seen my sister—really made her acquaintance, I mean.” Brian spoke with an anxiety which was a little comic in view of the extreme youth of the lady he was addressing. Miss Sally Lennox resembled her father too strongly to be called good-looking, and Brian was the only person ever likely to claim that the famous eagle-beak was an ornament to a feminine face. She was very quiet in manner, even demure—an epithet which was not one of reproach in those days. Brian and she were sitting on the steps leading to the ramparts above the General’s house in the Fort, with the charitable purpose of shielding the retreat of her elder sister and Captain Stewart to the battlements overhead, where they were enjoying sweet communion, all unconscious that Sir Harry was demanding his senior aide-de-camp, and Lady Lennox looking for her step-daughter.
“Yes, Mamma gave me permission to spend the day with her. Papa was so kind as to ask her for me.” Miss Sally was invariably proper to the point of primness in her intercourse with her stepmother, which may have accounted for some of the wisdom with which her father credited her.
“And you saw a good deal of her? And—and did you get on?”
The amusement in Sally’s smile was not unmixed with gentle contempt. She not to “get on” with any woman living—or to confess it if she did not! “Oh, I assure you we got on delightfully. Mrs Ambrose was good enough to describe all her adventures to me. How charmingly she talks—so original and vivacious, ain’t she?”
“And did you see Ambrose at all?”
“He came in while I was there. I thought him a very agreeable, gentlemanly person. I adore that dry cool manner.” The merest glint of an upward glance through long eyelashes to observe how Brian received this, which was naturally not with enthusiasm.
“He’s a good fellow, of course. I wonder now—d’ye remember my telling y’at Poonah I was troubled about my sister and Ambrose?—that they didn’t seem quite to hit it off together.”
“I remember it perfectly.” Again the smile. As though any information was ever forgotten that had once been stored away beneath the smooth bands of hair on that knowing little head!
“Well, now, did you notice anything of the kind—that he did not appreciate her as he ought?”
“No, indeed. I thought them a most congenial couple.”
“Well, there y’are now! That was the very last thing I’d have said of ’em. Was it just my fancy after all? Wait now and I’ll tell you. When I was on my way here with the General first of all, I heard a man in the Club at Bombay telling a story of another man who went home at the same time he did, to marry a lady he’d got engaged to years and years before. This man was at a ball one night, and the second man came into the supper-room looking like a ghost, and poured himself out a glass of brandy neat. ‘What’s the matter?’ says the first fellow. ‘She’s old—she’s old!’ he says—‘and she was the loveliest girl in the three kingdoms.’ ‘But sure y’have seen her before to-night?’ says t’other. ‘Times and times, but always in the open, and on her horse. ’Tis a picture she is then, as she always was. But to-night, dressed up among all the girls——! And I have come eight thousand miles to marry her!’ ‘And did he marry her?’ asks one of the men that were listening. ‘Of course,’ says the fellow—‘’tis the sort he is,’ and that was all. I was not saying anything, naturally, but I made some enquiries afterwards in a careless sort of way, and found the man that had spoken was in Ireland about the time my sister was married. Tell me now, what d’ye think?”
This time Sally’s smile was very pleasant—almost compassionate. “Let me tell you what I noticed,” she said. “Your sister and I were together in her room when Major Ambrose came in from office. Your sister rose to go and meet him, but remembered me and sat down again, though I begged her not to make a stranger of me. Then he came and looked round the curtain. ‘Er—I wanted just to know where you were, my dear,’ he said. Now where should she be but there? It was not necessary for him to come. He came because he wished to see her.”
“And you gather from that——?”
“Pray what wouldyougather?”
“It sounds all right, don’t it? Well, that’s consoling, indeed. But will you tell me, was it all right the whole time or not? Was I just imagining things?”
“How can I tell? And”—demurely—“do you think we ought to discuss other people’s affairs in this way?”
“But sure it’s my own sister, and for my own consolation. She was a pretty good age, of course—bound to be after all those years. It’s t’other way about with me, don’t you know? The girl I’ll marry will be nothing but a babe in arms compared with me.” From some idea of the reverence due to youth, Brian was wont to conduct his wooing in this impersonal style, which was seen through by the lady with the greatest ease.
“Never mind!” she said kindly. “I am sure she will cherish the utmost regard for you.”
“But I’ll be double her age! I’ll be a he-hag!”
“It sounds rather like an ass,” murmured Sally. “Donkey” was a slang word then—as “moke” is now, and impossible on the lips of Lady Lennox’s step-daughter.
“Then it sounds like what I am! But will it be that all poor Evie did for her husband—when she saved his life, don’t you know,—will that have turned his heart to her again?”
“How sentimental we are becoming!” lightly. “No, I think not. Efforts of that kind might prove her own affection for her husband, but could hardly awaken his if it were dead.”
“Then will you tell me what it was that did, O wise young judge?”
“How can I say for certain? I can only suggest that Major Ambrose is convinced by this time that his wife is one of the happy people who never grow old——”
“He is that, indeed. Have I not heard him myself times without number cast it at her that she would never growup?”
“I had not quite finished.—And perhaps he finds himself prizing, because they are hers, even those features in her character which he used to resent.”
“Cannot do without her—eh? But sure that’s a consequence, and I’m asking you for a cause, a reason, an explanation!”
“I’m afraid that’s all I can give you,” meekly.
“‘My wise little Sally!’” murmured Brian.
“That is a quotation—from Papa, ain’t it?” reprovingly.
“Quite so. But”—audaciously—“it’s a quotation which I trust one day to make my own!”
THE END.
Sydney C. Grier was the pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg.
This book is part of the author’s “Modern East” series. The full series, in order, being: