Naturally enough George overslept himself. Naturally also he woke to feel himself hustled and bustled, for he was due to meet the incoming camp at the borders of his district at a certain hour; a feeling he proceeded to vent on the factotum for being late with the early tea which that worthy had had carried over from the bungalow in an odd little procession, tailing off to some of the large-eyed village lads and lasses learning betimes the customs of their rulers. In addition, George had promised Mrs. Boynton an answer about the Ayôdhya pot, and now, even by hurrying, which he loathed, he could scarcely find time to seek Azîzan in the old place. Still he did hurry, and leaving the camel which he was to ride gurgling in the courtyard, wasted five minutes in tramping up and down the flags in front of the mosque; finally, in vexation, returning by the short cut through the bazaar. In these early hours it had a deserted, yet still dissipated air, the few loungers looking as if they had been up all night. Only the quails challenged cheerfully from their shrouded cages. In the arched causeway, however, he came on Dalel Beg, most offensively European in costume and manner; for he too was bound on reception-duty.
'Aha! Keene, old chappie,' he began with a leer, 'you sleep well after burra-khana (big dinner) with the mem. By Jove, you keep it up late.'
George could scarcely refrain from kicking him then and there. But the thought that these people had possibly put their own construction on his absence from the palace made him feel hot and cold with rage and regret. To avoid the subject--the only course open to him--he hastily held out the Ayôdhya pot which he was carrying, and asked the Mirza if he had any idea to whom it belonged.
Now the Mirza's oblique eyes had been on it from the first; but at the question they narrowed to mere slits of compressed cunning.
'Ah, so! very good. I know. Yes, yes! it belong to you, Keene, of course. Bah! it is worth nothing. I hate old trumpery matters. You are very welcome.'
'You mistake, sahib,' retorted George haughtily, 'this does not, did not belong to your grandfather; it belongs to an old woman who lives near the palace. She promised to sell it to me, and now I'm rather in a hurry to complete the bargain. Mem Boynton sahiba wants it, and they leave to-morrow or next day.'
Dalel Beg, who had been turning the pot over and over in his hand, laughed.
'So you say it is another----'
'Certainly it is another,' interrupted George, annoyed beyond measure by his manner; 'it belongs, as I said, to an old woman. She has a daughter called Azîzan----' he paused, doubtful of putting Dalel on any woman's track.
'Azîzan!'--the Mirza signed his attendants to fall back with unwonted decision before he went on,--'Azîzan! tell me, Keene, a young girl? with eyes of light like potter's?'
Evidently he knew something of, and was interested in, the girl, and George, now that it was too late, regretted having mentioned her name.
'Can't wait any longer now, I'm afraid,' he replied, glad of the excuse; 'just send one of your fellows up to my quarters with the pot, will you? Thanks, I've no time to lose.'
Left thus cavalierly, Dalel Beg scowled after the young Englishman; then with a compendious oath turned back to the side door whence he had emerged, and, stumbling in his anger up the dark stairs, appeared again in Chândni's presence. He almost flung the pot beside her as she lay curled up on her bed, and then, driven to words by her arrogant silence began a volley of furious questions.
What mischief had the woman been up to? How came it that the English cub had seen Azîzan? Azîzan, who after all was his half-sister, one of the race, though they did keep her out of his sight. And that oaf, that infidel---- His wrath was real, for beneath the veneer of modern thought the fierce jealousy of the Moghul lay strong as ever.
Chândni gave a jeering laugh, 'Thou art too handsome for the maidens, O Dalel; too wicked also even for the race. Thou needest one like me to keep thee straight. Lo! there is nothing to know, nothing to tell. Hadst asked last night, the answer might have been other. I set a snare and it failed; for thou wert right--the boy is no boy, but a milksop. May fate send him death and us a black man in his place, else I stop not here!'
Her jingling feet struck the ground with a clash and she yawned again. In truth she was tired of Hodinuggur, and longed for the Chowk at Delhi. Dalel, with a sneer adulterating his frown, looked at her vengefully, 'Wah! thou art a poor creature, putting the blame on others, after woman's way. Thy wiles are useless, forsooth, because the boy is a milksop. Then a strange mem comes and he sits drinking wine--my wine, look you, for his servant required it of me--until the dawn; then comes home tipsy after losing himself among the tent-pegs.'
This was Dalel's version of the incident. It interested his hearer into provoking details by denial.
'It is a lie,' she said calmly.
'Daughter of the bazaars, 'tis true! did I not wait till nigh three with champagne and devil-bone, yet he came not? Did not his servant tell me but now I had stinted them in wine? Did not the tent pitchers say he wandered as a madman among the pegs? Was he not at me, even now, to get this pot for this mem, this woman?' So far his anger had swept him past its first cause; now he remembered and harked back to it. 'How came he by the pot, I say? how hath he seen a woman of our race?'
'Ask the Diwân,' she replied coolly; 'for me that measure is over, I will dance to another tune.' And as she spoke, though her feet scarcely shifted, a new rhythm came to these jingling bells. ''Tis odd,' she murmured in a singing tone, as she lifted the pot and held it out at arm's-length, 'we come back to this old thing at every turn, and now his mem wants it. Leave it with me a space, O Mirza Dalel Beg. I will set it yonder in the niche where I take the seed of dreams; it may bring wisdom to them.'
Dalel gave a contemptuous grunt.
'Thou art no better than an old spay-wife with thy dreams and omens and fine talk. Sure the Hindu pig, from whom I took thee, hath infected thee with his idolatrous notions----'
'See, I go not back to them and him,' she interrupted quickly, 'leave it, I say, if thou art wise. If the sahib seek it of thee, say one of thy women knows the owner and makes arrangement. Tis true, and thou lovest the truth, O Dalel.'
As usual, her recklessness cowed him, and when he had gone and she sat rolling the opium pellets in her palms, the Ayôdhya pot lay in the niche. Something had declared in its favour, and wisdom lay in humouring the mysterious will which nine times out of ten insisted on playing the game of life in its own fashion. Then she lay back half asleep, half awake, her hands clasped behind her smooth head, her eyes fixed on the shifting pattern beneath the glaze. The sun climbing up sent a bar of shine through a chink in the balcony roof. It slanted into the recesses, undulated over her curved body and reaching the niche made the Ayôdhya pot glow like a sapphire. But by this time Chândni was dreaming, so she did not hear the merry laughter of a cavalcade passing through the Mori gate on its way to the canvas city in the camping ground. A cavalcade of aliens, with Rose Tweedie on a camel, her English side-saddle, perched on the top of a native pad, giving her such height that she was forced to stoop.
'Another inch, Miss Tweedie,' cried George gaily, 'and you would have had to dismount; you will have to cultivate humility before trying Paradise!'
'Sure Miss Rose is an angel already,' put in Dan Fitzgerald.
But Lewis Gordon rode gloomily behind; partly because he himself was in a shockingly bad temper, partly because the camel he rode was a misanthropist. And these two causes arose the one from the other, since it was not his usual mount. That, when Rose Tweedie had taken advantage of Mrs. Boynton's absence to desert the dhoolies which were the only alternative conveyance across this peculiarly sandy march, had been impounded for the young lady on account of its easy paces. He remembered those paces ruefully, as, with low-pitched indignation he wondered why she could not have stuck to the more ladylike dhooli. Yet she looked well on the beast and rode it better than most men would have done on a first trial; than he would, at any rate. But these were aggravations, not palliations, of her offence; still, when, on dismounting, she came straight up to him, her natty top-boots in full evidence, the huge sola hat, borrowed from her father, making her slim upright figure show straighter and slenderer than ever, he was forced to confess that if she did do these horrible things she did them with infiniteverveand good taste.
'I'm so sorry, Mr. Gordon!' she exclaimed eagerly, 'indeed I didn't know of the exchange father made till we had started, or I'd have stuck to the dhooli--indeed I would. What an awful brute it was! I saw it giving you a dreadful time. Do let me send you over some Elliman?'
'I'm not such a duffer as all that, Miss Tweedie,' he began.
'I didn't mean that, you know I didn't; but if you won't have the Elliman, take a hot bath, it's the next best thing I know for stiffness. You can tell your bearer to take the water from our bath-fire. And thanks so much, I enjoyed the ride immensely. Mr. Fitzgerald raced me at the finish, and I beat by a good head.'
'A particularly good head, I should say,' he replied, out of sheer love of teasing, for he knew how intensely she disliked his artificial manner with women. The fact annoyed him in his turn. It was another of her unwarrantable assumptions of superiority; nevertheless he followed her advice about the bath.
Indeed Hodinuggur for the rest of the day claimed suppleness of joint, in the mind at least. We all know the modern mansion where, entering a Pompeian hall you pass up a Jacobean staircase, along Early English corridors, and Japanese landings to Queen Ann drawing-rooms; mansions of culture, where present common-sense is relegated to the servants' attics. Hodinuggur was as disturbing to a thoughtful person unused to gymnastics; perhaps more so because a certain glibness of tongue in slurring over chasms and ignoring abysses, became necessary when, as fell to Lewis Gordon's lot, most of the day passed in interviews. Solemn interviews of State, then personal interviews with an ulterior object, finally begging interviewspur et simple. The other members of the camp, however, had an easy time of it, their attendance not being required. Dan Fitzgerald passed most of his day in vain hopes of atête-à-têtewith Mrs. Boynton, for he was on tenter-hooks to explain the feeling with which, on returning late to the camp, he had found it in commotion over her loss; but Gwen, who always dreaded Dan when he had reasonable cause for emotion, avoided him dexterously, chiefly by encouraging George, who was nothing loth to spend his day in camp. At first the lad felt no little vexed to find himself shy and constrained among so large a party; but this feeling wore off quickly, and when he came, ready dressed for tennis, into the drawing-room tent at tea-time it seemed quite natural to be once more amid easy-chairs and knick-knacks, to see the pianette at which Rose sang her Scotch songs with such spirit littered with music, and to find her busy at a table set with all manner of delightful things to eat. He was boy enough to try so many of them, that Dan had to apologise for his subordinate's greed before they trooped out laughing to the very different world which lay beyond the treble plies of the tent--that mystical veil of white, and blue, and red, which, during the camping months, hangs between India and its rulers, giving rise to so much misunderstanding on both sides. It is the fashion nowadays to accentuate the faults of the latter, but much of the bad name given by superficial observers to Anglo-Indian society, is the result of that curious lightheartedness which springs from the necessity for relaxation, consequent on the gloveless hold India exacts on the realities and responsibilities of life. The saying, 'Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die,' is hurled unfairly at pleasure-seekers all the world over, simply because merriment has become associated with a low type of amusement. If we change the verbs, the blame vanishes; since to live happily is the end and aim of all morality. For happily means worthily to those who have any moral sense. Then in India the pursuit of pleasure must needs be personal, for there are no licensed purveyors of amusement. You cannot go to a box-office, buy seats, spend the day seriously, dine at a restaurant, and take a hansom to the play. As a rule you have to begin by building the theatre. So it is in all things, and surely after a hard day's work in bringing sweetness and light (and law) within reach of the heathen, even a judge with a bald head may unbend to youthful pastimes, without breaking the Ten Commandments!
But Colonel Tweedie was not bald, and he played tennis vigorously in what Rose called the duffers' game, with Mrs. Boynton, the under-secretary, and Lewis Gordon who pleaded shortsightedness as an excuse for not joining the Seniors against the Juniors, where Rose and George challenged all comers. Yet he owned it was pretty enough to see the former sending back Dan's vicious cuts with a setting of her teeth ending in a smile either at success or failure. Pleasant to see the alertness, confidence, confidentialness between the boy and girl; to hear his quick 'Look out,' evoke the breathless 'I've--got it,' as the ball whizzed to some unguarded spot. It was a fierce struggle and the wide-eyed villagers who had trooped out to see the strange doings on their ancestral threshing-floor, gathered instinctively round the harder game.
'Ari, sister!' murmured a deep-bosomed mother of many to her gossip, as they squatted on one of the heaps of chaff which had been swept aside from the hard beaten floor. 'That one in the short skirt is abudmârsh.[1]Her man will need his hands.' Yet an unrestrained chuckle ran round the female portion of the audience as Dan, over-running himself in a hopeless attempt after the impossible, scattered a group of turbaned pantaloons, who, retreating with shaking heads to re-form further off, muttered in wondering rebuke, 'Hai! Hai! does not shame come to her.' But a third section, ranged in rows, gave an exotic 'hooray!'--a ridiculous, feeble little cheer, started by a young man in a black alpaca coat, and accompanied by still feebler clapping. This was the village school and its master, claiming its right to be a judge of 'crickets.'
'You have the better half of creation on your side, Miss Tweedie,' remarked Lewis, when, the games being over, the men were resuming their coats. 'What is more, the rising generation of the worser half also. The boys were unanimous for the "Miss"; we miserable men being left to the support of past ages. India is doomed. Another decade will see woman's rights rampant.'
She turned on him readily, as she always did. 'The boys applauded because the rising generation, thank heaven, is being taught to love fair play--even towards women.'
'At it again!' interrupted Mrs. Boynton plaintively, 'really I must get you two bound over to keep the peace.'
'Then I shall have to hire another camel for my luggage,' said Lewis gravely, 'for Miss Tweedie knocks me and my arguments to bits.'
Gwen turned aside impatiently, saying in a lower voice, 'How foolish you are, Lewis! One would have thought you would have tired of it by this time.'
'On the contrary,' he replied in his ordinary tone: 'the bloom is perennial. I wither beneath the ice of Miss Tweedie's snubs, and revive beneath the sun of her smiles like--like a bachelor's button.'
And Rose did smile. Her contempt always seemed to pass by the man himself, and rest on his opinions. Even there, much as she loathed them, she was forced to confess that they did not seem to affect his actions; that it was impossible to conceive of his behaving to any woman, save as a gentleman should behave. Yet this thought aggravated the offence of his manner by enhancing its malice aforethought, and made her frown again.
'Come! there is light enough for a single yet, Mr. Keene,' she said imperiously, and George, with one regretful glance at Mrs. Boynton, obeyed. Lewis Gordon looked after them, shrugged his shoulders, and strolled off to the messroom-tent.
'It really is shameful of Lewis to tease Miss Tweedie as he does,' began Gwen, who, finding herself unavoidably paired with Dan, instantly started what she thought a safe topic of conversation. He looked at her with absent eyes.
'A shame, is it? but when a man likes a girl he is very apt----'
She broke in with a petulant laugh. 'Are you asleep, Dan? What could induce you to think that?'
'What? Why, love of course! Set a thief to catch a thief. A man can't be in love himself without----'
He certainly was not asleep! but she managed to double back to safer ground. Yet his words recurred to her that evening during the half hourtête-à-têtewhich she accorded with the utmost regularity to Colonel Tweedie in his capacity of host; Rose meanwhile singing songs to the younger men who gathered round the piano, leaving those two decorously to the sofa.
'There is a little song I want Mrs. Boynton to hear,' called the Colonel during a pause. 'I forget its name--you haven't sung it for a long time, and I used to be so fond of it. A little Jacobite song--really a charming air, Mrs. Boynton.' Rose flushed visibly--at least to the feminine eyes in the party--and shook her head.
'But you must remember it, my dear,' persisted her father; 'do try.'
'Oh yes! please do try! I should so like to hear it,' echoed Gwen curiously, her eyes full on the blush. Rose, conscious of it, felt herself a fool, and looked still more uncomfortable.
'Talking of Jacobite songs,' remarked an indifferent voice beside her, 'I wonder, Miss Tweedie, if you know a great favourite of mine, called "Lewie Gordon"--don't laugh, you boys, it's rude. If so, please sing it. I haven't heard it for years; people are always afraid of making me vain.'
She gave him a quick, grateful look, as, with a nod, she broke into the song.
'O send Lewie Gordon hame,And the lad I daurna name,Tho' his back be to the wa',Here's to him that's far awa'.'
'O send Lewie Gordon hame,And the lad I daurna name,Tho' his back be to the wa',Here's to him that's far awa'.'
She sang with greater spirit than before, a sort of glad recognition of his kindly tact leading up to the decision of the climax:
'That's the lad that I'll gang wi'.'
'That's the lad that I'll gang wi'.'
Yet after all, amid the chorus of thanks, she heard him say in his worst manner, '"The lad I daurna name!" how like a woman!' And he added to the offence; for, when the little under-secretary remarked diffidently that he had always understood that the song referred to Charles Edward, though whether to the old or the young Pretender he could not say, Lewis, as he dawdled away to his nightly task of breaking up thetête-à-tête, murmured that at any rate it referred to apretendu. But Rose had caught Gwen's appealing look from the sofa also, and rising, closed the piano with a bang and suggested a round game. If her intention was to punish the offender, who hated that form of amusement, she failed ignominiously; for he sat on the 'Stool of Repentance' with perfect nonchalance, and, when it came to her turn, paid her such double-edged, charmingly caustic little compliments, that she had to join in the laugh they raised. It was, in fact, past midnight ere the Colonel, with many allusions to the delight of such company, said they really must go to bed, and they trooped in a body out of the big tent to seek their several quarters.
'I'm glad not to make a casual of you to-night,' said Mrs. Boynton softly to George.
'Almost wish you were,' he replied, giving a rueful look towards the red brick prison on the farther side of the canal. 'This is home; that is exile.'
Dan nodded his head sympathetically. 'I know that feeling. It comes from jungle stations. And the bungalow does look cheerless in comparison. Odd; for one naturally associates a camp with wars and tumults, battles, murders, and sudden death; all the evils of a transitory world, in fact. But you must have noticed, Mrs. Boynton, the extraordinary air of peace, security, almost of permanence which tents have in the moonlight. Look! might they not be solid blocks of marble fastened by silver cords?'
'I noticed it last night when I was watching them being put up,' began George unguardedly. Mrs. Boynton looked up quickly. Rose, who was leaning against a rope by the door of her tent which stood next the mess, glanced along the line of the camp.
'Silver cords and marble blocks,' she echoed. 'Yes! but it sounds like the New Jerusalem.'
'I always thought,' remarked Lewis Gordon argumentatively, 'that it was the tents of Midian. I'm sure some one told me so when I learnt hymns. Or was it hosts of Midian and tents of Ishmael? Anyhow, they had nothing to do with Paradise, and I for one have been prowling round long enough. So good-night, Gwen; don't grow wings in the night, please; it would be so disconcerting. Good-night, Miss Tweedie.'
Being close beside her he held out his hand.
'Good-night; I hope you are not very stiff.'
'I almost wish I were, for then you would sympathise with misfortune--like a woman,' he replied in a low voice, and as he passed to his own tent next hers, she heard him quote the lines--
'Tho his back be to the wa',Here's to him that's far awa'.'
'Tho his back be to the wa',Here's to him that's far awa'.'
She looked after him, her face showing soft in the moonlight, then, with a good-night to the others, disappeared in her turn.
George lingered, giving still more rueful glances at the bungalow. 'I suppose I must be off too. Oh! by the way! it's all right about the Ayôdhya pot. Dalel Beg tells me his women know the owner, so you will have it to-morrow. Good-night, Fitzgerald.'
Dan, thus left alone to walk two tents-length with Gwen, felt that fate was on his side at last; more probablyshewas, since her fine tact told her it was never wise to ignore his passion entirely. Besides, something in her shrank from treating him always as a mere outsider.
'I've been longing for this chance all day,' he began at once in a tone that was in itself a caress.
'Do you think I am quite blind?' she interrupted, a trifle petulantly; 'the only wonder is that every one in the camp didn't see it also. You are so reckless, Dan! Of course you wanted to tell me how you felt when I was lost, and all that; as if I couldn't imagine it!' she gave in to a smile that was almost tender as she spoke--'Why, Dan! I can see you! with a face yards long, and the whole camp, Chief and all, under orders in half a minute. Fire-escapes, life-preservers, first aid to the wounded, everything mortal man could devise to avert disaster, ready before the rest had time to think! Do you suppose I don't know what you are, Dan?' The odd, composite ring in her voice sank as she added, in a lower tone, 'sometimes I almost wish I didn't.'
They had reached the place where their ways separated; hers to the last tent forward, his to the second row, and she held out her hand with a smile to say good-night. His heart beat hard at her half-reluctant admission of praise; besides, Gwen Boynton was not the sort of woman who could smile thus, and yet expect to end the interview then and there; perhaps, again, she did not wish it so to end. In her relations with this man, she often found it difficult to know what she did, or did not, desire.
'Gwen,' he said eagerly, standing close, with his warm nervous hands clasping hers, 'did you think of me--then?--when you knew you were lost, I mean--did you, Gwen?--I don't often ask anything of you, my darling--you might tell me--It isn't much to ask--Did you, Gwen?'
She gave something between a laugh and a sob. 'Did I? Oh! Dan, you know I did. There, that is enough--you said that was all you wanted. Good-night, Dan.'
He went over to his quarters happy as a king. As for Gwen, the personal influence his immediate presence had over her passed away quickly, and that which his real absence from her life invariably produced did not come to soften the curious dread with which she recognised, that in her trouble of the day before, her first thought had indeed been for him. How foolish she had been in letting him re-enter her life at all! but he had come back in her first loneliness when the future had seemed very black. Now it was different, now it was once more that choice between poverty and comfort which she had made in her girlhood. With what pain, none--save Dan, who, alas! always understood--would believe. And if the choice was necessary then, what was it now with her acquired habits, her knowledge of the world? They would both be miserable if they married without money. Then the thought of the bills came, as it always did to remind her of the tie they imposed. Even if Lewis, whom she liked and respected, were to make up his mind to marry, she could not accept him without dismissing Dan. Yet how could she dismiss him, even for his food, until that money was repaid? Poor Dan! he loved her dearly, and in a way she cared for him as she had never cared for any of her other lovers. Yet the decision which had turned out so comfortably ten years before was still the right decision. Many of those lovers had been as devoted to her; and yet they had recovered from their rejection. Then the remembrance of George Keene's admission that he had been out watching the stars made her smile. He was a nice boy, who already deemed her an angel; but Lewis objected to wings, and of the two that was the most convenient view for the woman.
While she was coming to this conclusion George had been looking after her interests, for on his return to the bungalow he had been startled by the sudden uprisal of a veiled female from a shadowy corner of his verandah.
'I am Azîzan's mother,' said a muffled voice. 'The Mirza sent me. I have been waiting the Huzoor's return. There is the pot if the Huzoor will give ten rupees for it. It is much, yet the pot brings luck.'
'Ten!' echoed George in delight, taking it from her. 'Yes! you shall have that; then I owe Azîzan also. Shall I pay you?'
'My daughter is as myself,' replied the voice. 'It is ten for the picture, and ten for the pot.'
George fetched the money and counted it carefully into the shrouded hand.
'That is all, I think?' he asked.
'Huzoor, that is all. May the blessing of the widow and the fatherless go with the merciful Protector of the Poor.'
But while he was thinking, as he undressed, how pleased Mrs. Boynton would be, the veiled figure was pausing in the moonlight to speak to the factotum.
'You have seen nothing, you are to say nothing. And the Diwân sends these to the servant-people.' Then came twenty careful chinks, this time into a clutching hand, and Chândni, hurrying back to the city, laughed silently to herself. The idea of bribing the little sahib's servants with his own rupees would please Dalel, and put him into a good temper again; so if this plan matured, her future would ripen with it. As she passed the sleeping camp she paused, wondering in which tent lay the mem who had succeeded so easily where she had failed. The lights were out in all save two, and the double row of glistening white roofs struck even her insensibility with a savage recognition of undeserved peace and security. They were no better than she; no better than those shadowy crouching figures of the village bad-characters set out here and there to keep watch and ward, on the principle of setting a thief to catch a thief; a plan which at least secures a deserving criminal should thefts occur. For it was in the East that the strange hybrid between altruism and egotism which we call a scape-goat was invented by mankind.
One of the lights Chândni saw came from Lewis Gordon's tent. He was hard at work, not altogether from sheer industry. Sleep with him--oddly enough in one claiming such serenity of temperament--had to be approached discreetly, and for many days past a disturbing current of thought had required the dam of good solid official business before he could trust himself safely to the waters of Lethe. He had not been constantly in his cousin's company for six weeks without learning to appreciate her infinite charm. She was emphatically a woman to ensure a husband's success as well as her own. A man would never have to consider enemies with her at his side, whereas with many others--Rose Tweedie for instance--it might be necessary to fight your wife's battles as well as your own. This comparison of the two arose from no conceit on his part in imagining that any choice lay with him. Simply, he could not avoid comparing the only two women in his daily surroundings. At the same time he was fully aware that Gwen would marry him if he asked her, and the question which had at first assailed him in the hall at Rajpore, recurred again and again, disturbing him seriously by alternate attraction and repulsion. He had seen too much of fascinating wifehood to care for possessing a specimen himself, yet Gwen would marry him because she considered it would further their mutual interests; and that, surely, was a more reliable foundation for a permanent contract than a girlish affection. Quite as pleasant, too, as the hail-fellow-well-met liking, which seemed to be Rose Tweedie's notion of love. George Keene and she were like a couple of boys together. The remembrance jarred, though he went on working with a smile at the thought of her eager readiness to take up the glove on all occasions.
Rose, meanwhile, lay awake next door frowning over the same readiness, and then frowning at her own frowns, since what was it to her if Lewis Gordon were nice or nasty? He himself did not care what she thought, and would end by marrying his cousin, though in his heart of hearts----
Rose sat up in bed angrily. What did she know or care of Lewis Gordon's heart?Dieu merci!Gwen Boynton was welcome to it, but she should not drag George Keene captive as she seemed welcome to do. George was too good to hang round a pretty woman, like Lewis----
This was intolerable. To escape the tyranny of thought she rose, slipped on her white dressing-gown, lit the lamp she had extinguished, and sat down to read a stiff book till she felt sleepy. The process was not a long one, for she was really fatigued, and ten minutes saw her turning down the lamp once more.
What happened next she scarcely knew; only this--a glare of light--a feeble crash. Then fire in her eyes, her face, her hands--fire at her feet, licking along the thin carpet, soaking up the folds of her filmy dress. The bed lay close at hand; she was on it in a second, wrapping the blankets round her, and beating out the runnels of flame, with eyes, brain, and body absorbed in the immediate personal danger. When that was over, and she looked up, she sprang to her feet on the bed with a cry. The fire was everywhere, creeping up the sides of the tent, filling it with suffocating smoke. She wound her trailing skirts round her and made a dive for the first outlet--for her only chance of escape! The thick wadded curtain swinging aside let in a wind, making the smouldering cotton flame; but the next instant she was outside, constrained to pause, wondering if by chance it was nothing but a bad dream. For the camp lay serene and peaceful in the moonlight; not a sound, not a sign, even from her own tent. She stood positively irresolute, staring back at what she had left. Was it a dream? Then, suddenly a faint drift of smoke rose through a crevice in the cloth.
'Mr. Gordon!--Mr. Gordon!' She burst through the thick, guided by the light in his tent to the nearest help. 'Your knife--quick! my tent is on fire! Quick, or the whole camp will catch!'
The blood was flowing from a cut over her forehead, one arm showed bare through scorched muslin, the draperies caught round her were singed and blackened, the stamp and smell of fire was on her from head to foot. Lewis, starting to his feet, stared at her.
'Oh, quick! please, quick! Your pen-knife--anything! Cut down the tents--Mr. Fitzgerald said it was the only----'
He had grasped the position ere she could finish, snatched up a hunting-knife and was out; she, with a pen-knife, close at his heels.
'Good God! how the wind has risen,' he muttered, as they ran. 'No, not mine!--The mess-tent first; the wind is that way.'
As they flew past her tent, the scene seemed peaceful as ever; but ere the guy-ropes of the next were reached, a swirl of smoke and flame, prisoned until then by the outer fly of canvas, swept straight up into the sky in the first force of its escape; then bent silently to the breeze. So silently!--not a roar, not a crackle--just a pyramid of fire splitting the taut canvas into long shreds, which the wind flung in pennants of flame on the mess-tent as those two hacked silently at the ropes. There was no time for words; no time for thought. A quiver came to the solid-looking pile, a shimmer in the moonlight. Another rope--another--then a sudden sway, a crash of glass and china from within. Down! but with a creeping trail of fire within its folds!
There was no lack of helpers by this time. Knives, hatchets were at work right and left upon the ropes lest the message of fire should find the tents taut. Colonel Tweedie was shouting confused orders in front. Dan Fitzgerald, after a quick inquiry if all were safely out, was back in the rear row, where the danger grew with delay. The din was deafening, yet the flames made no noise; it was the dark humanity yelling, as it capered over the big tent, treading out the curling snakes of fire. Seen against the glare of a burning pyramid behind, the figures showed like the demons in a mediæval Judgment beating the lost souls down to the worm which dieth not.
Rose, standing to rest, now that abler arms were at work, felt a hurried touch on her shoulder, and turned to see Lewis Gordon holding out an ulster which he had fetched from his tent.
'Put it on,' he said unceremoniously, 'or you'll catch cold.'
She flushed with surprise, then, as she complied, realising for the first time the havoc fire had made in her dress, continued to blush with an odd feeling of resentment.
'Where is Mrs. Boynton?' she asked quickly, to cover her confusion. 'I suppose you--I mean, she is safe, of course?'
'Of course. I haven't seen her though; but I heard your father calling to her. She must be with him. I'll see.'
'Mrs. Boynton? God bless my soul, isn't she with Rose?' cried Colonel Tweedie, who was still shouting excited orders to the crowd of coolies. 'She answered me and her tent is down. She must be out.'
'Mrs. Boynton! Has any one seen Mrs. Boynton?' Gordon's cry ran down the line without response.
'Gwen!--Gwen! the fools must have cut the thing down on top of her!' He had dashed up to the mass of ropes and canvas lying without beginning or end, in hopeless chaos. 'Gwen! Gwen!--are you there?'
A muffled cry was audible now in the hush of the workers.
'Not stunned, that's one thing,' he muttered to himself before shouting encouragement. Rose was at his elbow and caught his whisper.
'The sparks, for God's sake, Miss Tweedie! I trust you. If the tent smoulders she may suffocate before we--Coming, Gwen, coming directly!'
But no obstacle against eager help was ever more successful than that tortuous heap of heavy canvas, full of blind folds and entangled ropes, stayed fore and aft, and still fastened beyond possibility of removal to the bamboo-strengthened sides and the yet uncut guys. The seekers dived into the folds again and again to find themselves meshed; while Rose, with a sickening fear at her heart lest she should miss one, watched the sparks and shreds drifting by in clouds settling here, there, everywhere, and needing swift command to the little band of helpers. 'Quick, quick!--yonder by the corner. Another there! Stamp it out--quick! Well done!'
'What is it? what is it?' A new voice rose above the turmoil as Dan Fitzgerald came running from the rear grasping the truth as he ran. 'No, no?' he panted. 'No use, Gordon--too long. Get to the guys, for God's sake--the thickest--half a dozen men. Colonel, the right corner, please, sir; Gordon, the left; Smith, round to the back. They are not cut there, and see that the pegs hold--theymusthold. Miss Tweedie, put a man to each stay as the front rises. I want the doorway--the doormustshow. Brothers,' he continued in Hindustani to the men who were fast falling into place, 'we have to raise the tent again.Remember, the tent rises at the word!Gordon, are you ready? All ready?----
He paused, gave a rapid glance at the sparks, and lowered his voice. 'It has to be done sharp, Colonel, or----' Again he hesitated between fear of letting the prisoner know her imminent danger, and fear of not enforcing the necessity for speed. Rose understood, and racked by anxiety as she was, felt a thrill of recognition at Dan's quick thought which, even in such a moment, enabled him to remember that, as Mrs. Boynton knew but little Hindustani, he could continue in that language. 'The tent is certain to catch fire, but it may be smouldering now; so we must risk it. Remember that Imustget in and out before the canvas yields, or---- So be sharp. Gordon! you give the word!'
There was an instant's silence, broken by a voice. Then a shout, a heave, and Rose straining at a rope as she never strained before, felt, rather than saw, something rise, pause, sink; rise again fluttering, swaying.
'Higher! higher!' shouted Dan, standing close in, ready for a dive at the door. 'All together, Gordon. Shâh-bâsh, brothers! My God! it's caught already!'
A blot of shadow near her showed the coming doorway, and, half clear as it was, she saw Dan dash into it with the cry, which was echoed from outside as a little runnel of fire quivered up the half-stretched canvas.
'Stand fast! stand fast!' shouted Gordon at the guy. 'Run in, half of you, to the bamboos; they may hold longer than the stays.'
Rose was at one in a moment and clung to it, seeing nothing, thinking of nothing, but that irregular square of shadow. When would he come through it again? The tangles within! how would he thread them? For the pole having slipped from its supporting pegs had slid along the ground and would not rise more than half-way; so the inner fly-sides must be hanging in a maze--a maze of smouldering canvas. Horrible! a burning pall! Ah! would he never come?
Suddenly came another cry, as a great sheet of fire ran up the right ridge and the men at the rope fell backwards under the slackened strain of the parting canvas; yet still the corners held. But for how long! Oh! would he never come out?
'Mr. Fitzgerald! Mr. Fitzgerald! be quick, oh please be quick.'
It was a foolish, aimless little cry, yet somehow it raised a new idea in her mind. What if he had lost his way in that hideous tangle? She was at the blot of shadow in an instant calling again and again. Too late! surely too late, for the bamboo lintel to which she clung so frantically swayed. Not down yet--yes! down, and she with it, half kneeling still. She heard a cry from Lewis bidding the others run in on the fire and stamp it out; but as she staggered to her feet still holding on to the lintel something else staggered out beside her.
'All right,' gasped Dan, before the great shout of relief rose up drowning his voice. When it had passed and they crowded about him, he had set Gwen's feet on the ground and drawn the folds of blanket from her face, though his arm was still round her as she clung to him, scarcely believing in her safety.
'Only frightened--half suffocated,' he went on, struggling to get back his breath. 'Couldn't some one bring her a glass of water--don't move yet--they will bring it to you here. It is all over--except the shouting.'
Rose standing aside, giddy with sudden relief, could hardly believe it could be over. Yet the coolies were rubbing themselves and laughing over their sprawl in the dust when the tent collapsed, and the tent itself was blazing away unheeded on the ground. Yes! it was over, and so quickly that George Keene, roused by the crash of the messroom-tent, came too late for anything save sympathy. He gave that to the full; not unnecessarily, for in truth the condition of the camp was pitiable. Lewis Gordon's tent, being the only one to windward of the original outbreak, was left standing; the rest were either smouldering in ashes or severely damaged beyond the possibility of re-pitching without repair, while the extent of other injuries must remain unknown till dawn brought light, and time allowed the fires to die out undisturbed; for any letting in of air while the wind remained so high might cause a fresh blaze.
Colonel Tweedie, looking a perfect wreck in his striped flannel suit, fussed about uncertain and querulous, while George and Dalel Beg, who had arrived from the palace, competed for the honour of putting up the ladies during the remainder of the night; Dalel, minus the least vestige of European attire, being re-inforced after a time by Khush-hâl Beg, breathless but dignified, bearing the Diwân's urgent prayer to be allowed the honour of helping a beneficent Government in its hour of need.
Dan with an impatient frown on his face waited for decision till his patience failed. Then he buttoned-holed Lewis--who amid all the wild costumes looked almost ridiculously prim in his dress suit--and expounded his views vehemently, the result being that the Chief concluded in favour of the palace. If, as was possible, they might be forced into halting for several days, the old pile would hold them all, and a regiment besides. So, after a time, odd little square dhoolies, smelling strongly of rose-attar, came for the two ladies, and in them, duly veiled from public gaze, they were hurried along, much to their amusement. The gentlemen after a raid on Lewis Gordon's wardrobe, following suit, all except the under-secretary, who, coming last, found nothing available save a white waistcoat and a pair of jack boots, in which additions to a pyjama sleeping-suit he looked so absurd that the others sat and roared at him, as men will do at trifles when still under the influence of relief and excitement, until George carried him off to his bungalow, promising to return him next morning clothed and in his right mind. Thus the night ended in comedy for all save Mrs. Boynton. To her, clothes were anything but a triviality, and as she lay among silk quilts and hard roly-poly bolsters in the little strip of a room to which she and Rose were taken, pending the preparation of a state suite upstairs, she mourned sincerely over the probable fate of her wardrobe. Had it remained in the leather trunks escape might have been possible, but, knowing they were to halt for a day at least, she made the ayah hang up all the dresses round the tent. Poor Gwen seemed to see them, like Bluebeard's wives in a row, getting rid of their creases, and the thought of under-garments which might be uninjured gave her no consolation.
Rose was more calm, remembering that her riding-habit had, as usual, been moved in order to be brushed, and would most likely be produced next morning. Besides, she was worn out by the excitement, and forgot even the smart of a large scorch on her arm in the memory of that five minutes during which she had waited for Dan to come out of the fiery maze. Despite her boasted nerves, the stress and strain of it all came back again and again, making her set her teeth and clench her hands. Yet Gwen, who had so narrowly escaped a dreadful death, was grumbling over the loss of her dresses. Rose, lying in the dark listening to the plaintive regrets, felt scornfully superior, not knowing that her companion was deliberately trying to forget, to ignore, a like memory--the memory of her own feelings when Dan fought his way to her at last. If that sort of thing went on he would end by marrying her in spite of her wiser self; and then they would both be miserable. She was not a romantic fool, and yet--a very real resentment rose up against him as she remembered her own confidence, her own content. She felt vaguely as if he had taken advantage of her fear, and that something must be done to prevent a recurrence of this weakness on her part. If she could only pay back the money he had paid for her, matters would be easier to manage. As it was, even Lewis, with his easy-going estimate of women, would not stand the knowledge of her indebtedness to another man, so something must be done, something must be changed. That, oddly enough, was the underlying grievance which found expression in petulant assertions that Fate was doubly hard in making her fair; had she been dark like Rose, the part of Eastern Princess she would have to play until another consignment of civilised dresses arrived from Rajpore would have been fun. As it was, she would look a perfect fright.
She did not, however. Had she not been aware of this fact ere she made her appearance next morning in the long flowing robes and veil of a Delhi lady, she must have gathered it from the looks of her companions. But she had appraised herself in one of the big mirrors in the suite of state apartments halfway up the stairs, and decided that she would wear a similar costume at the very next fancy ball.
This in itself was sufficient to chase any save immediate care from a mind like hers. In addition, even a stronger character would have found it difficult to avoid falling in with the reckless merriment which had seized on all the other actors in the past night's incident. Partly from relief at its comic ending, partly because the charm of absolute novelty, the zest of the unexpected, enhanced the pleasure of extremely comfortable quarters--for Lewis in his capacity of personalaidehad decided against the dark state suite of apartments on the second storey in favour of the roof above, with its slender balconies, long arcades, and cool central summer-house open on all sides to the air. Here, high above the sand swirls, safe from the sun, they would be far better off than in tents during the growing heat of the days Gwen, leaning against a clustered marble pillar, looking down on the red-brown slant of windowless wall spreading like a fort to the paved courtyard below, said it was like living on a slice of wedding-cake. A solid chunk below, above a sugar filigree; whereat George, delighted, assured her that the whole palace itself viewed from afar had always reminded him of the same thing. Filigree or no filigree, she said it was charming, and the central hall of the twelve-doored summer-house was a marvel of decoration; fast falling to decay no doubt, yet losing no beauty in the process, since the floriated white tracery overlaying the background of splintered looking-glass was so intricate that the eye could scarcely follow the pattern sufficiently to appreciate a flaw. Seated there in coolest shadow you could see through the inner arches to the long slips of vaulted rooms on all four sides; through them again to the blue sky set in its rim of level plain, save to the north where the view was blocked by the Diwân's tower rising a dozen feet or more from the terraced roof, with which it was connected by a flight of steps barred by a locked irongrille. Thus the roof lay secure from all intrusion except from the courtyard, whence an outside stair, clinging to the bare wall, gave access to the state rooms below, and thence, still slanting upwards, to the lowest terrace of roof. Rose, leaning over a balcony looking sheer down to where the servants, like ants, were running to and fro over the preparations for breakfast, declared she would use one of the four little corner-rooms of the summer-house as her bedroom. All it needed was a curtain at the inner arch, when it would be infinitely preferable to those dreadful rooms downstairs all hung with glass chandeliers and silvered balls, which made her inclined to hang herself in sympathy. In the hopes rather, suggested Lewis, of improving the style of the decoration; a remark which brought the usual frown to the girl's face. In truth, Rose Tweedie in her trim riding-habit did not suit her surroundings half so well as Gwen Boynton in her trailing tinsel-decked robes. On the other hand, Colonel Tweedie would have done better in not yielding to the temptation of playing 'Sultan' to Mrs. Boynton's 'Light of the Harem'; for native costume does not suit an elderly Englishman. But the opportunity had been too strong for him.
'My dear father,' said Rose helplessly, when she first caught sight of her parent in a khim-khâb coat and baggy trousers. She might have said more, had not Mrs. Boynton's grave compliment on his appearance sent the girl away impatiently to lean over the balcony once more, and wonder if they were ever going to bring breakfast.
To her, when he appeared, went Dan Fitzgerald, without even a look at the others.
'Thanks, Miss Tweedie,' he said in a low tone. 'I hadn't time to say it last night. Ihadlost myself, and your voice---- However, it can be only "thank you," and you have that.'
Rose, with a smile, let his hand linger in hers for a second as their eyes met; honest, friendly eyes.
And George Keene also passed straight to her.
'Better! That is all right. By Jove, you were bad, when I found you outside the fuss when it was all over. You would have fainted, if it hadn't been for the whisky and water--which, by the way, I stole from Gordon's flask----'
'You didn't tell him?' interrupted Rose quickly.
'Not I! I knew you wanted it kept dark about the scorch. It's better, I hope? Why, you have curled your hair over the cut on your forehead. What a dodge!'
His young face was overflowing with a sort of pride in her pluck, when Mrs. Boynton came up. She was in a mood which craved attention, and some of her slaves had passed her by to give Rose the first word.
'What are you two discussing so eagerly?' she began. 'Good-morning, Mr. Keene. How delightfully commonplace you look in exactly the proper breakfast costume for a young Englishman!'
George blushed. He would have given worlds to say that she looked anything but commonplace, but was too young to venture on it. But he looked the sentiment, and Gwen smiled bewilderingly back at him. She was made that way, and could not help it.
'Isn't it quaint up here?' she went on, leaning over the balustrade and looking, as Rose had been doing, at the servants filing up the steps with silver dishes of sausages and bacon, and all the accessories of an orthodox English breakfast, regardless of the feelings of their pig-loathing hosts. 'I declare, I have fallen in love with everything.'
'Yourself included, I hope,' added Lewis, joining the group; or, to put it politely, you have fallen in love with everything, and everything has fallen in love with you. And no wonder. The fact is, Gwen, that you do suit your present environment to perfection. I should not have believed the thing possible--but so it is.'
As he sat on the coping with his back to the landscape, he bent forward looking at her critically--'No!' he went on; 'I should not have thought it possible, but you look the part.'
'It must be awful, though, to be a native,' remarked George fervently. His eyes were on Colonel Tweedie as he spoke. That conspicuous failure was, however, only partly responsible for his opinion. In a more or less crude form the childish hymn of gratitude for having been born in order to go to a public school survives wholesomely amongst young Englishmen.
'I don't know,' dissented Gordon languidly. 'A civilised conscience is a frightful interference with the liberty of the subject. Personally, I object to the native views of comfort, pleasure, and all that. But I can imagine some very good fellows preferring them. They are not nearly such a strain on the nervous system. For instance, Gwen, were you really the Shah-zâdi you look, there would have been no necessity for sending back those brocades over which I found you weeping half an hour ago. You would have appropriated them without demur. Wouldn't she, sir?'
The Colonel gave his little preparatory cough, and looked grave.
'It wasn't a brocade, Colonel Tweedie,' protested Gwen. 'It was simply the most lovely piece of old-gold satin in the world. It stood up of itself, and yet was absolutely invertebrate in its folds. Perfect! The same on both sides too. I had half a mind to be double-faced myself, and take it when Mr. Gordon's back was turned.'
'Why didn't you?' retorted the latter cynically. 'You are the only one of us who would not be criminally responsible for the action. Isn't that so, sir?' He was mischievously amused by his chief's evident dislike to the subject.
'Should I be responsible?' asked Rose, surprised.
'Your father would be, for your action. Wouldn't you, sir?'
This was too much even for reticent dignity.
'I--er--don't--I mean, doubtless; but--er--it is not--er--a subject which comes within the range of practical politics.'
'I should hope not,' cried Rose. 'My dear dad! fancy your being responsible for my actions. It isn't fair!' Her face of aggrieved decision made the others laugh.
'Perhaps it isn't, Miss Tweedie,' remarked Lewis gravely; but I can assure you that we officials are all responsible for our female relations in the first degree. A merciful Government has, however, drawn the line at cousins. So Mrs. Boynton could only lose her own pension, if she were found out.'
Gwen made amoueof derision.
'That is not much to risk. I wish I had known this before. Lewis! do you think you could prevail on them to give me another chance with the satin?'
'What on earth is delaying the breakfast?' fussed Colonel Tweedie, moving off. He hatedpersiflage, especially between his guest and his secretary.
'Coming, sir, coming,' said George, leaning over to look; 'there is a regular procession of silver dishes filing up Jacob's ladder.'
'Oh dem silver dishes,' hummed Rose gaily, leaning over to look, too. 'How funny it is, isn't it?'
'Funny!' echoed Dan, 'it is simply appalling.'
Perhaps the sudden sense of the utter incongruousness of it all accounted for the silence which followed, as they stood on the balcony, which clung like a swallow's nest to the bare walls. Below them, beyond the courtyard, lay the shadowy arcades of the bazaar and the great pile of the Mori gate. Beyond that again the bricks and sand-heaps of Hodinuggur, with the village creeping up to be crowned by the grass palisades where the potter sat at work.
'Talking of bribes, said Dan absently, after the pause, 'I've often wondered how a fellow feels when he has been informed that her gracious Majesty has no further need of his services. They seldom go beyond that nowadays, but that must be bad enough.'
'Very much so, if the bribe has been insufficient, assented Lewis,
'Mr. Gordon! how can you?' began Rose, pausing, however, at the sight of his satisfied smile.
'You should adopt the sun with the motto "Emergo" as your crest, Miss Tweedie. It would suit both your thoughts and deeds,' he replied teasingly.
'Don't mind him,' put in Dan; 'he always was weak in his grammar, and doesn't know that rise must be the correct present tense of Rose.'
'But, really,' persisted Lewis, when the laugh ended; 'if a manhadtaken a bribe, the first thought to one of hisgenrewould naturally be if the game was worth the candle. If hehadn't--why, dismissal from the public service is not always misfortune. There is the disgrace, of course, but, personally, I have never been able to understand the sentiment of the thing; it appears to me strained. Half your world, as a rule, dislikes you; it believes you capable of murdering your grandmother at any moment. Yet the fact doesn't distress you. It is inevitable that some people should think ill of you. So why should you care when they invent a definite crime for you to commit? It doesn't affect your friends.'
'Well, I don't know,' said George Keene sturdily. 'That's all very philosophical, but I believe I should shoot myself.'
'No! you wouldn't, old chap; unless you wished people to consider you guilty.'
'This conversation is becoming gruesome,' put in Mrs. Boynton; 'let us change it; though Lewis is right, for Government service seems to me a doubtful blessing----'
'But an assured income,' interrupted Dan, with a laugh.
Lewis Gordon turned on him quite hotly. 'I like your saying that, Fitzgerald--you of all people in the world. Why, man alive! if I had your power I would chuck tomorrow, and die contractor, engineer, K.C.I.E.' and the richest man in India!'
Gwen Boynton looked up in quick interest. 'Really! do you mean thatreally, Lewis?'
'I won't swear to the K.C.S.I.' or the superlative, but Fitzgerald knows perfectly that I always say he has mistaken his line of life. We want hacks. People to obey orders, not to give them.' As he spoke he glanced meaningly at Colonel Tweedie walking about fussily, and then at his friend's face.
Dan swung himself from the balustrade where he had been perched. 'Some one must give orders, and I mean to stick on for my promotion. It must come next year. So that is settled. Are you not coming to breakfast, Mrs. Boynton?' She met his smile without response as she turned away.
'Dear me! the others have gone in already, and I was so hungry. But one doesn't often get the chance, Mr. Fitzgerald, of considering an old friend in a new character. It was quite absorbing--for the time.'
So the balcony was left to the sunlight, and some one who had been watching it from an archway in the bazaar, withdrew to the shadow where she rolled the little pellets of opium in her soft palms and prepared for her midday sleep. The burning of the tents had been a real piece of luck, the mem--that was she no doubt in the native dress--would be in the palace for two or three days, and women were women whether fair or dark. This one, too, looked of the right sort. Chândni's dreams that day were of a time when she would have the upper hand in Hodinuggur and become virtuous, for it paid to be virtuous under the present Government. Dalel should start a women's hospital. Then the Sirkar would give him the water every year, and the necessity for scheming would disappear. In the meantime they must not be niggardly. That did not pay with women, since, if they were of the sort to take bribes, they were of the sort not easily satisfied.