I hope by the time you read this to have procured young Turner's release, if he still lives—at no very great cost, I beg you to believe. I desire the letter that you will find on my writing-table to be sent at once to the colonel. There is also a note for Mrs. Raleigh which I want you to deliver yourself. God bless you, Audrey.E.T.
I hope by the time you read this to have procured young Turner's release, if he still lives—at no very great cost, I beg you to believe. I desire the letter that you will find on my writing-table to be sent at once to the colonel. There is also a note for Mrs. Raleigh which I want you to deliver yourself. God bless you, Audrey.
E.T.
Audrey looked up from the letter with startled eyes and white cheeks. What did it mean? What had he been doing in the night while she slept? How was it possible for him to have saved Phil?
Trembling, she sprang from her bed and began to dress. Possibly the note to Mrs. Raleigh might explain the mystery. She would ride round with it at once.
She went into Tudor's room before starting and found the letter for the colonel. It was addressed and sealed. She gave it to asycewith orders to deliver it into the colonel's own hands without delay.
Then, still quivering with an apprehension she would not own, she mounted and rode away to the surgeon's bungalow.
Mrs. Raleigh received her with some surprise.
"Ah, come in!" she said kindly. "I'm delighted to see you, dear; but, sure, you are riding very late. And is there anything the matter?"
"Yes," gasped Audrey breathlessly. "I mean no, I hope not. My husband has—has gone to try to save Phil Turner; and—and he left a note for you, which I was to deliver. He went away in the night, but he—of course he'll—be back—soon!"
Her voice faltered and died away. There was a look on Mrs. Raleigh's face, hidden as it were behind her smile, that struck terror to Audrey's heart. She thrust out the letter in an anguish of unconcealed suspense.
"Read it! Read it!" she implored, "and tell me what has happened—quickly, for I—I don't understand!"
Mrs. Raleigh took the letter, passing a supporting arm around the girl's quivering form.
"Sit down, dear!" she said tenderly.
Audrey obeyed, but her face was still raised in voiceless supplication as Mrs. Raleigh opened the letter. The pause that followed was terrible to her. She endured it in wrung silence, herhands fast gripped together.
Then Mrs. Raleigh turned, and in her eyes was a deep compassion, a motherly tenderness of pity, that was to Audrey the confirmation of her worst fears.
She did not speak again. Her heart felt constricted, paralysed. But Mrs. Raleigh saw the entreaty which her whole body expressed, and, stooping, she took the rigid hands into hers.
"My dear," she said, "he has gone into the Hills in disguise, up to the native fort beyond Wara, as that is where he expects to find Phil. Heaven help him and bring them both back!"
Audrey stared at her with a stunned expression. Her lips were quite white, and Mrs. Raleigh thought she was going to faint.
But Audrey did not lose consciousness. She sat there as if turned to stone, trying to speak and failing to make any sound. At last, convulsively, words came.
"They will take him for a spy," she said, both hands pressed to her throat as if something there hurt her intolerably. "The Waris—torture—spies!"
"My darling, my darling, we must hope—hope and pray!" said the Irishwoman, holding her closely.
Audrey turned suddenly, passionately, in the enfolding arms and clung to her as if in physical agony.
"You may, you may," she said in a dreadful whisper, "but I can't—for I don't believe. Do you in your heart believe he will ever come back?"
Mrs. Raleigh did not answer.
Audrey went on, still holding her tightly:
"Do you think I don't know why he wrote to you? It was to put me in your care, because—because he knew he was never coming back. And shall I—shall I tell you why he went?"
"Darling, hush—hush!" pleaded Mrs. Raleigh, her voice unsteady with emotion. "There, don't say any more! Put your head on my shoulder, love. Let me hold you so."
But Audrey's convulsive hold did not relax. She had been a child all her life up to that moment, but, like a worn-out garment, her childhood had slipped from her, and she had emerged a woman. The old, happy ignorance was gone for ever, and the revelation that had dispelled it was almost more than she could bear. Her newly developed womanhood suffered as womanhood alone can suffer.
And yet, could she have drawn the veil once more before her eyes and so have deadened that agonising pain, she would not have done so.
She was awake now. The long, long sleep with its gay dreams, its careless illusions, was over. But it was better to be awake, better to see and know things as they were, even if the anguish thereof killed her. And so she refused the hushing comfort that only a child—such a child as she had been but yesterday—could have found satisfying.
"Yes, I can tell you—now—why he went," she said, in that tense whisper which so wrung Mrs. Raleigh's heart. "He went—for my sake! Think of it! Think of it! He went because I was fretting about Phil. He went because—because he thought—- that Phil's safety—meant—my happiness, and thathissafety—his—his precious life—didn't—count!"
The awful words sank into breathless silence. Mrs. Raleigh was crying silently. She was powerless to cope with this. But Audrey shed no tears. It was beyond tears and beyond mourning—this terrible revelation that had come to her. By-and-by, it might be, both would come to her, if she lived.
She rose suddenly at length with a sharp gasp, as of one seeking air.
"I am going," she said, in a clear, strong voice, "to the colonel. He will help me to save my husband."
And with that she turned to the veranda, and met the commanding-officer face to face. There was another man behind him, but she did not look at him. She instantly, without a second's pause, addressed the colonel.
"I was coming to you," she said through her white lips. "You will helpme. You must help me. My husband is a prisoner, and I am going into the Hills to find him. You must follow with men and guns. He must be saved—whatever it costs."
The colonel laid his hand on her shoulder, looking down at her very earnestly, very kindly.
"My dear Mrs. Tudor," he said, "all that can be done shall be done, all that is humanly possible. I have already told Turner so. Did you know that he was safe?"
He drew her forward a step, and she saw that the man behind him was Phil Turner himself—Phil Turner, grave, strong, resolute, with all his manhood strung up to the moment's emergency, all his boyhood submerged in a responsibility that overwhelmed the lesser part of him, leaving only that which was great.
He went straight up to Audrey and took the hands she stretched out to him. Neither of them felt the presence of onlookers.
"He saved my life, Mrs. Tudor!" he said simply. "He forced me to take it at his hands. But I'm going back with some men to find him. You stay here with Mrs. Raleigh till we come back. We shall be quicker alone."
A great sob burst from Audrey. It was as if the few gallant words had loosened the awful constriction at her heart.
"Oh, Phil, Phil!" she cried brokenly. "You understand—what this is to me—how I love him—how I love him! Bring him back to me! Promise, Phil, promise!"
And Phil bent till his lips touched the hands he held.
"I will do it," he said with reverence—"so help me, God!"
All through the day and the night that followed Audrey watched and waited.
She spent the terrible hours at the Raleighs' bungalow, scarcely conscious of her surroundings in her anguish of suspense. It possessed her like a raging fever, and she could not rest. At times it almost seemed to suffocate her, and then she would pace to and fro, to and fro, hardly knowing what she did.
Mrs. Raleigh never left her, caring for her with a maternal tenderness that never flagged. But for her Audrey would almost certainly have collapsed under the strain.
"If he had only known! If he had only known!" she kept repeating. "Buthow could he know? for I never showed him. How could he even guess? And now he never can know. It's too late, too late!"
Futile, bitter regret! All through the night it followed her, and when morning came the haggard misery it had wrought upon her face had robbed it of all its youth.
Mrs. Raleigh tried to comfort her with hopeful words, but she did not seem so much as to hear them. She was listening, listening intently, for every sound.
It was about noon that young Travers raced in, hot and breathless, but he stopped short in evident dismay when he saw Audrey. He would have withdrawn as precipitately as he had entered, but she sprang after him and caught him by the arms.
"You have news!" she cried wildly. "What is it? Oh, what is it? Tell me quickly!"
He hesitated and glanced nervously at Mrs. Raleigh.
"Yes, tell her," the latter said. "It is better than suspense."
And so briefly, jerkily, the boy blurted on his news:
"Phil's back again; but they haven't got the major. The fort was deserted, except for one old man, and they have brought him along. They are over at the colonel's bungalow now."
He paused, shocked by the awful look his tidings had brought intoAudrey's eyes.
The next instant she had sprung past him to the open door and was gone, bareheaded and distraught, into the blazing sunshine.
How she covered the distance of the long, white road to the colonel's bungalow, Audrey never remembered afterwards. Her agony of mind was too great for her brain to register any impression of physical stress. She only knew that she ran and ran as one runs in a nightmare, till suddenly she was on the veranda of the colonel's bungalow, stumbling, breathless, crying hoarsely for "Phil! Phil!"
He came to her instantly.
"Where is he?" she cried, in high, strained tones. "Where is my husband? You promised to bring him back to me! You promised—you promised—"
Her voice failed. She felt choked, as if an iron hand were slowly, remorselessly, crushing the life out of her panting heart. Thick darkness hovered above her, but she fought it from her wildly, frantically.
"You promised—" She gasped again.
He took her gently by the arm, supporting her.
"Mrs. Tudor," he said very earnestly, "I have done my best."
He led her unresisting into a room close by. The colonel was there, and with him a man in flowing, native garments.
"Mrs. Tudor," said Phil, his hand closing tightly upon her arm, "before you blame me, I want you to speak to this man. He can tell you more about your husband than I can."
He spoke very quietly, very steadily, almost as if he were afraid she might not understand him.
Audrey made an effort to collect her reeling senses. The colonel bent towards her.
"Don't be afraid of him, Mrs. Tudor," he said kindly. "He is a friend, and he speaks English."
But Audrey did not so much as glance at the native, who stood, silent and impassive, waiting to be questioned. The agony of the past thirty hours had reached its limit. She sank into a chair by the colonel'stable and hid her face in her shaking hands.
"I've nothing to ask him," she said hopelessly. "Eustace is dead—dead—dead, without ever knowing how I loved him. Nothing matters now. There is nothing left that ever can matter."
Dead silence succeeded her words, then a quiet movement, then silence again.
She did not look up or stir. Her passion of grief had burnt itself out. She was exhausted mentally and physically.
Minutes passed, but she did not move. What was there to rouse her? There was nothing left. She had no tears to shed. Tears were for small things. This grief of hers was too immense, too infinite for tears.
Only at last something, some inner prompting, stirred her, and as if at the touch of a hand that compelled, she raised her head.
She saw neither the colonel nor Phil, and a sharp prick of wonder pierced her lethargy of despair. She turned in her chair, obedient still to that inner force that compelled. Yes, they had gone. Only the native remained—an old, bent man, who humbly awaited her pleasure. His face was almost hidden in hischuddah.
Audrey looked at him.
"There is nothing to wait for," she said at length. "You need not stay."
He did not move. It was as if he had not heard. Her wonder grew into asort of detached curiosity. What did the man want? She remembered that the colonel had told her that he understood English.
"Is there—something—you wish to say to me?" she asked, and the bare utterance of the words kindled a feeble spark of hope within her, almost in spite of herself.
He turned very slowly.
"Yes, one thing," he said, paused an instant as she sprang to her feet with a great cry, then straightened himself, pushed thechuddahback from his face, and flung out his arms to her passionately.
"Audrey!" he said—"Audrey!"
By slow degrees Audrey learnt the story of her husband's escape.
It was Phil's doing in the main, he told her simply, and she understood that but for Phil he would not have taken the trouble. Something Phil had said to him that night had stuck in his mind, and it had finally decided him to make the attempt.
Circumstances had favoured him. Moreover it was by no means the first time that he had been among the Hill tribes in native guise. One sentinel alone had returned to guard the hut after Phil's departure, and this man he had succeeded in overpowering without raising an alarm.
Then, disguising himself once more, he had managed to escape just beforethe dawn, and had lain hidden for hours among the boulders of the river-bed, fearing to emerge by daylight. But in the evening he had left his hiding-place, and found the fort to be occupied by British troops. The Waris had gone to earth before their advance, and they had found the place deserted.
He had forthwith presented himself in his disguise and been taken before Phil, the officer-in-command.
"But surely he knew you?"
"Yes, he knew me. But I swore him to secrecy."
She drew a little closer to him.
"Eustace, why?" she whispered.
His arm tightened about her.
"I had to know the truth first," he said.
"Oh!" she murmured. "And now—are you satisfied?"
He bent and kissed her forehead gravely, tenderly.
"I am satisfied," he said.
"Well, didn't I tell you so?" laughed Phil, when they shook hands later.
Audrey did not ask him what he meant, for, with all his honesty, Phil could be enigmatical when he chose. Moreover, it really didn't much matter, for, as she tacitly admitted to herself, fond as she was of him, he no longer occupied the place of honour in her thoughts, and she was not vitally interested in him now that the trouble was over.
So when, a few weeks later, Phil cheerily packed his belongings and departed to Poonah, having effected an exchange into the other battalion stationed there, only his major understood why, and was sorry.
THE LAMP IN THE DESERTThe scene of this splendid story is laid in Indiaand tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine throughall sorts of tribulations to final happiness.GREATHEARTThe story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.THE HUNDREDTH CHANCEA hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."THE SWINDLERThe story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.THE TIDAL WAVETales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.THE SAFETY CURTAINA very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other long stories of equal interest.
THE LAMP IN THE DESERTThe scene of this splendid story is laid in Indiaand tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine throughall sorts of tribulations to final happiness.
GREATHEARTThe story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.
THE HUNDREDTH CHANCEA hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."
THE SWINDLERThe story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.
THE TIDAL WAVETales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.
THE SAFETY CURTAINA very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other long stories of equal interest.