“Oh, then to-day’s was really a serious affair? Do tell me what you did.”
“I am afraid it would hardly interest you.”
“Indeed it would. I am interested in everything that interests my friends.”
Mr Burgrave’s smile became positively grandfatherly. “I thought so!” he said. “No, Miss North, I won’t allow you to sacrifice yourself by talking shop to me. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t interest me—out of office-hours—and therefore I am the last person in the world to inflict it upon you. I am sure you hear so much of it all day that you are as tired of the subject as I am of the revered name of General Keeling.”
“What, have you been hearing more about him?”
Mr Burgrave groaned. “Have I not! Michael Angelo was nothing to him. I always knew that he founded Alibad and dug its wells, planted the trees and constructed the canals—made Khemistan, in short. But now I am the unhappy recipient of endless personal anecdotes about him. One man tells me that he used to go about in the sun without a head-covering of any kind, trusting to the thickness of his hair—if it was not rude, I should say of his skull. Then comes one of his old troopers, and assures me solemnly that after a battle he has seen Sinjāj Kīlin unbutton his tunic and shake out the bullets which had passed through it without hurting him. Another remembers that he has seen him reading a letter from his wife while under fire—rather a pretty touch that—and another recalls for my admiration the fact that the General reserved an hour every morning for his private devotions, and has been known to keep the Commander-in-Chief waiting rather than allow it to be broken in upon.”
“But he was a splendid man,” said Mabel, ashamed of herself for laughing.
“Who doubts it? Only too splendid;—I understand the feelings of the gentleman who banished Aristides. But forgive me for lamenting my private woes to you, Miss North. Let us turn to more interesting themes. We are to see you in an appropriate rôle on Saturday, Miss Graham tells me.”
“I believe I am to give away the prizes at the Gymkhana—unless you would prefer to do it,” said Mabel, with sudden primness.
“I should not think of such a thing unless it would be a relief to you.”
“To me? I shall enjoy the prize-giving above all things. But why?”
“I imagined you might feel shy.” Mr Burgrave looked at her as kindly as ever, but Mabel fancied that he was disappointed in her in some way.
“He seems to think I am about sixteen,” she said to herself, and awoke to the fact that they had reached home, and that her companion had skilfully prevented her from saying a word about the question of the moment.
“Dick,” said Georgia to her husband, when she was alone with him that evening, “did you get any explanation out of Mr Burgrave?”
“I did—without asking for it. He told me quite calmly that the reinstatement of Bahram Khan was part of his programme, and that as I had taken such a strong line with regard to the youth’s banishment, he considered it better to relieve me of all responsibility about it. It would be pleasanter for both of us, he thought.”
“Pleasanter for you and him in your social relations, perhaps; but your prestige with the natives, Dick! What do they think?”
“Why, they gloat, most of ’em,” said Dick grimly.
“But the Amir and Bahadar Shah?”
“Oh, poor old Ashraf Ali sent his pet mullah to interview me while the Commissioner was taking an affectionate leave of hisprotégé. The old man really thought, or pretended to think, that I had a hand in the matter. Why hadn’t I told him that I desired Bahram Khan’s return instead of springing it upon him in that way? he wanted to know. Had he ever refused to take my advice? I had to assure him that I knew no more about it than he did, for if he once loses confidence in me, it means that we may as well retire from the frontier. Neither he nor the Sardars will stand a second spell of snubbing and suspicion.”
“But what did you advise him to do?”
“To choose the lesser of two evils. Bahram Khan will plot wherever he is, and Burgrave has pledged himself to see his father’s fortress of Dera Gul restored to him, but I advised the Amir strongly to keep him under his own eye at the capital. In any case we shall have one friend in the enemy’s camp, for the good old Moti-ul-Nissa sent a message by the mullah, ‘Tell the doctor lady’s husband that where my son goes I go from henceforth, and that no harm shall be devised against the Sarkar if I can prevent it.’”
“Dear old thing!” cried Georgia.
“But it’s not so much a rising that I’m afraid of at present. Bahram Khan will get the smaller obstacles out of his way first. Poor Bahadar Shah, who is no hero, sent to ask me by the mullah whether I would advise him to throw up his pretensions and retire into British territory. Of course I told him to sit tight, but no insurance office that respected itself would look at his life after to-day. And, Georgie, I am very much mistaken if Burgrave has not got worse in store for us.”
“Dick! what could there be worse?” Georgia’s face was blanched.
“I have a presentiment—call it a conviction, if you like—that they mean to withdraw the subsidy, and Ashraf Ali has got hold of the idea too.”
“But, Dick, that would be a direct breach of faith! They couldn’t do it—they couldn’t! The treaty that really cost my father his life, he had such trouble to get it ratified! Why, it has kept the frontier safe all these years——”
“My dear Georgie, that’s not what Burgrave and his school think about. You know as well as I do that this province is an anomaly, and has got to be reduced to the level of next-door. When Ashraf Ali received the subsidy, he accepted our suzerainty over Nalapur, and according to his lights he has acted up to his obligations. But our present rulers don’t care to keep the suzerainty, don’t care for a vassal state outside our boundaries, and do care for economising rupees.”
“But surely they must know——”
“That they will throw Ashraf Ali into the arms of Ethiopia, and extend Scythian influence down to our very borders, thanks to the way in which Fath-ud-Din has been allowed practically to repudiate Sir Dugald Haigh’s treaty? Why, Georgie, that’s just the sort of thing these fellows never see until it comes to pass. Then they lament that the world is so dreadfully out of joint, and say it all springs from our ingrained suspiciousness.”
“But, Dick, you wouldn’t countenance such a breach of faith?”
“No, I told Ashraf Ali so—told him he would hear of my resignation first. Funny thing, isn’t it, to take a man who knows the frontier as I do, and let him give five of the best years of his life to working for it night and day, and then to send a jack-in-office who has never seen it to reverse all he’s done? It’s a queer world, Georgie. But we’ll retire with clean hands, at any rate, you and I, and taste the modest joys of the pensioned in a suburban flat, with a five-pound note at Christmas-time from Mab and her Commissioner to help us along.”
Georgia could not trust herself to speak. She was holding Dick’s hand in hers, and smoothing his coat-cuff industriously.
“Well, never say die!” he went on. “I may get a berth in some Colonial defence force yet, and from that giddy height we’ll smile superior upon a jeering world, serenely conscious that we can do without the five-pound note.”
At one time Georgia would not have lost a moment in reminding him that she could in any case return to the active practice of her profession, but now she would not even suggest to Dick that last humiliation of living upon his wife’s earnings. Instead, she lifted his hand to her lips.
“We shan’t mind poverty, dear. We shall have been true to our people, and besides, your resignation may save the frontier. It will come out why you retired, and when once the reason is known, public opinion will be roused, and the Government will have to return to the old policy, even though we may not be here to carry it out. But oh, Dick, how can you speak civilly to Mr Burgrave after this?”
“Why, Georgie, the difficulty would be to speak uncivilly to him. The man is so wrapt up in his own greatness that he can’t imagine any one’s venturing to differ from him. He sweeps on like a glacier, removing all obstacles by his mere passage. The stones and rocks and things get carried along too, you know, whether they like it or not, and when the glacier has done with them it dumps them down in a neat heap, that’s all. Besides, we have to give Mab her chance.”
“If Mab marries him, I have done with her,” said Georgia, with conviction.
During the next fortnight the house was overrun by a horde of Christmas guests, who came from outlying forts and irrigation and telegraph stations to taste the joys of civilisation for three or four days, hurrying back like conscientious Cinderellas at a given moment, that the other man might have his turn. Mabel was immensely interested in these lads, who looked up to Dick with frank veneration, and sought for quiet talks with Georgia that they might tell her all their home news, and kept the house lively from early morning until their host reluctantly suggested that it was time for them to repair to their improvised bedrooms at night. Her interest did not go unrequited, for she had them all at her feet, regulating her favours so discreetly that none of them could complain that he was worse treated than his neighbour, and at the same time no one had undue cause for self-congratulation.
“I know you think I shall lose my head, Georgie,” she said, on the evening of Christmas Day, when she and Georgia had left the men to their nightly smoke; “and I really believe I should if it lasted. These boys are all so splendid. Each of them is a hero in the ordinary course of his day’s work, but he never thinks of it, and no one out here thinks of it, and at home no one even knows their names. How is it that all the men out here are so nice? The women, as far as I have seen, are distinctly inferior.”
“So sorry,” said Georgia humbly. “Perhaps we were born so.”
“Goose! I didn’t mean you. I meant the ordinary Anglo-Indian woman. With so many delightful men about, she ought to be proportionately better than at home.”
“Perhaps it’s just possible that the delightful men spoil her, Mab. What do you think?”
Mabel laughed consciously, as she reclined in a long chair, with her arms behind her head. “You mean that I have deteriorated perceptibly already, I suppose? But that must be the men’s fault. If their admiration is the right kind, it ought to elevate me, surely? Now don’t say that I trade on their honest admiration to flatter my self-love. I’m sick of that sort of thing. Besides, it’s a pleasure to them to admire me, and I consider that it does them good. I am a liberal education for them.”
“How nice it must be to feel that!”
“Yes, and I really am awfully fond of them, every one. I should like them all to win to-morrow. I can’t bear the thought that only one or two of them can get prizes; I shall feel so unfair. Georgie, what are you going to wear? Oh—” she sat up suddenly, with eyes wide with horror, “what a wretch I am! Georgie, I never remembered your dresses when I was so busy getting my own. I haven’t brought you a single one.”
“I guessed that some days ago,” said Georgia.
“Oh, how wicked of me! Take one of mine, Georgie—any of them—even the muslin. I deserve it.”
“I should look like a death’s head at a feast, indeed! Nonsense, Mab! I shall wear my red and white foulard.”
“The one I sent you out two years ago? Oh, it will be too dreadful! Sleeves and everything have altered since then. Besides, every one will know it.”
“What does that signify? It is quite fresh, and suits me very well. No one will remember it—not even Dick.”
But in this Georgia was mistaken. When she appeared the next morning, her husband looked suspiciously from her to Mabel.
“Didn’t you wear that dress last year, Georgie? I thought you were going to get a new one. Why don’t you have something floppy and frilly, like Mab?”
“Mab is a perfect dream,” said Georgia. “No amount of trains or fichus could make me look like her. You are very ungrateful, Dick. Who ever heard of a man’s quarrelling with his wife before for saving him a dressmaker’s bill?”
“I’ve a good mind to telegraph home at once,” grumbled Dick.
“But what good would that be for to-day? Never mind. I’ll get something terribly elaborate for next Christmas.”
“Oh, Georgie, how good of you not to give me away!” murmured Mabel, as Dick went out, grumbling, to see whether the dog-cart was ready. “But I can’t help being glad you didn’t take this gown. I don’t think I could have given it up.”
“Haveyou heard the latest, Miss North?” asked Fitz Anstruther, as he escorted Mabel to the scene of action. The five men who were staying in the house had nearly come to blows in deciding who ought to enjoy this privilege, but Fitz had stepped in and disappointed them all equally by the calm announcement that it was his by right. Officially he was Major North’s deputy, and it was only fair that the pleasures as well as the duties of the post should devolve upon him. The justice of the contention was grudgingly admitted, and Fitz was the proudest man in Alibad when he drove to the ground that morning in his smart new buggy, with Mabel, the glories of her gown hidden by a tussore dust-cloak, seated beside him.
“No. What has the Commissioner done now?” she asked.
“Bahram Khan has entered his name for the Keeling Cup!”
“And that is equivalent to saying that the sky has fallen?”
Fitz regarded her pityingly. “You don’t see it as we do,” he said. “Wait until you have been out a little longer. It seems that in order to cement the reconciliation he has brought about, the Commissioner saw fit to invite the Nalapur Princes to honour us with their presence to-day. The Amir and Bahadar Shah didn’t quite see themselves figuring in the triumphal procession, and both discovered that they had urgent business at home. But Bahram Khan duly turned up last night with his train of attendants, and is condescending enough to join us in our sports to-day. The Commissioner has a theory that in such mimic warfare as this the fusion of the English and native races proceeds apace, and Bahram Khan is doing his best to gratify him by poking himself into the race for the Keeling Cup—our very tiptop, crack,puccaevent!”
“But did General Keeling patronise races? I shouldn’t have thought they were at all in his line.”
“They were not; but then, this isn’t a race in the ordinary sense of the word. It was first run just at the time when everything in Khemistan was named after him, and besides, it recalls one of his own pet dodges. They say that he used to subject the men that wanted to serve under him to pretty severe tests, and this was one of them. He used to rouse them up in the middle of the night, and they had to turn out without boots, catch a strange horse, and ride him round the town without a saddle, and with only a halter for a bridle.”
“It’s to be hoped that the town was smaller in those days than now?”
“Of course it was, but we don’t exact such a test as that. The ponies are all turned loose on the course without saddles, and the men, in slippers, have to catch them and mount. Any man who catches his own is disqualified. Then they have to get them round the course without bridle or whip of any kind. I have noticed that the spectators are always pretty nearly dead with laughing before the end, while the competitors get black in the face with restrained emotion.”
“But you don’t mean that General Keeling really treated his officers in that way?”
“I do, indeed. He had to weed them out, you see, or he would have been overrun with volunteers. Oh, you may have full confidence in my veracity, Miss North, even though I once had a report returned me by a jealous Secretary with the remark that I should do well to quit the Civil Service for the path of romantic fiction. The pains I took over that report! You see, I had an inkling that it would be seen by a very exalted person, who is great on us juniors’ cultivating a literary style in our official writings. I can truly say that there has never been such a literary gem sent in since Macaulay left India. It was written in the most beautiful English—though I say it—full of tender touches and delicate conceits, and as to quotations, and Oriental imagery, and wealth of imaginative detail——! Ah well, it’s better not to think of it,” and Fitz sighed deeply.
“Why? Did it bring down upon you a rebuke from the Great Great One?”
“No, alas! for it never reached him. The Secretary intercepted it, naturally enough. Who would ever have looked at his minutes again after it? But at least it furnished him with an ideal to strive after. I have reason to believe he is in a lunatic asylum at this moment. The effort was too great, you see.”
“That was rather close,” said Mabel irrelevantly, as the wheel shaved the basketwork tray of an itinerant sweetseller by the roadside.
“He shouldn’t be so intent on his prospective gains. Look how many of the fellows there are about! That shows we are near the ground. They flock to this place from all quarters when they know there’s atamashaon.”
They had reached the enclosure by this time, and Mabel found herself surrounded by an admiring throng. Pale-faced ladies from other stations glanced at her dress casually, and continued to gaze long and fixedly, her Alibad admirers brought up friends to be introduced, and both the old slaves and the new displayed a keen anxiety to post themselves for the day in the neighbourhood of her chair. With the exception of the race for the Keeling Cup, the sports were wholly military in character, and the programme was a lengthy one, but Mabel did not find the hours pass slowly. Everything was new and interesting, from the splendid native officers, with fierce eyes gleaming under enormous turbans, who dashed up on fiery steeds and bore away triumphantly an unresisting tent-peg, to the latest recruit who exhibited his coolness by holding out his bare hand, with what Mabel considered privately an excess of confidence, for hisdaffadarto cut a lemon upon it. There was the inner circle of troopers of the Khemistan Horse, reinforced to-day by such veterans as old Ismail Bakhsh and his fellow-chaprasis, keenly critical, but above all things solicitous for the honour of the regiment. There were the notables of the district, grave and bearded men in flowing robes, who looked as though they might have sat for a gallery of Scriptural portraits, but who exhibited an anxious deference when Dick glanced their way, which suggested that their relation with him in the past had occasionally been that of criminals and judge. At the farther side of the course was the motley throng of dwellers in the native town, and hangers-on of the cantonments, with faces of every shade of brown, and clothes and turbans of every variety of colour. And lastly, close at hand, there was the little group of English, not taking their pleasure sadly, for once, but making the most of the rare opportunity for the exchange of news and opinions. The Commissioner was the centre of attraction here, naturally enough, or at least, he shared the general attention with Mabel; but she was quite aware, as she met his benevolent smile, that he was making her a graceful present of a portion of the homage due to himself.
The last event but one upon the programme was the tug-of-war between six men of the Khemistan Horse and six of the Sikhs who formed the Commissioner’s escort—a contest which was fought out with the greatest obstinacy, but in which the visiting team finally secured the victory, to the unconcealed lamentation and resentment of the local representatives and their friends. The triumphant Sikhs found no sympathisers except among thesahib-log, and the English applause was cut short by the necessity of preparing for the last race, in which it was a point of honour for every man to take part who could possibly do so.
“A solemn sacrifice to the memory of the adored General Keeling!” said Mr Burgrave in a low voice to Mabel, as they watched their late companions assembling upon the course.
“Oh, but what is that native doing?” cried Mabel, forgetting what she had heard only that morning, as a tall lithe man, wearing the green turban of a descendant of the Prophet, stepped out from the group of notables and joined the competitors.
“That,” was the bland answer, “is Bahram Khan, hitherto the bugbear of the frontier; henceforth, I hope, our friend and ally.”
“I don’t like to see him there. He spoils the look of it,” she said impulsively.
“Bahram Khan offends your eye? Ah, Miss North, you must pardon a poor statesman the dulness of his perceptions! I am no authority upon æsthetic questions, I must confess, whereas you—well, you could scarcely not be one.”
A smile emphasised the compliment, and Mabel turned away rather hastily, and addressed a casual remark to Flora Graham. Compliments were all very well, but she did not approve of the adroit way in which Mr Burgrave repressed her whenever she touched on political subjects. Flora had no eyes for any one but Fred Haycraft at the moment, however, and Mabel was obliged to turn her attention to the course. The signal for starting was given just then, and there ensued a wildmêléeof men and horses, the men as eager to mount as the horses were determined not to be mounted by any one but their own masters. Presently one or two successful athletes forced their way out of the scrimmage, and by degrees most of the competitors secured a mount of some kind, but some were still vainly struggling when the foremost appeared round the curve of the course.
“Oh dear, he has no chance!” wailed Flora, referring to herfiancé, who was one of these unfortunates. “That’s Bahram Khan’s pony he has got, and of course it won’t let a white man mount it. Well, every one must see that it isn’t his fault. Oh, he’s up at last!”
But this tardy triumph was of little avail, for just as Fred Haycraft urged his unwilling steed on its way, Bahram Khan, mounted on the bay pony which was the especial pride of Fitz Anstruther’s heart, trotted gently past the winning-post. The absence of hurry, as the luckless Fitz remarked afterwards, was at once the finest and the most irritating part of the performance.
“The nigger’s won!” remarked a grizzled old officer who had served under General Keeling, in blank amazement, and as the truth of his words broke upon those around him, they were received with a low whistle of dismay. The Commissioner, who had himself led the applause in which the rest were too much stunned to join, glanced round sharply, and at the same moment Mabel found Dick at her side.
“Look here, Mab. You’d better ask the Commissioner to give the prizes. I never thought of this. These fellows are not like us—they don’t understand things. Get into a back seat quickly, without any fuss.”
Mabel stared at him blankly. She was to relinquish her part in the events of the day, the glorious hour to which she had been looking forward for more than a week, to disappoint all her admirers, and hide herself and her gown where no one could see them! But Dick’s face was adamant, and he repeated his order peremptorily, until she rose and moved reluctantly towards the Commissioner, touching him on the arm.
“My brother says I had better ask you to distribute the prizes,” she said, with disappointment in every tone. Mr Burgrave looked at her in astonishment, then his face took a harder set as his eyes fell on Georgia, who was endeavouring to console Flora for her lover’s ill success. Of course it was her doing! A faded woman in a gown that might have been new two seasons ago—how could she be otherwise than jealous of the radiant vision at his side? “And no wonder, poor thing!” said Mr Burgrave to himself, with contemptuous pity, but she must learn that it would not do to make mischief where her beautiful young sister-in-law was concerned.
“My dear Miss North,” the Commissioner’s voice took on its most fatherly tone, “don’t be afraid. Nothing would induce me to rob you of your pleasure.”
The words were loud enough for Dick to hear, and Mabel saw him frown angrily as she returned to her place, half-proud and half-afraid of her triumph. He said nothing, however, but took his stand immediately behind her, the very embodiment of silent displeasure. The sense of his disapproval served to irritate her further, and she heartily wished him away. His rigid face would quite spoil the effect of the picture she had intended to present, and he was taking up the room of other people whose attendance she would have preferred. But she was determined not to give in, even when the Commissioner’s encouraging smile smote her with a feeling of treachery, in that she had appealed to him against Dick.
The regimental prize-winners came up in their order, the natives, now that the momentary excitement was over, wearing a look of stately boredom, which seemed to declare that sports and prizes alike were a species of child’s play, in which they took part merely to humour the unaccountable whims of their officers. With the officers it was different, for Mabel read in their faces that although sports were good, and to earn a prize was better, both these faded into insignificance compared with the joy of receiving that prize from her hand. This was the very feeling that it most pleased her to inspire, and she loved the “boys,” as she called them in her thoughts, better than before, if that were possible.
But this glow of pleasure was shortlived. A brief pause followed the appearance of the Sikh head-man to receive the tug-of-war prize, and Mabel felt, without turning her head, that Dick’s silent disapproval had infected all the Englishmen around. Once more she hardened her heart. It was detestable to see this wretched racial snobbishness in the men she had admired so much. They would have liked to spoil the whole affair, and deprive her of the one piece of romance which had come to brighten the humdrum proceedings, rather than allow a native not belonging to the regiment to carry off a prize. She, at least, was above such petty considerations, and Bahram Khan should receive as gracious a smile as any of his fellow-competitors. One other person was of her mind, she saw, for the Commissioner clapped his hands lightly, and with infinite condescension, as Bahram Khan swaggered up. Mabel stepped forward, and met the glance of the bold eyes under the green turban. As she did so, she understood suddenly the secret of Dick’s displeasure. The smile faded from her lips, and the hand in which she held the Keeling Cup trembled. She stopped and faltered, and her pause of distress was evident to the men behind her. How they responded to her mute appeal she could not tell, but the look of insolent admiration disappeared from Bahram Khan’s eyes, into which she was still gazing spell-bound, and was, as it were, veiled under his former expression of contemptuous indifference towards his surroundings. A few words from the Commissioner, and the Nalapur Prince retired, leaving behind him a general feeling of awkwardness. If it had been arranged that anything else was to be done at this point, no one remembered it. People stood about in little groups, and talked somewhat constrainedly. Something had happened, or rather, there had been an electrical instant, and something might have happened, but it was not quite easy to see what it was. The crudest conception of the facts was voiced by Mrs Hardy, who had torn herself from her school-work to be present at the prize-giving, and now seized upon Georgia.
“MABEL STEPPED FORWARD, AND MET THE GLANCE OF THE BOLD EYES UNDER THE GREEN TURBAN”
“MABEL STEPPED FORWARD, AND MET THE GLANCE OF THE BOLD EYES UNDER THE GREEN TURBAN”
“Oh, dear Mrs North, how unspeakably painful all this must be to you and your husband! You must feel the charge of Miss North a dreadful responsibility. I would never have said a word while she flirted merely with our own officers, or even with Mr Burgrave—though really the lengths to which she goes—! But to set herself deliberately to dazzle a native——”
“Mrs Hardy,” cried Georgia, flushing angrily, “please remember that you are speaking of my sister. I am certain that Mabel has never dreamt of such a thing. She may be thoughtless, but that is all.”
“It is very sweet and good of you to say it, but I am afraid your eyes will soon be disagreeably opened. No rational being could doubt that Miss North is setting her cap at the Commissioner, and that would hardly be a match you could welcome, would it? Look at her dress—so absurdly unsuitable at her age. Oh, I know to a day how old she is, Mrs North, and I will say that eight years between you don’t warrant your dressing as if you were mother and daughter. But I grant that Miss North is one of the people who always look younger than they are, while you invariably look older.”
The expression of Mrs Hardy’s sympathy rarely corresponded with the good-will which prompted it, but Georgia received the stab in heroic silence, and cast about for some means of changing the subject.
“I suppose we may as well go home now,” she said at last in despair, rising as she spoke. “Where is my husband, I wonder?”
“Over there, talking to the Commissioner and Bahram Khan,” responded Mrs Hardy. “Dear me! something must have happened. There is a messenger who seems to have brought some news. How grave they all look! What can it be?”
Watching eagerly, they saw Bahram Khan take his leave of Mr Burgrave and Dick and rejoin his friends. As the two gentlemen returned to the rest of the company the Commissioner said, slightly raising his tones in a way that attracted general attention, “Well, except for the sake of the poor fellow himself, I can’t pretend to be sorry. The way is now clear for important developments.”
Dick’s reply was inaudible, but the Commissioner rejoined sharply, “Of course you put this down to Bahram Khan’s account?”
“I make no accusations,” said Dick, unmoved. “You can’t perceive more clearly than I do that it’s impossible to connect him with it.”
“You deal in ambiguities, I see.” Mr Burgrave’s temper was evidently ruffled.
“There is no ambiguity in my mind,” was the reply, as Dick beckoned to a servant to fetch up his dog-cart. “Are you coming with me, Georgie, or shall I take Mabel?”
“Oh no, Mr Anstruther will drive her home,” said Georgia, aghast at the thought of an encounter between Dick in his present mood and Mabel at her prickliest. “Dick,” as the Commissioner turned to speak to Mrs Hardy, “what has happened?”
“Hush! speak lower. Bahadar Shah is dead.”
“What! poisoned?”
“No, shot. He was out hunting, and one of his most trusted servants was carrying his spare gun loaded. As he handed it to him it went off, and Bahadar Shah was shot through the heart.”
“And what happened to the servant?”
“The rest fell upon him and clubbed him to death immediately.”
“But of course it was Bahram Khan’s doing?”
“’Sh! He has established a satisfactory alibi, at any rate.” Dick helped Georgia into the cart and took the reins, and they were well on the road home before he spoke again. “It is the killing of the servant that’s the most suspicious feature to me. It would be just like Bahram Khan to bribe him to murder his master on the understanding that his escape should be secured, and then to make matters safe by bribing the rest to put him out of the way.”
“But surely that would only involve admitting more into the secret?”
“What secret? Bahram Khan is anxious for his cousin’s safety, and charges the servants to show no mercy to any one that attacks him. The utmost you could prove against him would be an idea that an attempt on his life might be made—not even a guilty knowledge, far less instigation.”
“How did he receive the news?”
“In the most orthodox way, deep but restrained grief. He must go to Nalapur to be present at the funeral and comfort his bereaved uncle, he told Burgrave, just as if his uncle would not sooner see a man-eater come to comfort him. How Burgrave received the news, you heard.”
“Yes. His manner was indecently callous, I thought.”
“Oh no. His saying what he did was one of his calculated indiscretions, like unveiling his policy to Timson coming up. No papers here, you see, so he must make his revelations by word of mouth. Ugh! the man turns me sick. Did you notice his bit of by-play with Mab?”
“She didn’t realise what you meant, Dick. Things here are so new to her, you know.”
“Oh, why should a man be doomed to have a fool for a sister? If I had said to you what I said to her you would have understood.”
“Perhaps Mab hasn’t studied you as closely as I have.”
“No, the Commissioner is her object of study at present. Nice cheerful prospect, isn’t it—to have that chap for a brother-in-law?”
“Ye-es,” said Georgia hesitatingly, “but I’m not quite sure it will be that, Dick. I think there’s some one else.”
“And the Commissioner is only making the pace for him? No, no, Georgie; that’s a little too thick. Of course I know there are dozens of others, but who is there that has a chance against Burgrave?”
“If I tell you, you’ll only laugh. It is a very little thing, but it’s the straw to show which way the wind is blowing. You didn’t notice, when Bahram Khan had had his prize, how Mab was left sitting alone for a minute. I knew just how she felt, ashamed and miserable andwounded, and I wanted to go to her, but Mrs Hardy had got hold of me, and I didn’t think she would improve matters. The Commissioner didn’t see—he never does see what other people are feeling, unless he happens to be feeling the same himself—but Fitz Anstruther did. He was by her side in a moment, saying just the kind of things that would lead her to forget her mortification. If he had seemed to intend to help her, she would have been angry, but it looked quite accidental, as if it was simply that he took pleasure in her society, and jumped at the chance of enjoying it when he found her alone for a minute. She will be grateful to him ever after, and that may be the beginning of even better things.”
“Oh, you match-makers! The idea of coupling Mab and Anstruther, of all people! And you back him against the Commissioner?”
“I do; unless Mab is deliberately playing for a high official future.”
“Awfullysorry, Mab, but I really can’t ride with you this morning. It’s bad enough when one of our wandering tribes comes in for a palaver, but to-day there are two of them, at daggers drawn with one another. They have both sent deputations to inform me that I am their father and their mother, and will I be good enough to pulverise the other lot? That means that I have a nice long day’s work cut out for me.”
“Oh, what a bother!” grumbled Mabel. “And Georgia has got a lot of dreadful women in the surgery, and is doctoring them all round. How can she bear to have them about? Do you like having an M.D. for a wife, Dick?”
“Personally,” said Dick solemnly, “I rather do; since Georgia is that M.D. Politically, it’s the making of me.”
“No; really?”
“Rather! Every woman of all these nomadic tribes has a stake in the country, so to speak—a personal interest in the maintenance of the system of government which has stuck Georgie and me down here. No Sarkar, no doctor; that’s the way they look at it.”
“Well,” said Mabel, somewhat ashamed, “if it wasn’t that I have my habit on, I would stay and help her. But we were going to try Laili, Dick, and you promised faithfully to come.”
“I know; it’s horribly rough on you. But I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll spare Anstruther to you for the morning, and he must ride out to me after lunch. Don’t break his neck first, mind.”
“But will it be safe for you to go alone? Aren’t you afraid?”
“Shade of my mighty father-in-law! afraid of what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It sounds the sort of thing——”
“That one would naturally be afraid of? No, I would rather face any number of excited tribesmen than Burgrave at his blandest. I’ll send achitdown to Anstruther, and he’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Mabel had not long to wait. She was still standing on the verandah, flicking her dainty riding-boot with her whip, and feasting her eyes on the satin skin of the beautiful little black mare which was being led up and down by the groom, when Fitz came trotting up the drive.
“Awfully good of the Major to lend me out this morning, Miss North! Is that the new pony? She ought to be a flier.”
“Yes, isn’t she a little beauty? I want to test her paces to-day. I have had enough of riding her about the roads. She’s all right there, but I should like to try her in a good gallop out in the desert.”
“Out in the desert?” repeated Fitz, as he gathered up the reins and handed them to Mabel after mounting her. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s any reason why we shouldn’t. If you don’t mind stopping a second at my place I’ll put a revolver in my pocket, and then we shall be all right.”
“Why, what could there be to hurt us?”
“We might happen upon a leopard, or something of the sort. It’s not likely, but there’s no harm in being prepared. We have a sort of fashion here of not going much beyond our own bounds unarmed.”
Mabel made no further objection, and after calling at Fitz’s quarters they rode out into the desert. Laili’s paces were perfect, and as often as Mabel raced her against Fitz’s pony she won easily. It was a clear, cold morning, really cold, as is often the case early on a winter’s day in Khemistan, and horses and riders alike seemed to be possessed of tireless energy. The two grooms, to whom the cold was a highly disagreeable experience, were left behind again and again, and remembered only when they had become mere dots on the horizon, so that it involved some waiting before they could come up.
“Now let us race again!” cried Mabel, when she and Fitz had reluctantly walked their horses for some distance to allow the men to approach them.
“All right. I say, there’s a jerboa! Let’s chase him!”
“Oh, do. I should so like to have one for a pet,” cried Mabel.
It seemed, however, that the jerboa preferred freedom to captivity, even with Mabel as jailer, for it was gone in a moment, getting over the ground in tremendous leaps, at a pace which taxed the horses sorely to keep up with it.
“Oh, it’s getting away!” lamented Mabel.
“Perhaps I can manage to wing him from here,” said Fitz, bringing out his revolver. “We could easily patch up a broken leg. Steady, Sheikh, old boy!”
The pace was fast and the ground rough, and it was scarcely surprising that the jerboa escaped unscathed, but Fitz’s shot had an effect that he had not anticipated. At the sound Mabel’s little mare stopped dead with a suddenness which jerked the rider’s foot from the stirrup and nearly threw her out of the saddle, then took the bit in her teeth and dashed away in a frenzy of terror. Pull as she might, Mabel could not stop her, nor could she get her foot again into the stirrup. The horror of that wild rush through the whirling sand-clouds, with the wind shrieking in her ears, was such as she could never have imagined. Certain destruction seemed to be before her, for Laili was heading straight for the rocky ground at the foot of the mountains, where there was no hope that she would be able to keep her footing. Mabel was dimly conscious that she ought to come to some decision, or at least to select a moment at which to throw herself off, but all her powers seemed to be concentrated in the effort to pull up, or at any rate to turn the pony’s head towards the open desert. As it was, Laili made the decision for her. An isolated rock, revealed unexpectedly by a lull in the wind, which caused the drifting sand to settle for a moment, stood on the left hand of the course she was taking, and catching sight of it, she swerved away so violently that Mabel found herself all at once in a sitting position upon the sand. There she remained, too much dazed to make any attempt to rise, until Fitz dashed up, and flung himself recklessly from his horse, which promptly continued the chase of the runaway on its own account.
“Oh, thank God you are not killed!” he cried brokenly to Mabel, his sunburnt face ghastly pale. “But you are frightfully hurt! What is it—your back? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Miss North, try to move! Is your leg broken? Don’t say it’s your back!”
Mabel repressed a weak desire to laugh. “I—I think I’m sitting here because you haven’t offered to help me up,” she replied, as well as her chattering teeth would let her.
He helped her up in silence, and began mechanically to brush the dust from her habit with shaking hands. When at last he looked up at her, Mabel saw that his lips were still trembling, and his eyes full of horror.
“Oh, don’t look like that about me!” she cried impulsively. “I’m not worth it.”
“Not worth it?” he cried violently, then, controlling himself with an effort, he made a fair attempt at a laugh. “If anything had happened to you, I should never have dared to face the Major and Mrs North again,” he said. “Or rather, I could not have faced my own thoughts.”
“But why?” asked Mabel, mystified.
“Because it was all my fault for firing that shot—wretched thoughtlessbeastthat I am! I would have blown my brains out.”
“Now that is wicked,” said Mabel with decision, “and foolish too. But if you are going to talk in this agitating way, I think I should like to sit down in the shade over there. I feel rather shaky still.”
“I’m an unfeeling idiot! Lean on me, please.”
He supported her gently across the intervening space, and found a seat for her on a fragment of rock, in a nook which furnished a partial shelter from the sun and the whirling sand. She made room for him beside her, but he persisted in tramping up and down, his face twitching painfully.
“I can’t stay quiet!” he cried, in answer to her remonstrance. “When I think it’s just a chance—a mercy, Mrs North would say—that you’re not—not—” he skipped the word—“at this moment, it knocks me over. And all my fault!”
Mabel’s renewed protest was cut short by the appearance of the two grooms, who ran up with scared faces, and inquired dolefully which way the horses had gone, and whether the Presences would wait where they were until the missing steeds had been captured and brought back.
“Why, what else should we do?” asked Fitz, calm enough now in the presence of the alien race. His own groom hastened to reply that Dera Gul, the ancestral stronghold of Bahram Khan, was only a bow-shot off, and that there the Presences might find rest and refreshment.
“Not if I know it!” was Fitz’s mental comment. “It’s a blessing that the principal villain himself is away at Nalapur, but we won’t trespass on the hospitality of his vassals in his absence. We will wait here,” he added to the servant, who replied sullenly that his honour’s words were law, and departed with his companion in search of the horses.
“What was he saying?” asked Mabel curiously.
“Oh, only gassing a little about the neighbourhood,” replied Fitz, who had had time to decide that he would not alarm his charge by telling her exactly where they were. It did not occur to him that the uneasiness with which Bahram Khan’s glance had inspired Mabel three days before had resolved itself into a sense of offended pride at what she took to be a premeditated insult, and that no idea of any danger to herself personally had ever entered her mind. He did his best, therefore, to divert her thoughts from the question of the locality, and was congratulating himself upon his success when a little procession appeared round the corner of the cliff in whose shadow they were sitting. The principal figure was a sleek and shining Hindu, swathed in voluminous draperies of white muslin, with occasional glimpses of red brocade, who advanced with profound obeisances, and entreated the exalted personages before him to honour his master’s roof by deigning to rest under it until their horses were found. This time Fitz could not but refer the suggestion to Mabel, and he found to his surprise that she was inclined to accept it.
“I shouldn’t care to meet Bahram Khan,” she said; “but he is away, you say.”
“When did the Prince start for Nalapur?” asked Fitz of the Hindu.
“Three days past, sahib—the same evening that he was present at thetamashaat Alibad.”
“There!” said Mabel, “you see it’s all right. My hair is full of sand, and it is so hot here. One never knows what to wear in this climate. I don’t believe I shall be able to ride all that way back unless I can rest in a cool place for a little first.”
“I am pretty sure Major North wouldn’t like it,” said Fitz doubtfully.
The Hindu caught the purport of the words, and his countenance assumed an expression of the deepest woe. “It is the sad misfortune of the illustrious prince that Nāth Sahib has ever looked upon him with disfavour,” he lamented.
“Oh dear!” remarked Mabel, when the words were translated to her; “it will be dreadful if these people get the idea that Dick has a causeless prejudice against Bahram Khan. We had much better show confidence in him by going to his house. Who knows? It may be the beginning of better things.”
“I shouldn’t like to take the responsibility,” began Fitz, but she cut him short.
“Very well; I will take it, then. I am sure Dick will be glad if we can bring about a better understanding; and I think it’s very inconsiderate of you to raise so many objections, when I have told you how hot and tired I am, and how I want a rest. It wasn’t my fault that we were stranded here, you know.”
This ungenerous use of the weapon forged by himself conquered Fitz, and he consented, reluctantly, to accept the invitation brought by the Hindu. Mabel’s smile of approval ought to have been a sufficient reward for his complaisance, but it was not, for he felt an uncomfortable certainty that Dick would object very strongly to the visit when he came to hear of it. The Hindu led the way with much bowing, and Fitz and Mabel followed him a short distance to the gateway of the fortress, which was situated on the farther side of the projecting cliff that had sheltered them. Two or three wild-looking men, apparently half asleep, were lounging about, but otherwise the place seemed to be deserted. The Hindu led them across the courtyard and up a flight of steps into a large cool hall, furnished solely with a carpeted divan and many cushions. Saying that sherbet and sweetmeats should be brought to them immediately, he left them alone, ostensibly to hasten the appearance of the refreshments. As he crossed the court, however, Fitz, watching him idly, saw him glance up to the ramparts. Here, to his astonishment, the young man perceived Bahram Khan himself beginning to descend the steps which led down into the yard. Mabel had also caught sight of the apparition, and Fitz’s eyes met hers.
“The great thing is not to show any sign of fear,” he said hastily.
“I’m not frightened,” retorted Mabel; “but I’m not going to sit here to be stared at by that man. You must tell him that I have come to see the ladies of the house, whoever they may be.”
“I daren’t let you go into the zenana. Anything might happen there, and an army couldn’t rescue you.”
“But what could happen? You would keep Bahram Khan under your eye, of course. And you forget that his mother is one of Georgia’s patients. She will be delighted to see me.”
“Oh, that’s better, naturally. I will take up a strategic position in this corner of the divan, so that I can cover my host comfortably, without the risk of being seized from behind. But look here, won’t you take my revolver? I should hear if you fired a shot.”
“No, thanks. I did learn to shoot once, but if I fired now I’m afraid the result would be disastrous to myself alone. Besides, how could you rescue me without a weapon of any sort? I shall feel much safer with the revolver in your possession, for I am pretty sure you won’t leave the place without me.”
The last words were spoken as Bahram Khan entered the hall, and Fitz had no opportunity to reply. There was a suppressed excitement in the Prince’s manner which made him uneasy, and he begged at once that Mabel might bear the salutations of the doctor lady to the dwellers behind the curtain. Bahram Khan’s face fell, and although he protested that the honour shown to his household was overwhelming, it was fairly clear that no honour could well have been more unwelcome. The ladies had only just arrived, and had not yet settled down properly in their new quarters; they had had no opportunity of making fit preparation for so distinguished a visitor, and it was contrary to all the rules of etiquette that the doctor lady should despatch a messenger to visit them before they had sent their respects to her.
“Oh, very well, I won’t make my call to-day,” said Mabel, rising, when Fitz had translated the long string of apologies that fell from the lips of the embarrassed host. “Then we may as well come, Mr Anstruther.”
But this was not what Bahram Khan desired, and after vainly endeavouring to persuade Mabel to sit down on the cushions again, he summoned a slave-boy, and ordered him to fetch Jehanara.
“There must be some one to interpret between the Miss Sahib and the women,” he explained, and Mabel wondered why Fitz looked so stern and so uncomfortable. Presently the curtain at the end of the room was shaken a little, and Bahram Khan rose and spoke in a low voice through it to the person behind. Then he beckoned to Mabel, the curtain was raised slightly, and she passed through, to find herself in a small dark antechamber. A stout woman in native dress stood there, with a great key in her hand, and unlocking a door, motioned her into a dim passage. It was so gloomy and mysterious that she was conscious of a moment’s hesitation, but as soon as the door was shut the woman began to speak in English, as rapidly as if she was reciting a history she had learnt by heart. She spoke mincingly, and with a peculiar clipping accent which struck Mabel as disagreeable.
“Yes, Miss North, and I don’t wonder you’re surprised, I’m sure, to find me here, and as English as yourself. My poor papa was riding-master in a European regiment—none of your Black Horse—and my mamma was pure-blood Portuguese, and yet here I am.”
Even to the inexperienced eye the woman’s own face, though seen only in the half-light, gave the lie to her claim of pure European descent, but Mabel had not yet acquired the Anglo-Indian’s skill in distinguishing shades of colour, and did not care to dispute the assertion. Having taken breath, Jehanara went on—
“Yes, and I was educated at a realpuccaboarding-school in the hills, Miss North—quite genteel, I assure you; one of the young ladies was the daughter of the Collector of Krishnaganj. And everything done so handsome—china-painting and making wax flowers, and all the extras—no expense spared. I wish I could lay my hands on some of the rupees that were poured out like water on my education, I do. I should commence to astonish the people about here, I assure you, Miss North.”
“You must have found this life very trying at first,” murmured Mabel.
“Trying’s no word for it, Miss North; it was just simply slavery. And I, that thought to be a princess, reduced to be treated like a common coolie woman, and thankful for that! Oh, I’ve been deceived shamefully, Miss North, and there is that makes allowances for me, and there is that doesn’t; but submit to be downtrodden I won’t be, not by any old black woman that calls herself a begum, nor yet by any fine gentleman officer that don’t think me good enough to talk to his lady wife.”
Some instinct told Mabel that it would not be well to inquire too minutely into the means by which this waif of “gentility” had been stranded on such an inhospitable shore; and to cut short the complaints, which threatened to become incoherent, she asked whether Jehanara knew her sister-in-law.
“Yes, Miss North, I do, and a real lady she is—no thanks to her high and mighty sahib of a husband. Spoke to me polite, she did, the only time I’ve seen her, and gave me some English books and papers to pass the time away. Not like Mrs Hardy—there’s a sanctimonious old cat for you, Miss North, and no mistake, drawing her dress away from me, and talking at me as if I was the very scum of the earth!”
Mabel began to feel uncomfortable. Mrs Hardy’s judgments had not much weight with her, but it was evident that Dick had directed Georgia to hold no more intercourse with this person than civility required, and she thought it well to hint that her time was limited.
“Oh, well, if you’re in such a hurry, Miss North, I’m sure I’m agreeable. A little talk with any one that’s English like myself is a treat I don’t often get, but I don’t desire to detain anybody to talk to me that doesn’t want to. The Begum will be ready to see you, I dare say.”
She led the way down the passage and into a low dull room looking into a small paved courtyard, from which similar rooms opened on the other three sides. Here were assembled some fifteen or twenty women and girls, who had evidently made use of the time since Jehanara had been summoned to the visitor in flinging on their best clothes over their ordinary garb. Robes of fine cloth, silk, or brocade showed treacherous glimpses here and there of coarse cotton or woollen garments underneath, while the hair of the wearers was unplaited, and their eyelids innocent of colouring. They were not at all embarrassed, however, and crowded round Mabel with friendly interest; all but one, who lay huddled up upon a bedstead in the farthest corner, with her face to the wall, and refused even to look round. The chief person present was Bahram Khan’s mother, who was known officially, from the name of her late husband, as the Hasrat Ali Begum, but whose personal title was the Moti-ul-Nissa, or Pearl of Women. She was an elderly woman, with a shrewd face showing considerable power, and she greeted Mabel with the kindness due to one who came from her friend the doctor lady, but also with a constraint which the visitor could not but recognise.
Presently a privileged attendant of the Moti-ul-Nissa’s drew attention to the dusty state of Mabel’s habit, and in explaining, with the aid of Jehanara, what had happened to her, she was able to awaken the sympathies of her audience. Ready hands brushed off the dust, a bowl of perfumed water was brought that she might bathe her sun-scorched face, and she was eagerly entreated to take down her hair and shake the sand out of it. Not quite liking the look of the comb held out to her, however, she contented herself with coiling her hair afresh, while an eager girl held a cracked hand-mirror, with a battered wooden back, at an angle that made it absolutely useless. The women were loud in their exclamations of wonder and delight at the sight of the soft fair hair, and presently Mabel became aware that the girl in the corner had raised herself on her elbow, revealing a face beautiful in its outline, but now haggard and stained with tears, and was scowling at her with a look of unmistakable hatred.
“Is there some one ill in that corner?” she asked of Jehanara.
“No, Miss North, not ill—angry and sullen, that’s all.”
“Poor thing! in trouble, do you mean?” asked Mabel, rising and approaching the bed. The girl had turned away again when she saw that her glance was observed, and Mabel laid a hand upon her shoulder. “Can I do anything to help you?” she asked.
To her astonishment the girl shook off her hand as if it had been a snake, and springing up from the couch, burst into a torrent of vituperation. Her lithe young form shook with passion, her delicate hands were clenched, and her voice rose into a shrill scream. The other women strove in vain to quiet her, and Mabel’s efforts to disarm her anger were fruitless, but the storm ceased as suddenly as it had arisen. Breaking off in the midst of a furious sentence, the girl threw up her arms in a gesture of utter despair, then dashed herself down again upon the bed, sobbing as though her heart would break.
“What is the matter with her?” asked Mabel, astounded and somewhat offended by this reception of her friendly overtures. “What does she say?”
Jehanara looked inquiringly at the Moti-ul-Nissa. A nod gave her permission to interpret, and she replied glibly—
“Why, Miss North, she says she hates you, that you’ve stolen away her husband with your airs and graces, and then come to gloat over her. You mustn’t mind what she says. It’s the way with these native women; they’re so sadly uncontrolled, you see.”
“But I haven’t stolen away her husband. Tell her so. What can she mean? Who is she?”
The other women, breathlessly interested, gathered round while Jehanara interpreted the answer to the girl, who sat up with streaming eyes, and poured forth a succession of fierce, abrupt sentences.
“She says, Miss North, ‘I am Zeynab, called Rose of the World, daughter of Fath-ud-Din, the King of Ethiopia’s Grand Vizier, and the fair-haired woman’—that’s you, Miss North—‘has stolen from me the heart of Bahram Khan, my lord. She has beguiled him to cast me off—me, Fath-ud-Din’s daughter—that she may have his house to herself, and now she comes to mock me. But let her beware. The witch Khadija was not my nurse for nothing, and if poison can disfigure, or steel kill, or fire burn, she shall pay everyannathat she owes me.’ Don’t you go and take it to heart, Miss North; she’s a poor, wild, uneducated creature, not brought up like us.”
“But she must be mad!” cried Mabel. “Tell her she is making some extraordinary mistake; that I wouldn’t touch her husband with a pair of tongs—that I hate the very sight of him. Tell her that nothing would make me marry him if he was free, that my religion would forbid it; and as he is married already, our law forbids it. Tell her that even if I wanted to marry him, my brother would see me dead first—that I would beg him to kill me before I stooped to such degradation.”
Even Jehanara cringed before Mabel in her crimson indignation, and translated her words without comment. The women looked at one another doubtfully, and the Moti-ul-Nissa frowned. The forsaken wife spoke again in bitter disdain—
“It is a fine thing to talk thus, when the fair-haired woman has robbed me of my lord’s heart for ever. Since she cares so little for it, why did she not leave it with Zeynab?”
“For anything that I have done, it is hers still,” said Mabel desperately. “Ask my sister, the doctor lady, if it is not so. You know her, all of you.”
“Ah, woe is me!” cried Zeynab. “Why did not the doctor lady leave me to die as a little child, rather than save me by her art that misery might come upon me through one of her own house?”
“Peace, girl!” said the Moti-ul-Nissa. “The doctor lady knows not yet that thou art my son’s wife. It is not through her that this trouble has come. I will send a message to her, that she may tell us what to do. If the words of her sister here are true words—” she broke off and looked keenly at Mabel—“it may be that she is one of those that ensnare men even without their own will; but such women ought not to place themselves where men are forced to behold them.”
Mabel digested the rebuke, translated with startling plainness by Jehanara, as well as she might. “I am very sorry,” she said in a low voice. “My brother said just the same to me, but I have only been here a short time, and I didn’t understand things. Please forgive me,” she added, looking first at Zeynab and then at her mother-in-law. “I never dreamed that such a thing could happen, and I will take care that it never does again.”
“Never again is too late for me,” said Zeynab bitterly.
“Peace!” said the old lady again. “Is it nothing to thee that the doctor lady’s sister has humbled herself before thee? Now it is for thee to win back thy lord as best thou mayest. And as for thee, Miss Sahib,” added the Moti-ul-Nissa severely, “choose thee a husband quickly, since that is the custom of thy people, and see that he is such a man as will slay any other that casts his eyes upon thee.”
“The Sahib desires the Miss Sahib to be told that the horses have been found, and all is ready,” said the little slave-boy, pushing himself unbidden into the group, and Mabel wasted no time over her farewells.
“I really think I have never been so uncomfortable before!” she said to herself, as she got out of the room.
“Now you see, Miss North, what a trial it is to me to live among such coarse, ungenteel creatures as these,” said Jehanara.
“Poordear Laili!” sighed Mabel, patting the dust-begrimed neck of the little mare. There was no fear of Laili’s running away now, although she had spirit enough left to struggle gamely through the sand, miles of which still stretched between her and home.
“I don’t think she’ll be any the worse when she’s had a good rest and feed,” said Fitz consolingly.
“Oh no, I hope not! But I know Dick will never let me ride her again.”
“Of course; it really wouldn’t be safe. The regiment are so often at carbine practice, you know, and the tribesmen can’t come near the town without letting off their jezails to show their friends they have arrived. It’s quite an exception when a day passes without our hearing shots of some kind.”
“I know. But she is such a beauty, I can’t bear to give her up.”
“Look here, Miss North; a bright idea! Will you let me try to break her of this frivolous habit of hers? I’m generally considered rather good with horses, and there’s nothing I should like better than to train her properly for you.”
“Oh, could you really? Of course I have still got Majnûn, but he is so uninteresting to ride compared with her. But won’t it give you a great deal of trouble?”
“Trouble? Not a bit! I wish it would. Then you might set it down as some sort of atonement for my carelessness in nearly getting you killed to-day. But anyhow, I’ll do my best with her, honour bright! If the Major will give her stable-room to-night, I’ll have a box cleared out for her at my place. My stables are crammed with ridiculous old rubbish that has come down to me from General Keeling’s time, and my horses camp in the middle of it. By-the-bye, do you know I can’t feel as I did about Sheikh here”—he looked askance at his own handsome pony—“since Bahram Khan won the Cup on him? It seems as if he must be an awful traitor to sell his master in that style, you see. I distinctly saw the fellow whisper in his ear before he mounted him, and he was like a lamb at once, instead of flinging his heels all over the shop, as he had been doing the moment before. Now suppose he’s been hypnotised once and for all, what’s to happen if he chooses to trot off and attach himself to Bahram Khan any day we may chance to meet him? I shall look a nice sort of fool.”
“Have Bahram Khan arrested for horse-stealing, I should think,” said Mabel, with a rather forced laugh. “But how is it that that dreadful man is here at all? I hope you had a word or two with the Hindu who told us he was away?”
“Ah, but he had us there, unfortunately. Narayan Singh told us that his master had started for Nalapur, but we didn’t ask whether he had come back, so he wasn’t obliged to say anything, and he didn’t. Bahram Khan told me himself how it happens that he’s here. It seems that when he got to Nalapur his uncle intimated that he could run the funeral without his assistance, and more than hinted, as I understand, that he had had too much to do with it already. Hence he thinks it well to hide his cousinly grief in his ancestral fortress, until he can get the Commissioner to tackle Ashraf Ali for him again, I suppose.”
“More trouble!” sighed Mabel.
“I’m afraid so. The Kumpsioner Sahib is scarcely likely to take such a slap in the face quietly. Hisprotégéhas been snubbed, and I rather think he will want to know the reason why.”
Mabel sighed again, and they spoke little after that, except to encourage the horses as they toiled through the loose sand. Arrived at the gate of the compound, she asked Fitz to come in and have some lunch, but he laughed.
“No lunch for me to-day, Miss North. I must tear home and get a fresh horse and ride out to the Major. You don’t realise that I have taken a good bit of the afternoon off as well as the morning that he granted me, and that the wigging I shall get is thoroughly well earned.”
“I’ll intercede for you the minute Dick comes in.”
“Ah, it will have happened before that. But never mind; it’s in a fair and honest cause—couldn’t be in a fairer,” added Fitz audaciously, as he rode off.
“I’m afraid that boy is going to be silly,” said Mabel solemnly to herself as she mounted the verandah steps; but on catching sight of Georgia, all thought of Fitz and his foolishness faded from her mind.
“Oh, Georgie, such a day of adventures! I’ve been thrown, and I’ve paid a morning call on Bahram Khan and found him at home, and I’ve penetrated into the recesses of an Eastern harem, and I’ve been talked to more disagreeably than I ever was in my life.”
“Mab!” was Georgia’s horrified exclamation, “how could you? How could Mr Anstruther let you? Was the harem Bahram Khan’s?”
“Yes, of course, and Mr Anstruther had no voice in the matter. I preferred to sit with the ladies rather than with their lord and master, naturally. And oh, Georgie! Bahram Khan’s Ethiopian wife is your little Zeynab, Fath-ud-Din’s daughter, and she thinks—she thinks—I don’t know how to say it—she has got it into her head that I aspire to the honour of being the second Mrs Bahram Khan.”
“Mab!” cried Georgia again, helplessly.
“Yes, and there was a fearful yellow woman there who says she’s English——”
“I know, that dreadful person Jehanara. Oh, Mab, Dick will be terribly angry when he knows you have been talking to her! She is Bahram Khan’s evil genius—inspires all his plots first, and then helps him to carry them out. She came here once as his ambassadress, but Dick would have nothing to do with her, and forbade me to let her come into the house. You see, politicals have to be very jealous of any Europeans or Eurasians’ gaining influence with native princes. And now she will make capital out of your having spoken to her.”
“My dear Georgie, will you kindly tell me how I could help speaking to her when she was the only possible interpreter between the ladies and me? Really one might think I had arranged that all these horrid things should happen, when you know they were pure accidents. And you won’t sympathise a bit, though I’m almost out of my mind with worry. These women will believe you; tell them, assure them, swear to them, that I have no designs on Bahram Khan, for if they go on thinking I have, I don’t know what I shall do.”
“I can put that right, at any rate, but Dick will be so vexed——”
“Dick!” Mabel almost screamed. “Dick is to know nothing of this. Georgie, I absolutely forbid you to say a word to him about it. Isn’t it enough for him to be always casting up against me what happened the other day, without having this to bother me about as well?”
“You must have a horribly guilty conscience, Mab. I’m sure Dick has never said a word to you about the other day.”
“No, but he has looked it, again and again. And I willnothave him told about this absurd fancy of poor jealous Zeynab’s. You couldn’t be so dishonourable, Georgie, as to tell your husband another person’s secret against her will.”
“I can’t tell him if you forbid it, but I wish you would let me. Very likely it is some plot of Jehanara’s to make the poor little wife miserable, but it may have some political bearing, and I think he ought to know. Do let me tell him, Mab.”
“No, you’re not to. I shall never have the smallest confidence in you again if you do. It can’t concern Dick or anybody but myself, and the only reason I told you was that you might use your influence with the women to make them see how silly the idea was. If you tell any one else about it, we shan’t be friends any more.”