“‘You’ll love me yet!—and I can tarryYour love’s protracted growing;June reared that bunch of flowers you carryFrom seeds of April’s sowing.‘I plant a heartful now; some seedAt least is sure to strike—’”
“‘You’ll love me yet!—and I can tarryYour love’s protracted growing;June reared that bunch of flowers you carryFrom seeds of April’s sowing.‘I plant a heartful now; some seedAt least is sure to strike—’”
“‘You’ll love me yet!—and I can tarry
Your love’s protracted growing;
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
From seeds of April’s sowing.
‘I plant a heartful now; some seed
At least is sure to strike—’”
What malign influence had brought the reading to this point just now? Fitz might have used those very words. Involuntarily Mabel rose and stood at the edge of the verandah, looking out into the rain. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she stood with her back to Mr Burgrave, and he did not see them. He read on—
“‘And yield—what you’ll not pluck indeed,Not love, but, maybe, like.‘You’ll look at least on love’s remains,A grave’s one violet;Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.What’s death? You’ll love me yet!’”
“‘And yield—what you’ll not pluck indeed,Not love, but, maybe, like.‘You’ll look at least on love’s remains,A grave’s one violet;Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.What’s death? You’ll love me yet!’”
“‘And yield—what you’ll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, maybe, like.
‘You’ll look at least on love’s remains,
A grave’s one violet;
Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.
What’s death? You’ll love me yet!’”
Was the seed springing already? A tear splashed into the gritty dust that lay on the verandah-rail, and Mabel dashed her hand across her eyes in an agony of shame. Mr Burgrave must have seen; what would he think? But before she could even reach her handkerchief, the book was thrown down, and Mr Burgrave had seized his crutch, and was at her side.
“Mabel, my dear little girl!” he cried tenderly.
“Oh no, no; not you!” she gasped, horror-stricken.
“And why not, dearest? Forgive me for blundering so brutally. How could I guess that the seed I had dared to plant was blossoming already? I have watched it growing slowly day by day, so slowly that I was often afraid it had not struck at all, and now, when it is actually in full flower, I pass by without seeing it, and bruise it in this heartless way. Forgive me, dear.”
“Indeed, indeed you are making a mistake!” cried Mabel, in a panic. “It really isn’t what you think, Mr Burgrave. I don’t care for you in that way at all.”
“My dear girl must allow me to be the judge of that. I can read your heart better than you can read it for yourself, dearest. Do you think I haven’t noticed how naturally you turn to me for refuge against trouble and unkindness? It has touched me inexpressibly. Again and again you have sought sympathy from me, with the sweetest confidence.”
“It’s quite true!” groaned Mabel, seeing in a sudden mental vision all the occasions to which Mr Burgrave alluded.
“Of course it is, dear. You hadn’t realised how completely you trusted me, had you? Other people thought—no, I won’t tell you what they said—but I knew better. I was sure of you, you see.”
“What did other people say?” asked Mabel, with faint interest.
“Er—well, it was a lady in the neighbourhood.” Mabel’s thoughts flew to Mrs Hardy with natural apprehension. “She was good enough to warn me that you were—no, I will not say the word—that you were amusing yourself with me. She had noticed, naturally enough, how inevitably we drew together, but she ascribed your sweet trustfulness to such vile motives as could never enter your head. I said to her, ‘Madam, to defend Miss North against your suspicions would be to insult her. In a short time, when you realise their baselessness, you will suffer as keenly as you deserve for having entertained them.’ I could trust my little girl, you see.”
“Oh, you make me ashamed!” cried Mabel, abashed by the perfect confidence with which this stern, self-sufficient man regarded her. “Oh, Mr Burgrave, do please believe I am not good enough for you. It makes me miserable to think how disappointed you will be.”
“I should like to hear you call me Eustace,” said Mr Burgrave softly, unmoved by her protestations. It occurred to Mabel, with a dreadful sense of helplessness, that he regarded them only as deprecating properly the honour he proposed doing her.
“Well—please—Eustace—” But Mr Burgrave kissed her solemnly on the forehead, and she could stand no more.
“It’s too much! I’ll come back presently,” she gasped, and succeeded in escaping. As she fled through the hall she met Georgia.
“Perhaps you’ll be interested to know that I’m engaged to Mr Burgrave, Georgie!” she cried hysterically, rushing into her own room and locking the door.
“That wretched man!” cried Georgia. “After all Dr Tighe and I have done for his leg!”
“Didn’t know Tighe had any grievance against him about this,” grumbled Dick. He was sitting on the edge of the dressing-table, ruefully contemplating his boots, with his hands dug deep in his pockets. On ordinary occasions Georgia would have requested him, gently but firmly, to move, but now she was too much perturbed in mind to think of the furniture. Delayed in starting by the dust-storm, Dick had only returned from a hard day’s riding late at night, to find himself confronted on the threshold, so to speak, by the triumphant Commissioner, and requested to give him his sister.
“Oh, but he would be on our side, of course,” said Georgia. “Dick, I do think it is horrid of Mr Burgrave to have proposed under present circumstances. It’s as if he wanted to rob us of everything—even of Mab.”
“No, he’s doing us an honour. He all but told me so. But he really is absolutely gone on Mab. His whole face changes when he speaks of her. Fact is, Georgie, if the man didn’t come rooting about on our very own frontier, I couldn’t help having a sneaking liking for him. His belief in his own greatness is perfectly sincere, and he cherishes no animosity against us for opposing his plans. He told me that he hoped political differences would make no break in our friendly intercourse—Hang it! this thing’s giving way. Why in the world don’t you have stronger tables?”
“Sit here,” said Georgia, pointing to the wicker sofa. “Well, Dick?”
“Well? It’s coming, old girl, coming fast, and he’s mercifully trying to soften the blow to us.”
Georgia looked round with a shiver. The shabby bungalow with its makeshift furniture was the outward and visible sign of the life-work which she and her husband had inherited from her father, and it was to be taken from them by the action of the man who hoped that his arbitrary decree would be no obstacle to their continuing to regard him as a friend.
“And what I think is,” Dick went on, “that they had better be married as soon as possible, before Burgrave goes down to the river again, and the blow falls.”
“But, Dick,” Georgia almost screamed, “you’re giving her no time to repent.”
“Repent? I’m not proposing to kill her. Surely it would be better for her to be married from this house than from a Bombay hotel? Besides, we should have no further anxiety about her——”
“No further anxiety? Dick, if she marries him I shall never know another happy moment. She doesn’t care a straw for him—it’s a kind of fascination, that’s all, a sort of deadly terror. I can’t tell you what it’s been like all day. She couldn’t bear me to leave them alone a moment, and there was he beaming at her, and not seeing it a bit. He thinks it’s all right for her to be shy and tongue-tied, and not dare to meet his eye—the pompous idiot! Mab shy—and with a man! She’s miserable—in fear of her life.”
“No, no, Georgie, that’s a little too thick. Mab is not a school-girl, to let herself be coerced into an engagement, and it won’t do to stir her up to break it off. You mustn’t go and abuse him to her. Be satisfied with relieving your feelings to me.”
“Now, Dick, is it likely? Am I the person to give her an extra reason for sticking to him? If I abused him she would feel bound to defend him, and might even end by caring for him. I can’t pretend to congratulate her on her choice, but she shall have every facility for seeing as much of him as she can possibly want.”
“Vengeful creature!”
“No, that’s not it. I have no patience with her.”
“Ah, she has proved you a false prophet, hasn’t she? That’s unpardonable.”
“She has done worse; I’m perfectly convinced that she refused the right man before accepting the wrong one. And though she doesn’t deserve it, I think she ought to have time to get things put right, if she can.”
“Very well. Then the deluge will come first, that’s all.”
“How soon do you expect it?”
“Well, I gather from what the Commissioner says that his report is nearly drawn up. As it’s only a pretext for a predetermined move, they won’t take long to consider it. The decision will be intimated to me, and I shall submit my resignation in return.”
“And then we shall fold our tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away?”
“Not quite at once. We must stick on until they send up a man to replace me, and carry out the new policy. The worst of it will be that Ashraf Ali will know why I am resigning, and unless I can get him to keep quiet, he will think himself free to break the treaty before our side does. If Bahram Khan once gets to know what’s on hand, it’s all up, for nothing will persuade the Sardars that we are not repudiating the treaty as the first step to an invasion and the annexation of Nalapur, and he will be there to lead them, if the Amir won’t. I hope to goodness that Burgrave will have removed the light of his countenance from us before then, but I suppose that’s sure to be all right. He would hardly like to look as if he was hounding his intended brother-in-law out of the province. Unfortunately it’s pretty certain that rumours of my impending departure will begin to get about in some mysterious manner as soon as his unfavourable report goes up, for his plans seem doomed to leak out into the bazaar. I’m inclined to think he has a spy about him somewhere. By-the-bye, Georgie, who is the sweetseller you’ve allowed to hang about the place lately?”
“I, Dick? He told me you had said he might come.”
“Something fishy there, evidently. But he must have an accomplice inside.”
“One of the Commissioner’s Hindu clerks, perhaps.”
“Possibly. Well, we’ll deal with him to-morrow.”
Assoon as Dick awoke in the morning, his talk with Georgia recurred to his mind, and looking out of his dressing-room window, he called to Ismail Bakhsh, whom he saw in the compound. From his long connection with the family, the old soldier was regarded as the head of the household staff.
“Has that sweetseller turned up yet, Ismail Bakhsh?”
“No, sahib, I have not seen him this morning.”
“Well, when he does, you can detain him. I want to ask him a question or two.”
“The thing is done, sahib. If the protector of the poor would listen to a word from this unworthy one——”
“Yes; what is it?”
“It was in my mind yesterday, sahib, to examine all the verandahs, lest the storm should have shaken the pillars, and in so doing I found that the work of the rats under the floors has been great and very evil. Surely there are many places in which the planks are loose and easy to be moved, but on this side of the house it is the worst. Before the Kumpsioner Sahib’s rooms a man might even squeeze himself in and hide under the verandah floor.”
“We shall never get rid of the rats until we have proper cement floors—and it’s no good thinking of that now,” added Dick, half to himself. “But are you sure there’s nothing worse than rats about, Ismail Bakhsh? I don’t like the idea of that hole.”
“I also suspected evil, sahib, but having sent two of the servants’ sons in with lights, I was content when they found nothing.”
“I hope you nailed the boards firmly into their places?”
“I put them back, sahib, but why fasten them? There was no man inside, and in case any should seek to enter, the hole should be blocked up from within, not from without. Moreover, if the protector of the poor would invite Winlock Sahib to bring his sporting dog to the house, with your honour’s own dogs we might succeed in killing all the rats before mending the floors.”
“Good idea! Ask the memsahib to give you achitto Winlock Sahib. No; it had better be to-morrow. I shall be out all to-day.”
Ismail Bakhsh salaamed and departed, and Dick returned to his dressing, neither of them dreaming that they were separated by nothing but a half-inch plank from a man who had listened to the whole of their colloquy. The bungalow, which had never been intended for a permanent dwelling, had been run up in haste. Hence the contrast of its somewhat ramshackle appearance with that of the substantial stone houses in the cantonments, and hence also the perpetual worry caused by the colonies of rats inhabiting the space under the floors, which should have been filled up with concrete. However, since innumerable complaints and remonstrances had brought nothing but vague promises and an occasional snub from those in authority, Dick and Georgia continued to live on in their unsatisfactory dwelling, and to wage intermittent warfare against the rats. But the rats could not fairly be accused of the worst of the damage of which Ismail Bakhsh complained, for crouched under the boards lay the sweetseller, who had effected an entrance by sliding out one of the planks from the front of the verandah and pulling another aside, returning them to their places when he had crawled in. His dark face paled when Ismail Bakhsh suggested bringing the dogs, but when he heard Dick postpone the rat-hunt to the next day, he breathed freely again.
“To-day is all I want,” he said to himself. “When I have once got the paper for Jehanara Bibi from that accursed half-blood my work is done, and Nāth Sahib may set his dogs on my track as much as he likes—and his sowars too.”
He remained crouched in his lair all morning, until the Commissioner had dismissed his clerks and hobbled round to the other side of the house to look for Mabel. As soon as the sound of his crutch had become inaudible in the distance, there was a hesitating tap on one of the loose boards. It was answered by a bolder knock from below, the board was pushed slightly aside, and a yellow hand, trembling as if with ague, passed a roll of papers through the crack. The sweetseller seized it, and pressed the fingers of the transmitter, which were hurriedly withdrawn. The hidden man secreted the papers carefully in his clothing, and crawled round to the front of the house, whence he could watch through a peep-hole all that went on in this part of the compound. When noon was come, and the servants had all betaken themselves to their own quarters, he removed the sliding plank and slipped out, bringing with him his stock in trade, and replaced the board carefully. Having assured himself that Dick was nowhere to be seen, he crossed the compound boldly, climbed the wall at a point where various projecting stones and convenient hollows afforded a foothold, and walked with dignified haste to the nearest sandhill. On the farther side of this he buried his tray and his sweets in the sand, and then, girding up his loins, set out resolutely in the direction of Dera Gul.
Dusk had already fallen when he reached the fortress, where he received a respectful greeting from the ragged guards, who informed him that the chief was in his zenana. As soon as the news was brought that Narayan Singh had returned, however, Bahram Khan sent word that he should be admitted immediately—a high honour which was not seldom the reward of the indispensable spy. Committing himself to the guidance of one of the slave-boys, Narayan Singh passed behind the curtain and into the anteroom, to discover Bahram Khan reclining upon the divan in the easiest possible undress. The pleasant murmur of the hubble-bubble, as he approached, prepared the visitor to find the room full of smoke, and his master seemed at first too much engrossed with his pipe to notice his entrance. Cross-legged in the corner sat the Eurasian Jehanara, shrouded in her veil, her glittering eyes reflecting the faint light which was shed by a brazier of glowing charcoal.
“Peace, Narayan Singh!” said the Prince at last, taking the mouthpiece of the long leathern tube lazily from his lips. “Is all well?”
“All is well, Highness. I have here a copy of the report of Barkaraf Sahib to the Sarkar, from the hands of his confidential clerk.”
Jehanara laughed harshly. “Thou hadst but little difficulty with Antonio D’Costa?” she said.
“What knowest thou of the swine?” asked Bahram Khan jealously.
“I have not seen him for many years, Highness, but he is my cousin, and I was acquainted with his character as a youth, and heard of his doings as a man. Knowing thy desire to learn the intentions of the Kumpsioner Sahib, and hearing that my cousin was in his employ, it needed only that I should instruct the skilful Narayan Singh to approach him in the right way.”
“And I,” said Narayan Singh, “needed but to hold before his eyes the copies of the bonds I had obtained from certain money-lenders, and threaten to show them to Barkaraf Sahib, when he fell down on his knees before me, and was ready to do whatever I might desire, for fear of the ruin that threatened him.”
“It is well,” growled Bahram Khan. “But what does the report say?”
Narayan Singh took out the papers which had been handed to him in his hiding-place, and laid them on the floor before Jehanara. She took them up, and leaning forward, scrutinised the contents eagerly by the dim light of the brazier.
“In this report,” she said, with deep satisfaction, “which the Kumpsioner Sahib has just finished drawing up, he recommends the immediate withdrawal of the subsidy, and the recall of Beltring Sahib from Nalapur, on the ground that the treaty was merely a temporary arrangement, the necessity for which has passed away.” Bahram Khan laughed, and she went on. “The Amir Sahib is to be assured of the continuous friendship and good-will of the Sarkar, which with the one hand will take away his rupees, and with the other present him with the liberty to govern his people without interference or guidance.”
“Truly the infidels are delivered into our hands!” cried Bahram Khan. “And when is the change to be announced?”
“The Kumpsioner Sahib desires an order, which may be carried out by the political officer on the spot.”
“Then the fool himself is leaving the border? Let him go. I care not to take his life. He has been a useful friend to me, and may be permitted to carry his folly elsewhere. It is Nāth Sahib that I want, and surely even my uncle will turn against him when he knows that the Sarkar has determined to break the treaty.”
“Gently, Highness!” entreated Jehanara. “The Amir Sahib is ever faithful to his friends, and not easily turned from his allegiance. Such is his friendship for Nāth Sahib that the only thing that would make him join in the plot would be the hope of benefiting him.”
“But,” put in Narayan Singh, who had been wondering uncomfortably whether it would be better to tell his news at once, or to wait until he had managed to secure a moment’s private conversation with Jehanara. “I heard tidings yesterday, Highness, which seem to show that the Kumpsioner Sahib is not the friend thou didst reckon him. I could have told them sooner, but I fear they will not be pleasing in thine ears.”
“Let us hear them,” cried Bahram Khan, while Jehanara shot an angry glance at the spy. He ought to have known by this time that it was generally wiser to soften and sweeten agitating news, and not to administer it undiluted.
“It was said among the servant-people that Barkaraf Sahib had asked Nāth Sahib for his sister, Highness, and that even now he has betrothed her to him.”
There was a moment’s incredulous silence, and then Bahram Khan sprang up from the divan, sending the heavy cut-glass bottle of the water-pipe flying, and almost overturning the brazier. “And this is the fruit of your counsel, both of you!” he shouted. “Who was it that held me back when I would have fallen on the whole company of the English as they returned from their fool’s dinner in the desert, and killed them all, except Nāth Sahib’s sister? Who was it again that bade me suffer my servants to be taken prisoners and held captive, and be tried for their lives by a boy, and that told me to rejoice when I received them back unharmed? Thou, O woman! thou, dog of an idolater! Surely ye were in league with the Kumpsioner Sahib to steal the girl from me, and he has bribed you to blacken my face in the eyes of all my people.”
“Highness,” said Jehanara, with dignity, “thine anger has made thee unjust to thy faithful servants. Fear not; I know the ways of the English, and this betrothal need not lead to marriage for many months. Nāth Sahib’s sister shall yet be thine, and the Kumpsioner Sahib may wait in vain for his bride.”
“Wait!” cried Bahram Khan, sinking again upon his cushions, “nay, he shall wait for nothing but death. He shall die by inches, and before my eyes, because he has sought to befool me. If he escapes, the lives of both of you shall pay for it.”
“As thou wilt, Highness. But was it not thy admiration of her beauty which first showed the Kumpsioner Sahib that the girl was fair? Suffer thy servant to consider the matter for a moment, and she will offer thee her counsel.”
Leaving Bahram Khan to look at affairs in this new light, Jehanara established herself again in her corner, gazing fixedly into the hot coals. Both her life and that of Narayan Singh were at stake, and she knew it; and she had no desire to die. Six years before she had played a desperate game with Bahram Khan, conscious that in him she faced an opponent as cunning and as faithless as herself. The conditions were unequal, for she staked far more than he did, and he won, possibly because her sense of the risk she was running had robbed her of the perfect coolness necessary to ensure success. He had not married her, even by Mohammedan rites, and nothing short of full legal recognition could have vindicated in the eyes of her own people the course she had pursued. Robbed of her anticipated triumph, she made no attempt to escape the consequences, but set herself by every means in her power to obtain that ascendency over the Prince’s mind which she had failed to gain over his heart. Fresh failures and unspeakable mortifications had awaited her. The women of the household, from the beautiful little Ethiopian bride to whom was awarded the position Jehanara had intended for herself, to the humblest hill-girl who had been kidnapped to become at once a slave and a Muslimeh, saw to it that she ate the bread of bitterness; but in spite of taunts and revilings she kept the one end in view until her persistence was crowned with complete success. Bahram Khan would listen to no advice but hers, having learnt by experience that his confidence in her was justified. The intrigue by which first the Commissioner, and then the Viceroy, had been convinced of his wrongs, was of her devising, and had proved so successful as to convince her that had it not been for Dick’s opposition, she would already have seen Bahram Khan established as his uncle’s heir. It followed that her hatred for Dick, heightened by his cavalier treatment of herself, was at least as strong as that of the disappointed claimant. As she sat brooding over the charcoal at this moment, there was a cruel light in her eyes while she ran hastily over the points of the scheme which had sprung full-grown into her mind when Bahram Khan accused her of treachery.
“Highness,” she said at last, and Bahram Khan propped himself up on his cushions with a muttered growl, while the trembling Narayan Singh appeared to take fresh interest in life, “this perfidy of the Kumpsioner Sahib’s provides thee with what was most needed, a means of involving the Amir Sahib in our plans. Nay, through this treachery, with the blessing of Heaven, thy servants will yet behold thee seated upon his throne, with the sanction of the Sarkar.”
“Wonderful!” cried the Prince, with gleaming eyes. “Go on.”
“First of all, then, Highness, the Kumpsioner Sahib must not leave Alibad before the treaty is broken—but we will consider presently by what means he may be induced to remain on the border. Next, instructions must be sent to the Vizier Ram Singh to represent thy quarrel to his master, the Amir Sahib, in this wise. Thou wilt say that the Kumpsioner Sahib, with a great show of friendliness, promised to get thee Nāth Sahib’s sister for a wife, but that he has befooled thee, and demanded the maiden for himself. Thine uncle may not altogether believe that Barkaraf Sahib really offered thee his help in the matter”—the half-caste could not restrain a touch of scorn as she glanced through her eyelashes at the miserable native who had brought himself to believe that an Englishman looked favourably on his desire to marry an Englishwoman. “Still, he has doubtless heard through his sister, thy mother, of thy love for the girl, and he will soon hear also that she is betrothed to the Kumpsioner Sahib, so that he cannot but believe in the enmity between him and thee. Next thou wilt say that by setting spies on this enemy of thine thou hast learnt that he has persuaded the Sarkar to withdraw the subsidy. This he does in order to gain honour for himself by annexing the Nalapur state, and also that he may overthrow Nāth Sahib, whom thine uncle loves, and who, as we know through Ram Singh, has sworn to resign his office rather than forsake his friend. Thus, then, thine uncle will be eager to champion Nāth Sahib’s cause against Barkaraf Sahib, and thou, forgetting thine old hatred in the new, will show him the way. According to the words of this paper of my cousin’s, the Sarkar’s change of policy will be announced at a durbar to be held by Nāth Sahib in the Agency at Nalapur, and the Amir Sahib will do well to see to it that this durbar is not held. If we devise a means for keeping the Kumpsioner Sahib here, he must needs hold the durbar himself, and while he and Nāth Sahib, and all the sahibs from Alibad, are entangled in the mountains on the way to the city, they must be caught in an ambush of the Amir Sahib’s troops. The Kumpsioner Sahib may well be killed in the first onset, to save all further trouble, but Nāth Sahib and the other friends of thine uncle need only be disarmed and kept prisoners, the writing of the Sarkar being taken from them. Then the Amir Sahib may send a peaceful message to the Sarkar that, hearing rumours of evil intended against him, he has seized a number of its officers and holds them as hostages, until he shall be assured that his fears are groundless. So then the Sarkar, fearing for the lives of its sahibs, will send some great person to reassure his Highness, and explain that it was the evil doings of the dead Barkaraf Sahib alone that caused the mischief, and Nāth Sahib will be put in his place, and the subsidy continued, and all be well—save, perhaps, the payment of a slight fine for the accidental slaying of the Kumpsioner Sahib.”
“But what is the good of all this to me?” bellowed Bahram Khan. “It would rid me of the Kumpsioner Sahib, but no more—nay, it makes Nāth Sahib the head where he is now the tail.”
“Seest thou not, Highness, that this is the plot as it must appear in the eyes of thine uncle? Now lift the veil, and behold it as it is in thine own mind. Who should naturally be chosen to command the force lying in ambush but the Sardar Abd-ul-Nabi, and is he not a close friend of the Vizier Ram Singh, and wholly devoted to thy cause? To him the Amir Sahib will give orders that he is to slay no one but Barkaraf Sahib, and that the lives of the rest are to be saved, even at the risk of his own, but from thee he will receive the command to slay all and spare none, not even the youngest.”
“Nay, I will ride with them, and smite them myself from behind!” cried Bahram Khan.
“That must not be, Highness. Thou wilt be far away at the time.”
“Then Nāth Sahib and Barkaraf Sahib shall be saved alive and brought to me that I may see them die.”
“The risk is too great, Highness. Hast thou forgotten the day when Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib was attacked in a certain nullah and all his escort slain, and how he fought his way out alone and rode back to his camp, and returning, as if upon eagles’ wings, with a fresh body of troops, fell upon the tribesmen when they were stripping the dead, and slew them every one? Not a man shall live—be content with that, for there is other work for thee than watching their blood flow.”
“And what is that, woman?”
“Thou wilt be waiting here, Highness, and as soon as a swift messenger brings thee word that the sahibs have been attacked, thou wilt ride with all speed to Alibad. Knowing that all the sahibs are away except the Padri and two or three others who are not warriors, and that there is no place of refuge for them, thou wilt hasten thither to save them and the Memsahibs. If they believe in thy professions of friendship, then all is well—they are delivered into our hands. But it is in my mind that they will not trust thee, and that is even better, for then all the evil that follows will spring from their own lack of confidence. The men of the regiment who are left behind will fortify themselves in their lines, but there is no need to attack them just then. The bazaar and the European houses will be fired—by thebadmashesof the place, doubtless—and in the turmoil and confusion all the sahibs will be killed, but all men will behold thee rushing hither and thither like one possessed, commanding thy soldiers with curses to save the white men alive.”
Bahram Khan chuckled grimly, for the picture appealed to him.
“And at last,” went on Jehanara, “seeing that thou canst do nothing, so few are thy men, thou wilt retire sorrowfully, taking with thee such women and loot as may come in thy way—but only for safe keeping.” Bahram Khan chuckled again. “The next day, when the Amir Sahib learns that he has indeed raised his hand against the Sarkar, and slain so many sahibs, he will be plunged in despair. He will find it impossible to keep his army in check, and they will come to Alibad and complete the work begun by thee, before ravaging the rest of the frontier. All will be the deed of thine uncle, and he it is that will have to answer to the Sarkar.”
“True, O woman. Trust me to see that his evil deeds shall blot out mine. But how if Nāth Sahib’s sister should chance to be slain also?”
“Her safety is thy care, Highness. Before seeking to save the sahibs, thou wilt have seized Nāth Sahib’s house, which is on the outskirts of the town, and sent off his wife and sister here, for their better protection, under a sufficient guard.”
“Who will see that Nāth Sahib’s Mem troubles us no more,” laughed Bahram Khan.
“Not so, Highness. The doctor lady must find safety with the Moti-ul-Nissa.”
“Nay, is she not Nāth Sahib’s wife?” cried Bahram Khan, much injured.
“There must be sanctuary for the doctor lady with thy mother,” repeated Jehanara firmly. “What harm can she do thee, Highness?”
“She is Sinjāj Kīlin’s daughter. That is enough.”
“True, Highness, and for that very reason she must live. The Begum must be warned to hide her in the inmost recesses of the zenana, since the Amir Sahib clamours for her blood, and she herself must clearly understand that thou art protecting her at the risk of thy life. See here, Highness, and think not it is any love for thy foes that moves me. Her testimony is the very crowning-point of our plan. When thou hast made thyself master in Nalapur, and goest forth to meet the armies of the Empress with the head of the Amir Sahib as a peace-offering, there will yet be voices raised against thee. But when it is known that thou didst save the doctor lady, the wife and daughter of thine own and thy father’s enemies, and place her in safety in thine own zenana, who shall judge thee too hardly that thou couldst not save the town? Thou hast done all in thy power, and the Memsahib will bear witness to thee. And as for sparing her—why, there is Nāth Sahib’s sister left for thee still.”
“Aha!” laughed Bahram Khan, “and she is not of Sinjāj Kīlin’s blood. She will not fight like the doctor lady.”
“Nay, but she is of Nāth Sahib’s blood,” said Jehanara, conscious once more of an inconsistent thrill of perverted pride in her father’s race, as she remembered what other Englishwomen had done before in like circumstances; “but all will be well, Highness, whatever happens. If she is found married to thee, she cannot, as apardahwoman, be brought into court to testify against thee, and if she is dead by that time, why, she killed herself in her terror, not waiting to learn thy merciful intentions towards her. And women pass, but the throne lasts, Highness. The one is better than the other.”
“Truly, thou art a veritable Shaitan!” To Bahram Khan’s mind the epithet conveyed a high compliment. “Set the matter in train, then. Here is my seal.” He took off his heavy signet and handed it to her. “Do thou and Narayan Singh see that all is in order, so that not one of my enemies may escape. But what of Barkaraf Sahib? If he leaves the border, I lose half my vengeance.”
“It may be, Highness”—the speaker was Narayan Singh, who had remained silent in sheer astonishment at the daring and resourcefulness of his co-plotter—“that the Hasrat Ali Begum might help us in the matter. If her Highness were to hear that any evil threatened the doctor lady or her husband, she would doubtless send a messenger to warn her. Might she not become aware, through some indiscretion” (he looked across at Jehanara), “that the Kumpsioner Sahib was departing from the border to seek his own safety, leaving Nāth Sahib to carry out a dangerous and disagreeable task? Her Highness would send the Eye-of-the-Begum immediately to inform the doctor lady of what she had heard, and does there live a woman upon earth who, having received such tidings, would not at once fling the Kumpsioner Sahib’s cowardice in his teeth, and taunt him until he was forced for very shame to remain and do his business for himself?”
“By that saying,” interrupted Jehanara, vexed at being selected to perpetrate an indiscretion, “thou betrayest thine ignorance, Narayan Singh. There is such a woman, and the doctor lady is she. She would tell the news to her husband, and leave him to reproach the Kumpsioner Sahib if he thought fit, and there would be no taunts, for the English are not wont to speak like the bazaar folk. But there is another woman who would work for us, though ignorantly, and that is the wife of the Padri Sahib.”
“The lady of the angry tongue!” cried Bahram Khan. “But how should we persuade my mother to send a slave to her?”
“It would not be easy, Highness, and therefore the Begum shall not be troubled in the matter. I will disguise myself and tell the Padri’s Mem that her Highness, desiring to warn the doctor lady, was too closely watched to allow of her sending her usual messenger. I will say also that I succeeded in slipping away from Dera Gul, and in crossing the desert with the message, but that I dared not approach Nāth Sahib’s house, fearing there might be spies among his servants. Thus, then, I will tell the news, and before very long the Padri’s Mem will tell it also—in the ears of the Kumpsioner Sahib.”
“It is well thought of,” said Bahram Khan approvingly.
Threeor four days later, Mrs Hardy marched up the steps of the Norths’ bungalow with a purposeful mien, and requested an interview with the Commissioner. Mr Burgrave had finished his morning’s work early, and his couch had been placed in the drawing-room verandah. A table was close beside him, with a volume of Browning lying upon it, and there was a chair close at hand ready for Mabel, but she was out riding with Fitz, to whom Dick, in utter oblivion of the probable awkwardness of the situation, had hastily turned her over on finding that he himself was needed elsewhere. The Commissioner groaned impatiently when Mrs Hardy was announced. A talk with her was not the pleasure he had in view when he hurried through his work, but he consoled himself with the thought that she would not stay long. No doubt the Padri was anxious to get a new harmonium, or to enlarge the church, and they wanted him to head the subscription-list.
“Excuse my getting up,” he said, as he shook hands with her. “My sapient boy has put my crutch just out of reach.”
If the words were intended to convey a hint, Mrs Hardy did not choose to take it, for she sat down deliberately between the crutch and its owner. Then, without any attempt at leading up to the subject, she said, with great distinctness—
“I have come to talk to you about your policy, Mr Burgrave.”
The Commissioner stared at her in undisguised astonishment. “Pardon me; but that is a subject I do not discuss with—with outsiders,” he said.
“I only want to lay a few facts before you,” pursued Mrs Hardy unmoved.
“No, no; excuse me. I cannot consent to discuss affairs of state with a lady.”
“I mean you to listen to what I have to say, Mr Burgrave, and I shall stay here until you do.”
“I can’t run away,” said Mr Burgrave, with the best smile he could muster, and a side glance at the crutch; “and when a lady is kind enough to come and talk to me, it would be rude to stop my ears. Perhaps you will be so good as to let me know your views at once, then, that your valuable time may not be wasted?”
“I should like to ask you, first of all, whether you are aware that your confidential report to the Government on the frontier question is common property at Dera Gul? Of course, if you choose to tell your secrets to Bahram Khan and leave Major North in ignorance of them, I have nothing more to say.”
To her great joy, Mrs Hardy perceived that she had made an impression. The Commissioner looked startled and disturbed. “Impossible!” he said. “The report has been seen by no one but my secretary, and the clerks who copied portions of it.”
“It is for you to find out which is to blame. I can only tell you what is going on, just as it has been told to me. I was in my garden about an hour ago, when a woman peeped out from behind the bushes—a miserable, footsore creature. She told me she was a slave of the Hasrat Ali Begum’s—Bahram Khan’s mother—who had sent her to warn the Norths that you intend to withdraw the Nalapur subsidy, and leave Major North to face the result. I have no idea how Bahram Khan obtained the information, but he means to take advantage of it. Though she could not tell me what his plan is exactly, she seemed quite sure that it would end in a general rising, involving almost certain death to the Europeans in places like this. It was clear that she regarded you as a coward, running away from the consequences of your own acts, and deliberately exposing others to danger. That is not my opinion, I may say”—Mrs Hardy had seen the Commissioner wince—“but I thought you could not have looked at things in this light, and as soon as the poor creature was gone I came to you at once.”
“Confiding in Mrs North by the way, no doubt?”
“No, I came straight to you. Now let me ask you, have you realised what will be the result of your action? You know that Major North will resign rather than countenance what we all feel would be a gross breach of faith, and yet you place him in a position in which he must do one thing or the other. I don’t know what Miss North will think about it, but I know what I——”
“We will leave Miss North’s name out of the conversation, if you please.”
“Excuse me; we can’t. How do you expect her to feel towards you when you have set yourself deliberately to ruin her brother? You think worse of her than I do if you believe she will marry you after such a piece of cruel, unprovoked oppression.”
“Mrs Hardy, a lady is privileged——”
“Yes, I have no doubt you think I am taking an outrageous liberty, but I can’t and won’t be silent. All your interest in the frontier centres in a pretty, flighty girl who has no business to be here at all, and simply for the sake of showing your power you come and ride roughshod over us, whose lives are bound up in it. I know you’re a proud man, Mr Burgrave, and I don’t ask you to reverse your policy publicly, which you would naturally find a hard thing to do. But if this dreadful business has gone too far to be stopped, make Major North take a month’s leave, and carry it through yourself. Then the people will see that he is not responsible for the breach of faith, and he will come back and be your right hand when you most need him. What good could a stranger do when the tribes are out? Absolute ignorance of the country is not always the qualification it was in your case, you know. I know the frontier better than any other place in the world—we used to itinerate in the district for years before we were allowed to settle down—and I amcertainthere’s trouble coming. I can see it in the looks of the people, and hear it in the way they talk. And here on the spot are the Norths, the very people to deal with a crisis, and you have done your best to undermine their influence already. Can’t you stop there? What have they done that you should persecute them like this?”
“I assure you,” said Mr Burgrave slowly, “that I have the highest possible respect for both Major and Mrs North personally, but personality is not policy.”
“Up here it very often is. But come, Mr Burgrave, if you don’t absolutely hate the Norths, why not do as I suggest?”
“I promise you that every suggestion you have made shall receive the fullest consideration,” replied the Commissioner, in his best Secretarial manner. “I may rely upon your silence as to the matter?”
Mrs Hardy thought she detected a relenting in his tone. “Of course you may, if you are really going to do something. I am glad to find you open to conviction, if only for Miss North’s sake and your own. You will have a very pretty wife, and I trust a happy one. Ah, there she is!” as the sound of horses’ feet was heard, and Mabel, cantering past, waved her whip gaily to the watchers—“and riding with Mr Anstruther!”
“And is there any reason why she should not ride with Mr Anstruther?”
“His peace of mind, that’s all. But perhaps you think he deserves no mercy? I may tell you I was glad to hear of your engagement, since it saved that fine young fellow for a more suitable woman.”
“A more fortunate woman, doubtless,” corrected Mr Burgrave, with majestic forbearance. “A better there cannot be.”
Mabel was in the highest spirits as she mounted the steps after Fitz had ridden away. When he had appeared with the message that Dick was detained at the office, and had sent him to ride with her, her first impulse was to refuse to go, but other counsels prevailed. Fitz had offered no congratulations on her engagement, and the omission rankled in her mind. She was nourishing a reckless determination to provoke a scene by asking him what he meant by it, but her courage oozed away very soon after starting. She would still have given much to know what he thought of the whole situation, but she durst not venture upon an inquiry. Fitz, on his part, made no allusion to the important event which had occurred since their last ride, speaking of the Commissioner as coolly as if she had no particular interest in him. Before they had been out long, she was content to accept his ruling, and conscious of a kind of horror in looking back upon the resolution with which she had started. She was on good terms with herself once more, and to such an extent did the gloom cast by Mr Burgrave’s impressive personality seem to be lightened at this distance, that she returned home feeling positively friendly towards him. It was unfortunate that Mrs Hardy’s disapproving glance, when she encountered her on the steps, should clash with this new mood of cheerfulness, and that another shock should be awaiting her when she looked into the drawing-room verandah on her way to take off her habit.
“Little girl,” said her lover, holding out his hand to draw her nearer him, “would you mind very much if I said I had rather you didn’t take these solitary rides with young Anstruther?”
The angry crimson leaped up into Mabel’s forehead.
“You have no right whatever to make such insinuations!” she cried hotly.
“Now, dearest, you mistake me. I make no insinuations—I should not dream of such a thing. All I say is—doesn’t it seem more suitable to you, yourself, that until I am able to ride with you again you should not go out except with your brother? You will do me the justice to believe that I am not jealous—I would not insult you by such a feeling—but other people will talk. Yes, I am jealous—for my little girl, not of her. No one must have the chance even of passing a remark upon her.”
Mabel stood playing with her whip, her face flushed and her lips pressed closely together. “He would like to make life a prison for me, with himself as jailer!” she thought, as she bent the lash to meet the handle, making no attempt to listen to Mr Burgrave, who went on to speak of the high position his wife would occupy, of the extreme circumspection necessary in such a station, and of the unfortunate love of scandal characterising the higher circles of Indian female officialdom. He did not actually say that the future Mrs Burgrave must be above suspicion, but this was the general idea underlying his remarks.
“Why, you have broken your whip!” The words reached her ears at last. “Never mind, you shall have the best in Bombay as soon as it can come up here. You see what I mean, little girl, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” said Mabel drearily. “You forbid me ever to ride with any one but you, or to speak to a man under seventy.”
“Mabel!” he cried, deeply hurt, “can you really misjudge me so cruelly?”
“It’s not that,” she said, kneeling down beside him with a sudden burst of frankness. “I know how fond you are of me, and I can’t tell you how grateful and ashamed it makes me. But you don’t understand things. You want to treat me like a baby, and I have been grown-up a long, long time. Think what I have gone through since I came here, even.”
“I know, I know!” he said hoarsely. “Don’t speak of it, my dearest! The thought of that evening in the nullah comes upon me sometimes at night, and turns me into an abject coward. I mean to take you away where you will be safe, and have no anxieties.”
“Then have you never any anxieties? Because they will be mine.”
“No,” he said, with something of sternness, “my anxieties shall never touch my wife. I want to shake off my worries when I leave the office, and come home to find you in a perfect house, with everything round you perfectly in keeping, the very embodiment of rest and peace, sitting there in a perfect gown, long and soft and flowing, for me to feast my eyes upon.”
He lingered lovingly over the contemplation of this ideal picture, to the details of which Mabel listened with a cold shudder. “My dear Eustace,” she said brusquely, to hide her dismay, “please tell me how you think the house and the servants are to be kept perfect, if I do nothing but trail round and strike attitudes in a tea-gown?” She caught his wounded look, and went on hastily, “And what did you mean by that invidious glance you cast at my habit? I won’t have my things sniffed at.”
“It’s so horribly plain,” pleaded the culprit.
“And why not?” demanded Mabel, touched in her tenderest point. “I’m sure it’s most workmanlike.”
“That’s just it. Workmanlike—detestable! Why should a woman want to wear workmanlike clothes? All her things ought to be like that gown you wore at the Gymkhana, looking as if a touch would spoil them.”
“I shall remind you of this in future, you absurd man!” laughed Mabel, regaining her cheerfulness as she thought she saw a way of establishing her point; “but please remember, once for all, that I shall choose my clothes myself—and they will be suitable for various occasions, for business as well as pleasure. Your part will only be to admire, and to pay.” There was a seriousness in her tone which belied the jesting words. Surely he would understand, he must understand, that there was a principle at stake.
“And that part will be punctually performed,” said Mr Burgrave indulgently, gazing in admiration into her animated face. “I know that you will remember my foolish prejudices, and gratify them to the utmost extent of my desires, if not of my purse. That is all I ask of you—to be always beautiful.”
In her bitter disappointment Mabel could have burst into tears.
“Oh, you won’t understand! you won’t understand!” she cried. “I don’t want piles of clothes; I don’t want everything softened and shaded down for me. I want to be a helpmate to my husband, as Georgia is to Dick.”
“Dear child, I am sorry you have returned to this subject,” said Mr Burgrave, taken aback. “I thought we had threshed it out fully long ago.”
“Ah, but we can speak more freely now!” she cried. “Don’t you see that I should hate to be stuck up on a pedestal for you to look at, or to be a kind of pet, that you might amuse yourself smilingly with my foolish little interests out of office hours? I want you to tell me things, and let us talk them over together, as Dick and Georgia do.”
“I know they do,” said Mr Burgrave, trying to smile. “The walls here are so thin that I hear them at it every evening. A prolonged growl is your brother soliloquising, and a brief interlude of higher tones is Mrs North giving her opinion of affairs. It is a little embarrassing for me, knowing as I do that my doings are almost certainly the subject of the conversation.”
“Well, and if they are?” cried Mabel. “It is only because you and Dick don’t understand one another that he and Georgia criticise you. Now think about this very matter of the frontier. If you would only talk to me, and tell me what you thought was the proper thing to be done, I could talk to them, and you might find out that your views were not so much opposed after all. Do try, please; oh, do! I would give anything to bring you to an agreement.”
Mr Burgrave’s brow was clouded as he looked into her eager eyes.
“Am I to understand,” he said, with dreadful distinctness, “that your brother and Mrs North are trying to make use of you to extract information from me? No, I will not suspect your brother. No man would stoop to employ such an expedient—so degrading to my future wife, so affronting to myself. It is Mrs North’s doing.”
Mabel, who had listened in horrified silence, sprang to her feet at this point as if stung. “I think it will be as well for me to return you this,” she said, laying upon the table the ring of “finest Europe make,” which the Commissioner had been fain to purchase from the chief jeweller in the bazaar as a makeshift until the diamond hoop for which he had sent to Bombay could arrive. “You have grossly insulted both Georgia and me, and—and I never wish to speak to you again.”
She meant to sweep impressively from the room, but the angry tears that filled her eyes made her blunder against the table, and Mr Burgrave, raising himself with a wild effort, caught her hand. “Mabel, come here,” he said, and furious with herself for yielding, she obeyed. “Give me that ring, please.” He restored it solemnly to its place on her finger. “Now we are on speaking terms again. Dear little girl, forgive me. I was wrong, unpardonably wrong, but I never thought your generous little heart would lead you so far in opposing my expressed wish. I admire the impulse, my darling, but when you come to know me better you will understand how unlikely it is that I should yield to it. Come, dear, look sunny again, or must I make a heroic attempt to go down on my knees with one leg in splints?”
“Oh, if you would only understand!” sighed Mabel. She was kneeling beside him again, occupying quite undeservedly, as she felt, the position of suppliant. “If only I could make you see——”
“See what?” he asked, taking her face in his hands and kissing it. “I see that my little girl thinks me an old brute. Won’t she believe me if I assure her on my honour that I am trying to do the best I can for her brother, and that I hope I have found a way of putting things right?”
“Have you, really?” Her bright smile was a sufficient reward. “Oh, Eustace, if it’s all settled happily, I shall love you for ever!”
The assurance did not seem to promise much that was new when the relative position of those concerned was considered, but the unsolicited kiss bestowed upon him was very grateful to Mr Burgrave, and he smiled kindly as he released Mabel and bade her run away and change her habit. She left the room gaily enough, but once outside, a sudden wave of recollection swept over her, and she wrung her hands wildly.
“I was free—free!” she cried to herself. “Just for a moment I was free, and I let him fetch me back. Oh, what can I do? I believe I could be quite fond of him if he would let me, but he won’t. And if he wasn’t so good I should delight to break it off in the most insulting way possible, but his virtues are the worst thing about him. I hate them! Is this sort of thing to go on for a whole lifetime—beating against a stone wall and bruising my hands, and then being kissed and given a sweet, and told not to cry? Mabel Louisa North, you are a silly fool, and you deserve just what you have got. I hate and despise you, and with my latest breath I shall say, Serve you right!”
“Oh, Dick, has it come?” Georgia sprang up to meet her husband, as he entered the room with a gloomy face.
“No, but so far as I can see, it’s close at hand. I can’t quite make things out, but Burgrave seems to have altered his plans astonishingly. Instead of travelling down to the coast at once, he is going to stay here another week, and hold a durbar at Nalapur. I have to send word to Beltring at once to get the bigshamianaput up in the Agency grounds, and to see that all the Sardars have notice. What does it mean?”
“He’s going to see the thing through on his own account,” said Georgia, with conviction. “But it will make no difference to us, will it, Dick?”
“Rather not! The breach of faith is the same, whether I announce it at first, or merely come in afterwards to carry it out. I wish Burgrave hadn’t such a mania for mysteries. Ismail Bakhsh tells me he has been sending off official telegrams at a tremendous rate all day, and yet when I ventured to hint that some idea of the proposed proceedings at the durbar would be interesting, he turned rusty at once, and said he had not received his instructions. This system of government by thunderbolt doesn’t suit me. It’s enough to make a man chuck things up now, without waiting for the final blow.”
“Oh, but you will stick on as long as you can? It’s some sort of security for peace.”
“A wretchedly shaky one, then,” said Dick, with an angry laugh. “Here’s the Amir sending his mullah Aziz-ud-Din to say that he learns on incontestable authority that the subsidy is to be withdrawn, and imploring me to say whether I have any hand in it. The poor old fellow’s faith in me is quite touching, but what could I say except that I knew nothing about it, and repeat the assurance I gave him before?”
“But what could Ashraf Ali mean by incontestable authority?”
“How can I tell? Some spy, I suppose. By the way, though, it didn’t strike me. That must be what the Commissioner meant!”
“Why, what did he say?”
“He doesn’t intend to stay on in this house. Now that he can be got into a cart, he thinks it better to return to his hired bungalow. I imagine I looked a bit waxy, for he graciously explained that he had reason to believe we have spies among the servants here.”
“Dick! you don’t mean to say that he accused you——?”
“No, he was so good as to assure me that he had the best possible means of knowing I had nothing to do with it. But when I reminded him that all the servants, except those Mab brought with her from Bombay, have been with us for years, he intimated that he made no accusations, but official matters had got out, and he didn’t mean to allow that sort of thing to go on. No doubt it was that sweetseller fellow, as we thought.”
“Well, I think that to go is the best thing the Commissioner can do. It will give Mab a little peace.”
“Yes, I shouldn’t say she looked exactly festive.”
“How could she? She feels that she has cut herself off from us, for of course we can’t discuss things before her as we used to do, and I don’t think she finds that he makes up for it. I have great hopes.”
“Now, no coming between them!” said Dick warningly, and Georgia laughed.
“I trust it won’t be necessary,” she said.
A week later she happened to be again sitting alone in the drawing-room, busy with the fine white work on which she expended so many hours and such loving care at this time, when Dick came in. To her astonishment, he was in uniform, and laid his sword upon the table by the door as he entered.
“Why, Dick, you are not going to Nalapur with the Commissioner after all?” she cried.
“Burgrave can’t go, and I have to hold the durbar instead.”
“But how—what——?”
“It seems that he had a fearful blow-up with Tighe this morning, after taking it for granted all along that he would be allowed to leave off his splints and go. Tighe absolutely howled at the idea, told him that in moving from this house to his own he had jarred the knee so badly as to throw himself back for a week, and that the splints must stay on for some time yet. Of course he can’t ride in them, and to take him through the mountains in a doolie would be madness.”
“I wondered at his being allowed to ride so soon,” said Georgia, “but I thought Dr Tighe must have found him better than we expected. Of course I haven’t seen the knee for some time lately. But did he tell you what the object of the durbar was?”
“He did. It is just what we thought it would be, Georgie.”
“Nonsense!” cried Georgia sharply. “As if you would go to Nalapur in that case! Are you joking, Dick?”
His set face brought conviction slowly to her mind.
“You are not joking, and yet you came home, and got ready, just as if you meant to hold the durbar, and never told me!” she cried.
“I do mean to hold the durbar,” said Dick.
She sat stunned, and he went on: “I thought I wouldn’t tell you till the last moment, because I knew how you would feel about it, and I didn’t want to worry you more than could be helped.”
“To worry me!” she repeated. “And yet you come here and try to tease me with this absurd, impossible story? You are not going.”
Dick looked her straight in the face. “But I am,” he said.
“But you said you would resign first.”
“I must resign afterwards, that’s all. There are some things a man can’t do, Georgie, and one is to desert in the face of the enemy.”
“But it’s wrong—dishonourable!”
“It’s got to be done, and Burgrave has managed to engineer matters so that I have to do it. I talked about resigning, and he said very huffily that he wasn’t the person to receive my resignation, which is quite true. He anticipates danger, I can see, for he tells me he has had information that Bahram Khan has some sort of plot on hand, and do you expect me to hang back after that?”
“I never thought you would care what people said. If it’s right to resign, do it, and let them say what they like.”
“If I wasn’t a soldier I would, but I have no choice.”
“No choice between right and wrong?”
“Not as a soldier. It isn’t my business to criticise my orders, but to execute them. Oh, I know all you are thinking. I see it perfectly well, and from your point of view you are absolutely in the right, and as an individual I agree with you, but I am not my own master.”
“And your personal honour?”
“I’m afraid it has got to look after itself. Don’t think me a brute, Georgie. I want to be on your side, but I can’t.”
“Then I suppose it’s no use my saying anything more?”
“I really think it would be better not. You see, it would only make us both awfully uncomfortable, and do no good.”
“Oh, don’t!” burst from Georgia. “I can’t bear to hear you talk like that. Remember your promise to Ashraf Ali. The poor old man has relied on that, and pledged himself to all the Sardars that the Government doesn’t intend to forsake them. The whole honour of England is at stake. Dick, these people have learnt from you and my father to believe the word of an Englishman, and are you going to teach them to distrust it now?”
“When you have quite finished——” began Dick.
“I can’t! I can’t! Oh, Dick, our own people, who know us and trust us! Have you the heart to forsake them? Dick, won’t you listen to me? I have never urged you to do anything against your will before, but when it is a matter of right and conscience—! I know you believe you’re right now, but how will you feel about it afterwards? Think of our friends betrayed, our name disgraced, through you!”
“Hang it, Georgie!” cried Dick, losing his temper, “you make a man feel such a cur. I tell you I have got to go.”
“I wish I had died when baby died at Iskandarbagh, rather than lived to hear you say that.”
Dick turned away without answering, and took up his sword from the table where he had laid it down. It was always Georgia’s privilege to buckle the sword-belt for him, and she rose mechanically, rousing herself with an effort from her stupor of dismay. He took the strap roughly out of her hands.
“No,” he said, “you’d better have nothing to do with it. The blame is all mine at present, and you can keep your own conscience clear.”
She sank upon a chair again and watched him miserably as he buckled on the sword and went out. On the threshold he looked back, softening a little.
“Graham has changed his mind, and is not coming to the durbar. If there should be any attempt at a rising, you are to take refuge in the old fort. Tighe will come and sleep in the house these two nights if you are nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” said Georgia indignantly.
“Oh, very well. After all, we shall be between you and Nalapur.”
He crossed the hall to the front door, Georgia’s strained nerves quivering afresh as his spurs clinked at each step. Suddenly she realised that he was gone, and without bidding her farewell.
“Dick!” she cried faintly, “you are not going—like this?”
There was no answer, and she moved slowly to the window, supporting herself by the furniture. He was already mounted, and was giving his final directions to Ismail Bakhsh. The sight gave Georgia fresh strength, and stepping out on the verandah, she ran round the corner of the house. There was one place where he always turned and looked back as he rode out. He could not pass it unheeded even now, that spot, close to the gate of the compound, where she had so often waited for his return. As she stood grasping the verandah rail with both hands, the consciousness that for the first time in their married life he was leaving her in anger swept over her like a flood.
“Oh, it will kill me!” she moaned, seizing one of the pillars to support herself, but almost immediately another thought flashed into her mind. “No, he is not angry—my dear old Dick! he is only grieved. He durst not be kind to me, lest I should persuade him any more, and he should have to give way. God keep you, my darling!”
In the rush of happy tears that filled her eyes, the landscape was blotted out, and when she could see distinctly again, Dick had passed the gate. She could just distinguish the top of his helmet above the wall as he rode. He had gone by while she was not looking. Would it have been any comfort to her to know that he had looked back, and not seeing her, had ridden on faster?
“I had to behave like a brute, or I should have given in—and she didn’t see it,” he said to himself remorsefully. “Of course she was right, bless her! She always is, but I couldn’t do anything else.”
Her pale reproachful face haunted him, and had there been time he would have turned back, but he was obliged to hurry on. As he entered the town, he came upon Dr Tighe.
“Doctor,” he said, laying a hand on the little man’s shoulder, “look after my wife while I’m away. She’s awfully cut up at my going like this.”