“Their rifles seem to carry as far as ours,” remarked Mr Burgrave to Colonel Graham.
“So they ought,” was the grim reply. “Most of them, if not all, are ours. They are stolen and smuggled wholesale into Ethiopia, and Bahram Khan has borrowed them to arm his followers with. That’s how they manage to give us so much trouble. In the matchlock days, when this place was built, we could have laughed at their shooting from the hill.”
“What is that?” said the Commissioner suddenly, putting up his eye-glass; “a pile of cannon-balls? It was not there last night.”
They were standing in one of the gateway turrets, and the heap to which he pointed was visible upon the cleared space, in front of the entrance to a lane between two of the houses occupied by the enemy. Colonel Graham laid down his field-glass with an exclamation of disgust.
“Cannon-balls! It’sheads—human heads—heads of our men. Those fiends have surprised one of our posts—Sultanibagh probably, beyond Shah Nawaz. I telegraphed to the Jemadar in charge to retire upon Rahmat-Ullah, as there was no chance of their getting here safely, but the wires must have been cut before they got the message, or else the men have been ambushed on their way. Well, Bahram Khan has put himself beyond the pale of mercy this time, even with our Government, I should imagine.”
As the light grew stronger the sickening trophy was perceived from other parts of the fort, and the men of the Khemistan Horse began to become impatient. It appeared that a deserter had ventured close under the walls in the night, in order to taunt the garrison with some unexplained reverse, the nature of which was now made manifest. They were asked how long Sinjāj Kīlin’s sowars had been content to hide behind stone walls, instead of coming out to fight on horseback in the open, and a variety of interesting and savoury information was added as to the precise nature of the tortures in store for all, whether officers or men, who fell into Bahram Khan’s hands. To the men who had so long dominated the frontier, this abuse was intolerably galling, and the troopers were gathering in corners with sullen faces, and asking one another why they were kept back from washing out the disgrace in blood. They had now been in the fort the best part of a week, no attack in force had been made, and yet there had not been the slightest attempt to drive off the enemy or inflict any loss upon him. Ressaldar Badullah Khan voiced this feeling to Colonel Graham a little later, when the Colonel had passed with a judicious lack of apparent notice the scowling groups of men who were discussing the state of affairs.
“Our faces are black, sahib,” said the native officer, in response to the question put to him. “Bahram Khan and hisbadmasheslaugh at our beards, and we are pent up here like women. We are better men than they—we have proved it in every fight since first Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib raised the regiment—why then (so say the sowars) is it forbidden to us to issue forth with our horses, and sweep the baseborn rabble outside from the face of the earth?”
“Is the regiment complaining of the course I choose to take, Ressaldar?”
“Nay, sahib; the sowars say that it is the will of the Kumpsioner Sahib which is being done.”
“They are wrong. It is mine. What could the regiment do on horseback in the streets of the town, with the enemy firing from roofs and loopholes? We have not a man too many in the fort now, and yet, Ressaldar, I anticipate a sortie in force before long, though not in review order.”
The Ressaldar’s eyes gleamed. “May the news be told to the regiment, sahib?” he asked.
“Could they refrain from shouting it to the next man who taunts them? No, Ressaldar; tell them to trust me as they have always done hitherto. There will be work to be done before many days, but I cannot set mutinous men to do it.”
Badullah Khan went out, meeting Woodworth on the threshold.
“Would you mind coming up to the north-western tower, sir?” asked the adjutant, when he had closed the door. “The enemy seem to be doing something in that direction which I can’t quite make out.”
“What sort of thing?” asked Colonel Graham, rising.
“I would rather not give an opinion until you have seen what there is to see, sir,” was the reply, so unwontedly cautious that the Colonel prepared for a heavy blow. Woodworth followed him up the narrow winding stairs in silence, and pointed to the stretch of desert on the northern side of the town, across which two long strings of men and animals were slowly passing in a westerly direction. The Colonel started, examined the moving objects through his field-glass, and called to his orderly—
“Ask Beltring Sahib to come here at once.”
Almost before Beltring, breathless, had mounted the staircase, he was greeted by a question. “Beltring, are there any guns at Nalapur?”
“No, sir. At least, there are two old field-pieces in front of the palace, but that’s all.”
“Are they in working order?”
“They use them for firing salutes, sir, not for anything else, I believe.”
“Still, that shows they are safe to work, and here they are. Where will they mount them, should you say, Woodworth?”
“On the hill, sir. The slope on the far side is comparatively easy for getting them up.”
“True, and from the brow there they could knock the place about our ears in a couple of hours. At all costs we must keep them from getting the range to-day. They will have no range-finders, that’s one good thing, and if we can secure a night’s respite, it’ll be a pity if we don’t make good use of it. Tell our marksmen to fire at anything they see moving up there. Those guns must not be placed in position before sunset. And then tell all the other officers and volunteers to meet me on the south rampart immediately.”
The council of war which assembled on the rampart, sheltered by the south-western tower, was sufficiently informal to make the hair of any stickler for military etiquette stand on end, but its proceedings were absolutely practical. The Colonel, beside whom stood Mr Burgrave, stated the situation briefly.
“You have seen the two guns which the enemy intend to mount on the hill there. Once they get them into position and find our range, we may as well retire into the vaults and wait until we are smoked out, for there is no possible shelter above ground. With our small force it is hopeless to detach a party to sally out and capture the guns in the open—more especially since the enemy hold the town between us and them. Still, they have plenty to do in getting the guns across the canal and dragging them up the hill, and we must make it our business to prevent them from opening fire to-day, and to-night those guns must be taken. I propose to leave the Commissioner in charge of the fort, with ten of his own Sikhs and fifty sowars under Ressaldar Ghulam Rasul. Every civilian who can hold a weapon must also do duty. I shall take a hundred and fifty dismounted sowars and thirty Sikhs, with all the enrolled volunteers, and make a dash for the hill under cover of darkness. If we succeed, we shall have averted a great danger; if we fail, the fort will be no worse off than if we had hung about and done nothing. I am confident that the Commissioner will fight to the end, and not allow himself to be tempted by any offer of terms.”
“Know the beggars too well,” said Mr Burgrave laconically.
“That’s the main scheme; now for details. To reach the hill, the canal must be crossed in any case. The most obvious plan would undoubtedly be for the force to rendezvous silently in the shadow of the west curtain, traverse the irrigated land, and restore the bridge at the foot of the hill sufficiently to cross by it. But the enemy could sweep the whole route from their positions both in the town and on the hill, and they will be very much on the alert to-night. My idea is to cross the canal here from the water-gate, and march the first part of the distance along the bank, so as to come upon the enemy from the side he won’t expect us. He knows we have neither boat nor bridge, and the water is still deep enough along the wall to be impassable to any but good swimmers.”
“Then how do you propose to cross?” asked Mr Burgrave.
“There I must invite suggestions. We have no time for building boats or bridges, and the water-gate offers no facilities for it either. A raft, possibly. What do you think, Runcorn?”
“A raft supported on inflated skins, sir?” asked the engineer officer. “That might be practicable, but it would have to be very small, for the passage to the gate is so narrow that all the materials must be taken to the water’s edge separately and put together there. There is no standing-ground of any sort but the wretched shaky steps that the water-carriers use, so that we can’t well lower things from the wall.”
“And the time spent in ferrying the force over would be interminable, not to mention the risk of discovery by the enemy,” said Colonel Graham.
His subordinates looked at one another. Various suggestions had been hazarded and rejected, when a hesitating voice made itself heard. The speaker was Mr Hardy, who had joined the group a few minutes earlier, with a message to the Colonel from one of the wounded officers in the hospital.
“In my Oxford days,” he said, “I remember a pleasant walk through the meadows—” His hearers gasped. Why should these peaceful recollections be obtruded at such a moment? “There was one point at which the path crossed a considerable stream, and a punt that ran on wires was placed there. I’m afraid I am not very intelligible,” he smiled nervously. “I can’t describe the mechanism in technical language, but the punt was fastened to one wire, and the other was free and moved on pulleys, so that you could pull yourself across, or draw the punt towards you if it happened to be at the opposite bank.”
“Padri,” said Colonel Graham, “it’s clear that you are an unsuspected mechanical genius. This is the very thing we want, though we must use rope instead of wire.”
“But we have even got that, sir,” said Runcorn eagerly. “Timson was boasting that he had saved all the stores of his department—miles of telegraph wire amongst them. Now he’ll have to disgorge.”
“Then will you set about the construction of the ferry, Runcorn? You can’t begin work on the spot until night, but you can get your materials ready. Requisition anything you want, of course.”
“May we make a suggestion, sir?” said Fitz Anstruther, coming forward with Winlock as the council broke up. Signals of intelligence had been passing between the two for some time, and they had held a whispered consultation while the ferry was being discussed.
“Why, what plot have you on hand?”
It was Winlock who answered. “We thought that it might make all the difference to your success, sir, if a diversion could be arranged to distract the enemy’s attention. We two know every foot of these hills fromchikor-shooting, and if we might pick out a dozen or so of the sowars who have constantly gone with us out hunting as beaters, we could make a sham attack. We know of a splendid place on the side of a hill, inaccessible from below, which commands the camp of the hostile tribes, and we thought if we sent up a signal rocket or two, to be answered from the fort, and then poured in as many volleys as there was time for, it might make a good impression. Of course, as soon as they try to get round us and rush the hill, we must retire, to keep them from finding out how few we are; but the main force ought to have settled the guns by that time, and we might rendezvous on the hill and march back together.”
“It sounds feasible,” said the Colonel slowly; “but how do you propose to cross the canal?”
“We don’t mean to cross it in going, sir. Anstruther says we can clamber along the base of this wall from the water-gate round the south-western tower, so as to get on to dry land under the west curtain.”
“I know it’s possible, sir,” said Fitz eagerly. “I’ve done it more than once when the canal was low, and it’ll be easier now that the bricks are so much washed away. And of course we shall be very careful in crossing the irrigated land—all of us in khaki, you see, and taking advantage of every bit of cover—and unless we run right into one of the enemy’s outposts, I don’t see how they are to spot us. And think of the benefit it will be to have their attention distracted from your movement!”
“You realise that you are taking your lives in your hands? You will probably have to swim the canal higher up to join us, and, after all, we may not be able to wait for you. Your men will be volunteers, of course? They must understand that it’s a desperate business.”
“Yes, sir; but they’ll come like a shot. They’ve been out with us aftermarkhor, and we’ve been in some tight places in the mountains. May we have what rockets we want?”
“By all means. Good luck go with you! I wish I was coming too!”
“That’s really handsome of the C.O.,” said Fitz, dodging a bullet as he clattered down the stairs into the courtyard with Winlock. “Grand firework display to-night! What a pity that the ladies and all the refugees can’t have front seats on the ramparts to watch thetamasha!”
“Sahib, there is a man under the wall on the east side.”
“How did he come there?” demanded Colonel Graham angrily. “What are the sentries doing?”
“The night is so dark, sahib, that he crept up unnoticed. He is the holy mullah Aziz-ud-Din, and desires speech with your honour.”
“The Amir’s mullah? You are sure of it?”
“I know his voice, sahib. He is holding his hands on high, to show that he has no weapons.”
“I suppose we may as well see what he has to say,” said the Colonel to Mr Burgrave, with whom he had been making final arrangements, and the two men climbed the steps to the east rampart. Once there, and looking over into the darkness, it was some little time before their eyes could distinguish the dim figure at the foot of the wall.
“Peace!” said Colonel Graham.
“It is peace, sahib. I bear the words of the Amir Ashraf Ali Khan. He says, ‘It is now out of my power to save the lives of the sahibs, and I will not deceive them, knowing that a warrior’s death amid the ruins of their fortress will please them better than to fall into the hands of my thrice-accursed nephew, who has stolen the hearts of my soldiers from me. But this I can do. The houses next to the canal on this side of the fort are held by my own bodyguard, faithful men who have eaten of my salt for many years, and I have there six swift camels hidden. Let the Memsahibs be entrusted to me, especially those of the household of my beloved friend Nāth Sahib, and I will send them at once to Nalapur, where they shall be in sanctuary in my own palace, and I will swear—I who kept my covenant with the Sarkar until the Sarkar broke it—that death shall befall me before any harm touches them.’”
“Why is this message sent to-night?” asked Colonel Graham.
“Because Bahram Khan is preparing a great destruction, sahib, and the heart of Ashraf Ali Khan bleeds to think that the houses of his friends Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib and Nāth Sahib should both be blotted out in one day.”
“Carry my thanks and those of the Commissioner Sahib to Ashraf Ali Khan, but tell him that the Memsahibs will remain with us. Their presence would only place him in greater danger, and he would not be able to protect them. But we can. They will not fall into the hands of Bahram Khan.”
“It is well, sahib.” The faint blur which represented the messenger melted into the surrounding blackness, and Colonel Graham turned to his companion.
“It will be your business to see to that, if the enemy break in. Haycraft comes with me. We must leave Flora in your charge. Don’t let her fall into their hands, any more than Miss North.”
“I promise,” said Mr Burgrave, and their hands met in the darkness.
“Thanks. I think we have settled everything now. We don’t start for an hour yet, and if you like to explain things to Miss North——”
“I should prefer to say nothing unless the necessity arises.”
“I never thought of your going into details, but she must know something, surely? Flora will learn the state of affairs from Haycraft; Mrs North will pick it up from the Hardys and her ayah, and Miss North will probably expect—— But please yourself, of course.”
“I will go and talk to her for a little while. I have scarcely seen her all day.”
Mr Burgrave’s tone was constrained. It seemed to him almost impossible to meet Mabel at this crisis, and abstain from any allusion to the terrible duty which had just been laid upon him. He was not an imaginative man, and no forecast of the scene burned itself into his brain, as would have been the case with some people, but the oppression of anticipation was heavy upon him. For him the dull horror in his mind overshadowed everything, and it was with a shock that he found Mabel to be in one of her most vivacious and aggressive moods. She was walking up and down the verandah outside her room as if for a wager, turning at each end of the course with a swish of draperies which sounded like an angry breeze, and she hailed his arrival with something like enthusiasm, simply because he was some one to talk to.
“Flora is crying on Fred’s—I mean Mr Haycraft’s—shoulder somewhere,” she said; “and Mrs Hardy and Georgia are having a prayer-meeting with the native Christians. They wanted me to come too; but I don’t feel as if I could be quiet, and I shouldn’t understand, either. What is going to happen, really?”
“The Colonel proposes to make a sortie and capture the two guns which the enemy have brought up. There is, I trust, every prospect of his succeeding.”
Mabel stamped her foot. “Why can’t you tell me the truth, instead of trying to sugar things over?” she demanded. “It would be much more interesting.”
“You must allow me to decide what is suitable for you to hear,” said Mr Burgrave, his mind still so full of that final duty of his that he spoke with a serene indifference which Mabel found most galling.
“I don’t allow you to do anything of the sort. I wish you wouldn’t treat me as if I was a baby. It’s like telling me yesterday that all the fresh milk in the place was to be reserved for us women and the wounded, as if I wanted to be pilloried as a lazy, selfish creature, doing nothing and demanding luxuries!”
“My dear little girl, I am sure there isn’t a man in the garrison who would consent to your missing any comfort that the place can furnish.”
“That’s just it. I want to feel the pinch—to share the hardships. But of course you don’t understand—you never do.” She stopped and looked at him. “I don’t know how it is, Eustace, but you seem somehow to stir up everything that is bad in my nature. I could die happy if I had once shocked you thoroughly.”
He recoiled from her involuntarily. “Do you think it is a time to joke about death when it may be close upon you?” he asked, with some severity.
“That sounds as if you were a little shocked,” said Mabel meditatively. “But you know, Eustace, whenever you tell me to do anything—I mean when you express a wish that I should do anything—I feel immediately the strongest possible impulse to do exactly the opposite.”
“But the impulse has never yet been translated into action?” he asked, with the indulgent smile which was reserved for Mabel when she talked extravagantly.
“I’m ashamed to say it hasn’t.”
“Then I am quite satisfied. I can scarcely aspire to regulate your thoughts just at present, can I? But so long as you respect my wishes——”
“Oh, what a lot of trouble it would save if we were all comfortably killed to-night!” cried Mabel, with a sudden change of mood. Mr Burgrave was shocked, and showed it. “I’m in earnest, Eustace.”
“My dear child, you can hardly expect me to believe that you would welcome the horrors which the storming of this place would entail?”
“Oh no; of course not. You are so horribly literal. Can’t you see that my nerves are all on edge? I do wish you understood things. If you won’t talk about what’s going to be done to-night, do go away, and don’t stay here and be mysterious.”
“Dear child, do you think I shall judge you hardly for this feminine weakness? You need not be afraid of hurting or shocking me. Say anything you like; I shall put it down to the true cause. If your varying moods have taught me nothing else, at least I have learnt since our engagement to take your words at their proper valuation.”
“If you pile many more loads of obligation upon me, I shall expire!” said Mabel sharply, only to receive a kind smile in return. Anything more that she might have said, in the amiable design of shocking him beyond forgiveness, was prevented by the appearance of Mrs Hardy.
“Is it true that you are going to arm all the civilians in the place, Mr Burgrave?” she demanded of the Commissioner.
“It is thought well—merely as a precautionary measure.”
“Then I do beg and beseech you to give Mr Hardy a rifle that won’t go off, or we shall all be shot.”
“We will get the Padri to go round and hand out fresh cartridges, instead of giving him a gun,” said Mr Burgrave seriously, but Mabel burst into a peal of hysterical laughter, which was effectual in putting a stop to further conversation, and he returned to the outer courtyard, where the men chosen for the forlorn hope were mustering in readiness for the start. Fitz and Winlock and their small party had left already, officers and men alike wearing the native grass sandals instead of boots, as they had been accustomed to do in their hunting expeditions, and it was known that they had scrambled along the wall and round the base of the south-western tower in safety. The ferry had by this time been successfully constructed by Runcorn and his assistants, one of whom had undertaken the very unpleasant task of swimming across the ice-cold canal to pass the first wire rope round one of the posts which registered the height of the water on the opposite bank. Ball ammunition in extra quantities was served out to the whole force, for although Colonel Graham hoped to confine himself entirely to cold steel, for the sake of quietness, he was determined to be able to reply to the enemy’s fire, should their attention unfortunately be aroused. The men were marched down in parties to the water-gate, and ferried over as quickly as the confined space would allow, and when all had crossed, the raft was drawn back to the gateway, and the wire disconnected. It had been decided that this was imperative, lest the enemy should take advantage of the ferry to cross the canal while the attention of the garrison was occupied by an attack in front. If the forlorn hope returned victorious, it would be easy to reconstruct the ferry by throwing a rope to them from the rampart, while if they were compelled to retreat, the raft was so small that to employ it under fire would entail a useless sacrifice of life, and the fugitives would do better to swim.
Then began a weary waiting-time for those in the fort. The night was moonless, so that it was impossible to distinguish any movement, whether on the part of friend or of foe. At last a rocket, rising from the cliff which overhung the town on the north-west, and which Fitz and Winlock had indicated as their goal, showed that they, at least, had so far been successful. The rocket sent up from the fort in reply was answered by another from the cliff, and this was immediately followed by the distant sound of brisk firing, which seemed to cause considerable perturbation in the parts of the town occupied by the enemy. Lights moved about hurriedly from place to place, horns were blown, and there was a confused noise of angry shouting. The garrison did their best, by opening fire from the wall and towers, to increase the effect of the surprise, but without much hope of hitting anything, for the moving lights did not afford very satisfactory targets. In reply, a dropping fire broke out from the houses opposite, which was maintained for some time, but with little spirit, and slackened gradually. Scarcely had Mr Burgrave given the order to cease fire, however, when a heavy fusillade was heard on the west of the fort, though not from the hill. The sound appeared to come from the point at which the bridge, now in ruins, had crossed the canal, a point which it had not hitherto been known that the enemy were occupying, and which Colonel Graham had not intended to approach. His force should have been far to the left of it by this time, and already mounting the hill. The most probable explanation seemed to be that they had missed their way in the darkness, and following the bank of the canal too far, had fallen into an ambuscade posted at the ruins of the bridge to guard against any attempt to cross for the purpose of capturing the guns. The Commissioner and his garrison waited and listened in the deepest anxiety, straining their eyes to try and perceive, from the flashes of the rifles, which way the fight was tending. But the firing ceased suddenly, as that on the farther side of the enemy’s position had done some time before. There was nothing to do but wait.
Suddenly, after a long interval, a piteous wailing arose at the rear of the fort, from the opposite bank of the canal. A native stood there, one of the water-carriers who had accompanied the force, abjectly entreating to be fetched over, since the enemy were at his heels. To employ the ferry at such a moment was not to be thought of, but a rope was thrown from the steps of the water-gate, and the miserable wretch, plunging in, caught it, and was drawn across. He told a terrible tale as he stood dripping and shivering in the passage leading to the gate. Colonel Graham’s force had been attacked, shortly after leaving the canal-bank, by overwhelming numbers of the enemy, who had first poured in a withering fire, and then rushed forward to complete the destruction with their knives and tulwars. Thebhistihimself was the only man who had escaped, and the enemy had pursued him to the very edge of the canal. The sharpest-sighted men in the fort, sent to the rampart to test the truth of this statement as far as they could by starlight, were obliged to confirm it. There was undoubtedly a large body of the enemy on the other side of the canal. They were lying down behind the high bank, so as to be sheltered from the fire of the garrison.
“To cut off fugitives, I suppose,” muttered Mr Burgrave, half to himself and half to Ressaldar Ghulam Rasul. “That looks as though the massacre were not quite so complete as—Hark! I thought I heard a sound from the hill. Can our glorious fellows have made a last dash for it after all—some few who escaped?”
The men on the rampart stood like statues to listen, but failed to distinguish anything that might confirm the Commissioner’s surmise. The air seemed full of sound—footfalls, a murmur from the town, a stray shot or two from the same direction, and on the west a kind of shuffling noise. The enemy were taking up their positions for the attack. Mr Burgrave sent orders to the guard at the water-gate to let the air out of the inflated skins which supported the raft, so as to sink it to the level of the water, and this was at once done. When he had posted a sentry in the passage and another on the rampart above it, he was able to leave that side of the fort to defend itself, since the enemy had no means of crossing to assail it. To occupy the whole range of wall with the absurdly small force at his disposal was obviously impossible, and he therefore placed ten men in each of the larger towers, from which, with the usual amount of trouble and risk, a flanking fire could be obtained, and twelve in the two gateway turrets, retaining the Ressaldar and sixteen men as a reserve, ready to make a dash for any point that might be specially threatened. If the garrison should be driven from the walls, those who escaped were to rush for the hospital, where the women and children would take refuge, and the last stand was to be made. Having ordered his forces to their stations, the Commissioner went the round of the towers to encourage the men. His own Sikhs he could deal with well enough, but he felt that it was the irony of fate which obliged him to urge the sowars of the Khemistan Horse to show themselves worthy of their first commander, General Keeling, and it seemed as if the same thought had occurred to the men, for they scowled at him resentfully when they heard the mighty name from his lips.
The bad news brought by the fugitive spread through the fort with astonishing rapidity. The native women, whom Georgia had succeeded in soothing into some sort of calmness before the departure of the forlorn hope, filled the air with their wailings, until Ismail Bakhsh, who was head of the civilian guard detailed for the defence of the hospital, threatened to fire a volley among them if they were not quiet. Flora Graham’s ayah was gossiping with a friend among these women when the news arrived, and she rushed with it at once to her mistress’s room. Poor Flora had shut herself up alone to pray for the safety of her father and lover, and was following in thought every step of their perilous march. She had just reached with them the summit of the hill, and rushed upon the guard round the guns, when the ayah burst in with the news that the worst had happened. The sudden revulsion of feeling was too much for Flora. Her usual self-control deserted her, and she ran wildly across the courtyard to Georgia’s room. Georgia was lying down, talking softly in the dark to Mabel, who sat beside her, and both sprang up at Flora’s entrance.
“What is it? Have they come back?” they demanded, with one voice.
“No, no; they are killed—all killed! Papa and Fred both—oh, Mrs North, what can I do?” She dropped sobbing on the floor at Georgia’s feet, and buried her face in her dress.
“Perhaps it isn’t true,” suggested Georgia faintly. She had sunk down again on the bed.
“There’s no hope—one man has come back, the only survivor. Both of them at once! and I was praying for them, and I felt so sure—and even while I was praying they were being killed.”
“Is the whole force cut off?” asked Georgia, almost in a whisper.
“All but this one man.” Flora checked her sobs for a moment to answer.
“Fitz Anstruther too?” cried Mabel sharply.
“All, I tell you! It doesn’t signify to you, Mab; you have your Eustace left, but I have lost everything. Oh, Mrs North, you know how it feels. Help me to bear it.”
“Flora dear,” began Georgia, with difficulty. “I—I can’t breathe,” she gasped, struggling to stand up. “Please ask Mrs Hardy to come. I feel so faint. She will understand.”
Rahah, who had been crouched in the corner as usual, sprang up and ran out, returning in a moment with Mrs Hardy, who fell upon both girls immediately, and drove them out with bitter reproaches.
“You pair of selfish, thoughtless chatterboxes! I should have thought you had more sense, Flora. Just be off, both of you. You can have my rooms for the rest of the night; I shall stay here. Even if all our poor fellows are killed, is that any reason for killing Mrs North too?”
“Oh, please don’t, Mrs Hardy! I never thought—Mrs North is always so kind, and I am so miserable,” sobbed Flora.
“You shouldn’t be miserable unless you’re quite certain it’s necessary. You wouldn’t believe a native who told you he was dead, as they are always doing; so why should you when he says other people are dead?” demanded Mrs Hardy, with a brilliancy of logic which somehow failed to satisfy. “I haven’t a doubt that thebhistitook to his heels in a panic at the sound of the first shot, and if he hadn’t fortunately been in the rear, the panic might have spread to all the rest. There, go away, do, and don’t cry so. We’ll hope all will go well.”
“Why have you left your post, doctor?” asked Mr Burgrave, meeting Dr Tighe crossing the courtyard.
“The hospital will have to look after itself a good deal to-night, but I have left the Padri and my Babu in charge there. Mrs North is taken ill.”
“Good heavens! It only needed this to make the horror of the situation complete.”
“From our point of view, it may be the best thing that could happen. It will make the men fight like demons. Here, you girl, where are you going?” He had caught the shoulder of a veiled woman who ran up and tried to slip past him into the passage, but she let herchadarfall aside, and disclosed herself as Rahah.
“I have been telling the men of the regiment, sahib, and they have all sworn great oaths that so long as one of them has a spark of life left Sinjāj Kīlin’s daughter shall not be without a protector in her need, and that the corpses of foes without and friends within shall be piled as high as the ramparts before the enemy shall gain a footing on the wall. I told also those in the hospital”—there was a hint of malice in Rahah’s voice—“and every wounded man who can sit up in bed is crying out for a gun. They will serve as hospital guard, they say, and set Ismail Bakhsh and his men free to fight on the walls.”
“Good idea, that!” said Dr Tighe, turning to the Commissioner. “You see how the men take it. Well, I shall keep Mrs North in her own quarters if I can, but there is a passage through to the hospital courtyard, and we must carry her over if it’s necessary. But I don’t think it will be, now.”
Mr Burgrave nodded, and returned to his station on the west curtain. Why the enemy did not advance to the attack was a mystery. In the opinion of Ghulam Rasul and his most experienced subordinates, they had moved out from their position in the town, and were occupying the irrigated land on both sides of the canal in large numbers, sheltered against any volley from the walls by the rows of trees which marked the lines of the water-courses. They could not be seen, nor could it precisely be said that they were heard, but as the old soldiers in the garrison said, it could be felt that they were there. The situation was eerie in the extreme, and Mr Burgrave was unable to find comfort in a phenomenon which made his men cheerful in a moment. It was the Ressaldar who called his attention to it as they stood straining their ears in the attempt to distinguish some definite sound in the murmuring silence, and at once he himself heard clearly the faint tramp of a galloping horse far away to the north-east.
“He rides!” breathed Ghulam Rasul in an ecstasy, and “He rides!” cried the sowar nearest him, catching up the words from his lips. “He rides!” went from man to man, until the defenders of the towers looked at one another with glistening eyes, and even the unsympathetic Sikhs, who held themselves loftily aloof from the contemptible local superstitions of their Khemi comrades, repeated, with something of enthusiasm, “He rides!” “He rides; all is well,” said Ismail Bakhsh, puffing out his chest with pride, in his temporary guardroom on the clubhouse verandah. “Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib is watching over his house and over his children. The power of the Sarkar stands firm.”
“HE RIDES”
“HE RIDES”
All unconscious of the moral reinforcement which was doubling the strength of the garrison, Mabel and Flora sat disconsolately over the charcoal brazier in Mrs Hardy’s room, listening for the sounds of the attack, which they expected to hear each moment. Mrs Hardy’s vigorous rebuke had nerved them both to put a brave face on matters, and for some time they vied with one another in discovering reasons for refusing to credit the report of the fugitive, and deciding that all might yet be well. But as time went on, and there was no sign of the triumphant return of Colonel Graham and his force, their valiant efforts at cheerfulness flagged perceptibly. Mrs Hardy, running across to say that Georgia was doing pretty well, advised them to lie down and try to sleep, but they scouted the idea with indignation, and still sat looking gloomily into the glowing embers and listening to the night wind, which wailed round the crazy old buildings in a peculiarly mournful manner.
“Doesn’t it seem absurdly incongruous,” said Mabel at last, in a low voice, “that you and I—twofin de siècleHigh School girls, who have taken up all the modern fads just like other people—should be sitting here, expecting every moment that a band of savages will break in and kill us—with swords? It feels so unnatural—so horribly out of drawing.”
“How can you talk such nonsense?” snapped Flora, upon whose nerves the strain of suspense was telling severely. “I never heard that a High School career protected people against a violent death. Do you think it felt natural to the women in the Mutiny to be killed—or the French Revolution, or any time like that?”
“I don’t know. It really seems as if they must have been more accustomed to horrors in those days. Just imagine, Flora, the little paragraph there will be in theSouth Central Magazine: ‘We regret to record the death of Miss Mabel North, O.S.C., who was murdered in the late rising on the Indian frontier. Miss Flora Graham, a distinguished student of St Scipio’s College, St Margarets, N.B., is believed to have perished on the same sad occasion.’ Your school paper will have just the same sort of thing in it, and the two editors will send each other complimentary copies, and acknowledge the courtesy in the next number. It will all be about you and me—and we shall be dead.”
“Of course we shall; you said that before. But I don’t see what good it does to die many times before our deaths.”
“How horrid of you to call me a coward!” said Mabel pensively.
“I don’t call you anything of the sort. I think you must be fearfully brave to look at things in this detached, artistic kind of way, but what’s the good of it? Death must come when it will come, but naturally no one could be expected to look forward with pleasure to the mere fact of dying. Unless, of course”—Flora’s blue eyes shone as she turned suddenly from the general to the particular—“my dying would save papa or Fred. Then I should be glad to die.”
“You really mean that you wouldn’t mind being killed if somehow it would save either of their lives?”
“Of course I do, just as you would gladly die to save your Eustace.”
“But I wouldn’t!” cried Mabel involuntarily, then tried to minimise the effect of her admission by turning it into a joke. “I think it’s his privilege to do that for me.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that sort of thing!” said Flora reproachfully. “Happily there’s no one else to hear it, but if I didn’t know you, I should think you were perfectly horrid.”
“No, Flora, really,” cried Mabel, in a burst of honesty; “I can’t say confidently that there is one person in the world I would die for. I feel as if I could die to save Georgia, but I don’t know whether I could do it when the time came. I used to think that people—English people, at any rate—became heroic just as a matter of course when danger happened, but now I begin to believe that it depends a good deal on what they have been like before.”
“You always try to make the worst of yourself.”
“No, I don’t. I’m trying to look at myself as I really am. I have never in all my life done a thing I didn’t like if I could help it. What sort of preparation is that for being heroic? Flora,” with a sudden change of subject, “suppose the enemy had stormed the fort before this evening, would you have asked your father or Fred to kill you?”
“No,” was the unexpected reply. “It would have been so awfully hard on them. I keep a revolver in this pocket of my coat. You just put it to your eye—and it’s done.”
“Oh, I wish I was like you! I know I should be wondering and worrying whether it was right, and all that sort of thing, until it was too late to do it.”
“I don’t care whether it would be right or not,” said Flora doggedly. “I should do it. Do you think I would make things worse for papa and Fred, or let them have the blame of it if it was wrong?”
“I suppose Eustace would do it for me,” drearily. “He would if he thought it was the proper thing. He always does the proper thing.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk in such a horrid voice. It makes me feel creepy. And I don’t think it’s fair to say that sort of thing about the Commissioner. He’s perfectly devoted to you, and you know it would break his heart to have to—do what we were talking about. I don’t believe you’re half as fond of him as he is of you.”
“Have you found that out now for the first time?”
“Then it’s a shame!” cried Flora. “Why do you let him think you care for him? He worships you, and you pretend——”
“I don’t pretend. He took it into his head that I cared for him, and wouldn’t let me say I didn’t. And he doesn’t worship me. He thinks that I shall make a nice adoring sort of worshipper for him when he has got me well in hand.”
“Well, I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” said Flora crushingly.
“You needn’t be horrid. I’m sure I have quite enough to bear as it is. What with thinking every morning when I wake that I shall have to be pleasant to him whenever he chooses to come and talk to me all day, when I should like to be at the other end of the world——”
“What do you mean to do when you are married?”
Mabel shivered. “I don’t know,” she said. “I rather hope we shall be killed instead.”
“You needn’t expect to get out of difficulties in that way. If you want to be killed, you are quite sure not to be. And to go on living a lie——”
“Don’t!” entreated Mabel. “Whichever way you look at it, it’s dreadful. I don’t know what to do. What’s that? I’m sure I heard a step.”
It must have been Mr Burgrave’s evil genius which prompted him to present himself at that particular time. The enemy had made no movement, and the Commissioner thought he might safely leave the wall for a moment, in order to obtain a sight of Mabel, and inquire after Georgia. He entered the room with a creditable assumption of cheerfulness, which the girls did not even observe.
“How are we getting on?” asked Mabel hastily.
“Oh, well, we must hope for the best,” was the unsatisfying answer. In his own mind Mr Burgrave had no doubt that the enemy were only waiting for dawn to make their attack, and would advance on the fort at the same moment that their guns opened fire from the hill.
“No news yet of the forlorn hope?” asked Flora.
“No news,” he answered, then hesitated with his hand on the door, and looked at Mabel. She rose, as if in response to his glance, and went out on the verandah with him.
“Poor little girl!” he said, putting his arm round her. “This waiting-time is very hard upon you, isn’t it? God knows I would give you comfort if I could, but I dare not raise false hopes.”
Mabel freed herself from his clasp. In the dim light cast by the brazier through the small window, he could see that she was very pale, and that her eyes looked unnaturally large and dark in the whiteness of her face. “I want you to take this back, please,” she said, holding out her engagement ring. “I can’t die with a lie upon my soul.”
“A lie!” he exclaimed, in bewilderment.
“I don’t love you. Sometimes I think I almost hate you,” she replied, in a low, monotonous voice.
His natural impulse was to take her in his arms and crush this latest attempt at rebellion by sheer weight of mingled authority and affection, as he had done more than once before; but the words died upon his lips as he looked into her face, and he stood irresolute. This was not coquetry, not the wild talk for which he had smiled at her that very evening, but desperate earnest.
“Am I to take this as your own unbiassed wish, Mabel?” he asked slowly, seeing his world fall in ruins around him as he spoke.
“Absolutely,” she answered.
He took the ring from her hand. “It is the kind of encouragement that is calculated to nerve a man for the fight, isn’t it?” he asked. “But perhaps some bullet will be more merciful than you are.”
He slipped the ring on his little finger, and taking up his crutch, left her without another word. When he returned to the rampart it struck him, preoccupied though he was, that the night was not quite so dark as before. Dawn was approaching, and there was a perceptible unrest in the direction of the plane trees behind which the enemy were posted. As he stood looking round, Ghulam Rasul approached him from the north curtain.
“There is a large body of the enemy advancing towards the gate, sahib,” he said. “They come out of the town, and are marching in perfect silence.”
“Then they mean to attack us on two sides at once,” said the Commissioner. “Tell the men in the turrets to reserve their fire until they are close up, Ressaldar. We can’t afford to throw away a shot. Are the reserve all under arms?”
“All ready, sahib. Your honour can now hear the enemy’s approach.”
They stood waiting and listening. And in that hour of awful expectancy, when armed men were advancing on all sides upon the sorely pressed fort, Georgia’s boy was born.
“Whatis it, doctor?” cried the Commissioner impatiently, as Dr Tighe ran up the steps towards him at a most unwonted pace.
“It’s a boy—as fine a child as ever I saw in my life—and both likely to do well,” was the gasping response.
“What in the world do you mean by coming and telling me such a thing as that at this moment, sir?” demanded Mr Burgrave, whose habitual calmness was fast vanishing under the strain of the events of the night. “Are you aware that the enemy will probably be inside the fort in a few minutes, and that I am just about to give the order to fire?” He leaned over the sand-bags again to listen to the tramp of advancing feet.
“I tell you, it’ll make all the difference in the world to the men!” cried the doctor. “For Heaven’s sake, exhibit some interest, even if you don’t feel it, or they will credit you with ill-wishing the child.”
“Ill-wishing? Nonsense! No one need wish the poor little beggar worse luck than to come into the world at such a peculiarly inopportune moment.”
“Inopportune? Why, he brings good luck with him. Doesn’t he, Ressaldar?”
“It is the best of luck, sahib,” answered Ghulam Rasul, with a complacent smile. “Will your honour bear thesalaamsof the regiment to the Memsahib, and entreat her to name an hour when it will be fitting for a deputation representing all ranks to pay their respects to the Baba Sahib?”
“The fellow talks as though we had a lifetime before us!” grumbled the Commissioner morosely. “Surely they are within easy range now, Ressaldar?”
Ghulam Rasul advanced to the parapet, and peered narrowly over the sand-bags which capped it. “I know not how they come on so steadily, sahib,” he said hesitatingly, when he stood erect again. “Perhaps it might be well for your honour——” but he was interrupted by a frantic shout from both gateway turrets at the same moment.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire! The Colonel Sahib!”
“It is the luck of the Baba Sahib,” said Ghulam Rasul calmly, as Mr Burgrave and the doctor raced one another for the nearest turret. The doctor, not being hampered with a crutch, reached the goal first, and saluted the advancing force with the information that they had just missed being blown into smithereens.
“All well, I hope?” said Colonel Graham, as the guard of the turrets descended tumultuously to unbar the gate.
“All well, Colonel, and the garrison increased by one since you left. And what about the guns, if I may ask?”
“The guns? Oh, they’re at the bottom of the canal,” was the answer that stupefied Dr Tighe, as the forlorn hope began to file through the gateway.
“Then you were successful after all,” inquired the incredulous voice of Mr Burgrave from the steps.
“Oh, I see it! I see it!” cried Dr Tighe, laughing wildly. “You settled the guns, Colonel dear, and then you came home another way, while the enemy are all waiting for you under the hill at this moment! Oh, pat me on the back, somebody, or I’ll die!”
“What’s wrong with you, Tighe?” asked Colonel Graham in astonishment, as the doctor sat down upon a pile of the sand-bags that had been taken away from the gate, and fairly wept.
“If you’d been through what I have to-night, going backwards and forwards between life and death, as I may say, and expecting those fiends to break in any moment—why, you would be glad to find yourself and other people still alive,” was the incoherent reply, as Dr Tighe accepted a sip from the flask which Winlock held out to him. “But I beg your pardon, Colonel Graham and gentlemen, for this exhibition,” he added stiffly, as he rose and smoothed down his coat. “It was the thought that there’s a chance now for Mrs North and the child that bowled me over.”
“The child?” cried Fitz. “Is it a boy, doctor? Oh, good luck! Three cheers for the Luck of Alibad!”
Colonel Graham waved his helmet, and led the cheering with a will, until the rousing sounds echoed beyond the circuit of the fort and revealed to the startled enemy that their prey had escaped them. In the rage caused by the shock of this discovery they forgot their customary prudence, and leaving their cover, pressed forward to the walls. The troops had been marching all night, but every man hurried to his station without a moment for food or rest, in the conviction that the crisis of the siege had at last arrived. The attack was only half-hearted however, although the enemy had provided themselves with scaling-ladders, in the evident expectation of being able to push their assault home. The absence of the support upon which they had counted from their cannon on the hill upset their plans, and although Bahram Khan could be seen urging his followers forward even with blows, and setting them the example himself by advancing to the very foot of the wall, they did not so much as succeed in planting one of the ladders. When convinced that the attempt was hopeless, the Prince drew off his forces with considerable skill. A detachment of marksmen posted behind the plane trees made it impossible for the defenders to show themselves at the loopholes, and thus the assailants escaped with but little loss, though it was indubitable that in this, their first attack in force, they had suffered a defeat.
“Oh, I do feel so perfectly happy!” cried Mabel. “Think of all the horrid doleful things we were saying last night, Flora. And now Georgie is getting on all right, and the baby——”
“And such a baby!” said Flora gravely, contemplating with deep interest the morsel of humanity which was lying in Mabel’s arms, wrapped in a shawl. It was with most unflattering reluctance that Mrs Hardy and Rahah had consented to confide their precious charge to two amateur nurses, however well meaning; but Mabel took a high view of her privileges as an aunt, and the baby had been entrusted to her and Flora for a short time, on condition of their promising faithfully to bring it back if it cried.
“And our men are all safely back, and we have won a victory, and everything is splendid!” Mabel went on. And yet she did not disclose the chief cause of her abounding satisfaction. She was free once more, and she felt that a load had been removed from her mind. But if she told Flora, Flora would think that her plain speaking the night before had brought about this happy result, and ungratefully enough, Mabel did not care that she should think so. “I feel as if I should like to dance,” she broke out. “Do dance, Flora.”
“And shake the dear baby?” asked Flora reproachfully.
“Salaam, Miss Sahib!” said a voice from the doorway, and they turned to see Ismail Bakhsh standing in the semi-darkness of the passage, shaded by the matting curtain. “Is it permitted to the meanest of his slaves to kiss the feet of the Baba Sahib?”
“Oh yes, you can see him,” said Mabel, guessing at the tenor of the request, and she held up the baby. It was not by any means her intention that Ismail Bakhsh should take the child from her arms, but this he did at once.
“Oh, you’ll make him cry!” protested Flora.
“Nay, Miss Sahib, he will know me, that I am the servant of his house. Was I not for ten years Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib’s orderly, going in and out with him?”
“All the same, I don’t quite see how that should make you an authority on babies, my good man,” murmured Flora, and told Mabel Ismail Bakhsh’s qualifications for the post he had usurped. But the baby lay quite quietly in his arms, as though it recognised the force of the ancestral tie.
“The Baba Sahib has the eyes of Nāth Sahib, not of Kīlin Sahib,” was the self-constituted nurse’s next remark, delivered in a tone of keen regret.
“True, but some children’s eyes change colour, just as kittens’ do. Perhaps his will,” suggested Flora, gravely and consolingly.
“Georgia wouldn’t like that,” objected Mabel, when this was translated to her.
“I’m afraid poor Mrs North won’t see much of him, if the regiment have their way,” said Flora. “Do you know what Ismail Bakhsh is saying now?”
“I shall carry the Baba Sahib daily into the air, that he may grow tall and strong,” the old man was announcing. “And as soon as he learns to walk I shall bring a little pony—a very little pony, Miss Sahib”—this in answer to the protest he discerned in Flora’s face—“and I shall teach him to ride without saddle or bridle, that he may be like his grandfather, and I shall instruct him in the use of arms, so that when he joins the regiment with the Empress’s commission he will have no occasion to learn anything. He is to be a soldier from the day of his birth.”
“Oh, how his father would have loved to teach him to ride!” murmured Mabel, with tears in her eyes.
“The regiment will be his father, Miss Sahib. Is he not the son of Sinjāj Kīlin?”
“No, he isn’t!” cried Mabel, “and I don’t know why you should persist in leaving out his own father. Have you forgotten him already?”
Flora translated the question, and the old man answered it solemnly. “The Baba Sahib has no father until he has avenged him, Miss Sahib. We shall tell him of all Nāth Sahib’s doings, and how he was lured to his death by guile, but he must not take his name upon his lips until he can say, ‘Now there is not one left alive that had any part in that accursed deed, for I his son have tracked them out and slain them all.’”
“I don’t think Georgia will quite approve of the principles in which the regiment proposes to educate her boy,” said Mabel.
“Oh,” said Flora, “he says—‘The Memsahib is but a woman, though something more than other women. This is our business. Is not the Baba Sahib the seal of the General, left behind to rule us?’ You know the story, don’t you, Mab? When General Keeling died the chiefs heard that he had expressed a desire to be buried in England—which was not true, by-the-bye—and they came to say that if his seal was left in Khemistan, they would obey it as if it was himself, so that his body might be buried where he wished. But he is buried in the churchyard here, you know, by his own desire.”
“May we be allowed to take part in the baby-worshipping?” asked Fred Haycraft’s voice at the end of the verandah. “We couldn’t find any servants to announce us, so we were obliged to walk in.”
“Poor old Anand Masih is seeking a little rest after the exciting events of the night,” laughed Mabel. “Walk softly, please, and come quite to this end of the verandah, so as not to disturb Georgia.”
“We felt shy because we couldn’t send in our cards properly,” said Fitz, who was Haycraft’s companion, “but when we saw you had a visitor already, we thought we might venture in. What a nice smart nursemaid Mrs North has set up!—eh, Ismail Bakhsh?”
“True, sahib; I am the Baba Sahib’s bearer,” responded the old man, with simple dignity. “Every night when I am not on guard I shall bring my mat and lie in the verandah here, to guard his sleep.”
“That’s a queer idea,” said Haycraft. “Has the Memsahib asked you to look after him?”
“Nay, sahib; but many seek to destroy the lion cub, for fear of what he will do when he is full-grown.”
“I wonder if there’s anything in that,” said Fitz. “Can it be that Bahram Khan’s men directed their fire purposely upon this courtyard, knowing that Mrs North was here?”
“There are enemies within the walls as well as without, sahib,” was the answer, as Ismail Bakhsh rocked the baby gently in his arms.
“I say, I believe I could do that!” said Fitz. “Let me have a try.”
“No, no,” said Mabel; “you’ll only make the baby cry, and hurt his nurse’s feelings. We want you and Mr Haycraft to tell us what really happened last night, and why you left us to endure such agonies of suspense for hours. I believe it was simply that we might think all the more of you when you got back.”
“Then I hope you do,” said Haycraft, “for he deserves it. Go ahead, Anstruther; you left the fort first. I’ll cut in later on, and spare your blushes.”
“What in the world are you driving at?” demanded Fitz. “Story? bless you, ladies! I’ve none to tell. We got across the irrigated land and into the hills just as we had intended, settled ourselves in ourcache, and then sent up our rockets and opened fire. At first it was exactly like upsetting a beehive, there was such a rushing about and shouting in the camp underneath and all over the town. But we hadn’t allowed for one thing. Bahram Khan is far cleverer than we thought him. He could tell by the sound of our firing that we were only a small party, and he guessed at once that our attack was nothing but a feint, arranged to cover a dash on the guns. So he didn’t waste any time in trying to rush our position, but simply left us alone, which was truly mortifying, for we had been looking forward to no end of fun among the rocks, leading the fellows off on false scents, and astonishing them with unexpected volleys, and all that sort of thing.”
“Fun, indeed!” cried Mabel indignantly. “You ought to be thankful they let you alone.”
“I’m sorry, Miss North. I didn’t know your heart was so tender towards the enemy. At any rate, they escaped us that time, you see. Well, as soon as we made sure that the tide of battle was taking its way elsewhere, we evacuated our sangar, and started off at the double for the rendezvous. But there were difficulties in the way of getting there. While we were slipping and sliding down into the valley, making for the canal, we heard tremendous firing in the direction of the bridge, which sent our hearts into our sandals, for we knew that the Colonel’s column had no business to be anywhere near there.”
“Yes, I cannot make out how you managed to get so far to the right,” said Flora, addressing Haycraft, and speaking more in sorrow than in anger, as beseems the arm-chair critic.
“We didn’t manage anything of the sort,” answered Haycraft. “As a matter of fact, we were not there at all. The only explanation we can suggest for the mysterious fusillade is that the Commissioner and his command were making a record display of wild firing from the walls here—simply blazing away in every direction—and that some of their bullets fell among the enemy posted at the bridge-head, and started them off too. We were marching by compass on the right road when we heard them a good way off, repulsing, as they imagined, an attack in the rear. They can’t make out that their shooting is much better than ours, at any rate, for some of their bullets went wide too, and fell into our ranks, which threw the native followers into an awful panic. One or two men got flesh-wounds, that was all, but the doolie-bearers andbhistisscattered in a moment, and tried to hide. We had to rout them out of all sort of places, but at last we did think we had found them all, though it seems now that one of them succeeded in getting away. He is being dealt with—suitably—at this moment.”
“And do you mean to say,” asked Mabel, as Fitz laughed grimly, “that you all went on as if nothing had happened, and never returned the fire?”
“Why, that would have given the whole thing away. Our only chance was to leave them to blaze away at one another, and go straight for the hill. But this is still Anstruther’s innings.”
“Well,” said Fitz, “when we heard the firing we instantly occupied a fine strategic position in a hollow at the base of our cliff, with the canal in front of us, and one of the men and I scouted a little way along the bank. What we found out was very exciting indeed. The men at the bridge-head had discovered their mistake by this time, and ceased firing, but we saw why they were in such an agitated state of mind. The bridge had been repaired, and they were guarding it! More than that, Bahram Khan was even then—as we crouched there—bringing up his men to cross the canal, and invest the water side of the fort, so cutting off our fellows as they came home. I can tell you it was a pretty tough job to wriggle along like a snake, and take advantage of cover, when one wanted simply to tear back to the rest and consult what was to be done. You see, there was just this in our favour. The enemy didn’t know exactly where our men were, and so long as there was no noise on the hill, they would remain in doubt, for they weren’t likely to risk their lives by going up to see. Sure enough, they waited discreetly, spreading themselves out over the irrigated land below the hill on both sides of the canal. That gave Winlock and me our cue, and when I got to the Colonel——”
“But you haven’t said how you got to him!” cried Mabel and Flora together.
“My turn!” said Haycraft blandly, laying an authoritative hand on Fitz’s shoulder. “Sit and squirm, my boy, while I sing your praises. He swam the canal, ladies, in the dark and icy cold, and took over with him the end of a rope made of the men’s turbans. Winlock and the rest waited to guard the crossing, while this fellow climbed the hill, and by the best of good luck, found us at the top. We had taken the guard round the guns absolutely by surprise—they were all asleep, in fact, without a single sentry—and settled things almost in silence. Not a shot was fired, and everything was so quiet that Woodworth started the bright idea of bringing the guns home with us instead of destroying them. It really seemed quite possible, for the drag-ropes were there ready, and it would have made all the difference in the world to us to have a couple of cannon. But when Anstruther turned up, like a very dripping ghost, and informed us that the way was blocked, and we couldn’t even get home ourselves, much less take back the guns in triumph, things began to look a little blue. We might stay where we were, or we might try to cut our way through, but the prospect wasn’t very cheerful either way.”
“No food or water on the hill, and the enemy holding all the plain below,” summarised Fitz tersely.
“And therefore,” went on Haycraft, “the Colonel lent a willing ear to the aspiring civilian before you, who offered to lead him right round through the hills and bring him in at the main gate of the fort, the very last place where the enemy would think of expecting him. So the drag-ropes came in useful, after all, for we pulled the guns to a nice steep place overlooking the water. We had to be awfully quiet, of course, though the hill was between us and the enemy, but we spiked the guns and rolled them over into the canal. Then we marched down, and got across by the help of the drag-ropes, which Winlock and his men hauled over with their string of turbans. We got pretty wet about the legs, but nothing to Anstruther. He led us right round, as he had promised, and at the end we actually marched right through the town without meeting a soul. The men were told to break step, lest the tramp should be heard; but the enemy were all ever so far off, watching affectionately for our reappearance on the other side of the canal. They hadn’t the slightest suspicion of our real whereabouts. Of course, if we had known which way we were coming back, we might have done a lot of things—taken some dynamite and blown up General Keeling’s house, perhaps—but it’s no use repining about that now.”
“Repining? I should think not!” cried Flora. “You’ve had a whole night of marching and counter-marching, and strategic movements and capturing guns, and you come home to find a nice little fight waiting for you before you can lie down to sleep, and yet, when you are in the very act of playing Othello to two Desdemonas, you pretend you aren’t satisfied!”
“Oh, we haven’t made enough of them,” said Mabel briskly. “They think we ought to have met them at the gate, and cast the flowers out of our best hats before them as they marched in. I’m sure this morbid thirst for appreciation oughtn’t to be gratified, for their own sakes. Now I am going to take the boy back to his mother. His brains will certainly be addled if Ismail Bakhsh rocks him up and down much longer.”
“What’s happened to the Commissioner?” asked Haycraft, as Mabel disappeared with the baby. “We rather thought we should find him here.”
“I don’t know,” said Flora. “He hasn’t been in this morning. Oh no,” as Haycraft lifted his eyebrows, “they haven’t quarrelled. They were quite friendly last night. I daresay he’s busy.”
“It is because of the Baba Sahib that the Kumpsioner Sahib has not come,” remarked Ismail Bakhsh calmly, pausing at the corner of the verandah, and addressing no one in particular.
“Our friend understands English too well,” muttered Haycraft to Fitz. “But what can he mean—that Burgrave dislikes babies, or that he is jealous because Miss North is so much taken up with it?”
“The Kumpsioner Sahib will not come here in the daytime,” was the dark reply. “That is why this unworthy one will keep guard here at night, sahib.”
“What maggot has the old fellow got in his brain now?” asked Fitz, when Ismail Bakhsh had disappeared down the passage.
“I really think this valued family retainer is getting a little bit cracked,” said Flora. “Do just imagine the Commissioner creeping in here in the dark with a dagger to murder the baby!”
“Or smothering it with pillows!” chuckled Haycraft.
“Well, I only hope Ismail Bakhsh won’t go and shoot some one by mistake,” said Fitz.
“There is a deputation from the regiment waiting at the end of the verandah, anxious to interview your son and heir, Mrs North,” said Dr Tighe in the afternoon of the same day.
“How nice of them! I wish I could take him to them myself,” said Georgia.
“You must leave that to his proud aunt,” said Mabel. “But surely we ought to smarten him up a little, Georgie? I wish we had a proper robe for him. How would that white embroidered shawl of mine do to wrap him in?”
“No, tell Rahah to get out the shawl which the native officers gave me for a wedding present. It is in the regimental colours, and that will please them more than anything.”
“Now, don’t excite yourself,” entreated Mabel. “You are getting quite flushed over the boy’s toilette. Do leave him to us. Surely Mrs Hardy and Rahah and Flora and I can dress one baby between us?”
“Well, mind that if they hold out the hilts of their tulwars, you make him touch them with his hand, and the same if they bring any present.”
“Oh, Flora will prompt me. Don’t be afraid, Georgie. The boy’s first public appearance shall do credit to us all, and the regiment too.”
But when Mabel stepped out into the verandah, carrying the gorgeous bundle, she was met by Ismail Bakhsh, who held out his arms with an air of proprietorship which she resented. “No, no!” she said, shaking her head vigorously; “I am going to hold him.”
“Nay, Miss Sahib, am I not his bearer? Was I not for ten years orderly to Sinjāj Kīlin Sahib? Have I not served Nāth Sahib and the Mem——?”
“Don’t hurt his feelings, Miss North,” laughed Dr Tighe.
“Well, he can stand beside me and lift the boy’s hand to touch the swords and presents and things. People will really have to understand that he belongs to us as well as the regiment.”
The honourable post assigned to him served to mollify Ismail Bakhsh, and he took his stand beside Mabel with immense dignity. The members of the deputation were all in full uniform, and advanced to pay their respects strictly in order of rank. All unconsciously, the baby itself struck the right note at the very outset. When Ressaldar Badullah Khan came forward and held up the hilt of his sword, there was no need for Ismail Bakhsh to guide the little hand to it. The glittering metal, rendered dazzling by a ray of light which came through a bullet-hole in the curtain, seemed to catch the baby’s eye, and the aimless movements of both arms which followed were immediately interpreted as indicating a desire to seize the sword.