'Trees where you sit----Shall crowd into a sha----a----a----'
'Trees where you sit----Shall crowd into a sha----a----a----'
The dainty little runs, mellow, perfect, paused when the wire connecting the distance-signal with the station thrilled like a fiddle-string as the signal fell, and Chris Davenant's 'Now!' followed sharply, but they went on again in the darkness, backed by that growing rumble and roar.
'Is it working? I can't hear the water! My God! if it isn't--what is to be done?'
The brown hand that had found a place on the crank also trembled against the white one.
'Do? We done our best, sir; an' she's a lydy, so the odds is fair--
"aa--a--a--aa--a--Trees whe--re you--sit, shall crowd into--o--a--shade.'"
Done our best! The words, blending with the tender triumph of those final bars, were in Chris Davenant's ears but a few seconds, yet they brought a strange dreamy content with them, till Jân-Ali-shân, almost before the last note he had learned in his white-robed days ended, burst into a regular yell of relief, as the resistance on the crank lessened, ceased.
'She's down, or nigh it! Now for the fun, and the fightin', sir! Now to see them blamed Kusseyes!----'
Clear of the clamour of confined sound in the little room, his voice rose in a laugh, as, to gain a standpoint on the wider ledge beyond the archway, he dashed, followed by Chris, right in front of the thundering engine, which was already so close, that the glare of its red eyes shone full on their reckless figures, as the scream of the danger-whistle rang out shrill and sharp.
Not in warning to them only. Not even to the crowd in front;thathad parted, as it were, mechanically, leaving the steel-edged ribbon of rail in its midst, clear to the station. It was for the long links of carriages behind, out of which heads were already craning to catch the first glimpse of the fun and the fighting to which they had been summoned so hastily.
For there was danger ahead to every one behind. The girders of the drawbridge were still slightly aslant; they had barely closed into the sockets, and beside these a group of half-naked figures were busy.
Over what? Jân-Ali-shân guessed in a second that they were trying to prevent a further closing, they were trying to derail the train, and he was off like an arrow across the narrow bridge, hidden by the clouds of steam that rose in an instant from the curbed monster, as the brakes, the valves, were jammed home hard in the effort to stop it.
Chris could not understand the cry that came back through the steam--'Drop it, you devils! them'smycold chisels'; but, as ever, he followed on the other's heels, half-scalded, half-deafened; followed blindly until in the clearer air beyond--as yet!--that snorting, sliding, resistless fate behind him, he saw that the group about the sockets had scattered at the mere sight of that reckless onslaught.
All but one figure--the figure of the biggest bully of the butchers' gang, Jân-Ali-shân's sworn foe--that, with a yell of absolute hate, had run out as recklessly to bar the way.
Jân-Ali-shân gave a shout as he closed with it, for the man was a noted wrestler--'None o' yer buttin's an' booin's; fightseeda, or it ain't----'
There was no time for more words, since this was no place for a wrestling match--this narrow platform with the river below it, and scarcely room upon it for a man with steady nerves to stand slim and let a fierce shadow with a screaming voice pass in a roar and a rattle.
And such a fierce shadow half hidden in the steam fog was sliding on, battling against the curb, thundering, shaking the track with brakes down! So close! Dear God! so close!
Chris gave a desperate cry of fear and courage--but was beside those two.
And so was the red glare of the angry eyes seen through the steam clouds; so was the scream of the whistle heard above the roar and the rattle.
'Now then, sir, heave!
"Yo-ho--yo-ho, ho! yo-ho, ho!"'
The engine-driver, craning from his cab, heard so much beyond that fog of steam. The officers in the first carriage heard a brief--
'Keep your head, sir, and git a holt of me.'
Only those voices; no more. Then everything was lost in an awful grating sound--a sound of iron grinding iron to powder--a jerk, a wrench, a dislocation; a shock that shook the very air and made the very water in the river ebb and flow as the piers, the retaining-wall, quivered to their foundations.
But the next instant the rocking engine recovered its smooth slide, and the carriages were sliding after it over the girders it had jammed home--sliding on to the station, to safety, to the fun and the fighting!
And yet a yell of horror rose from the watching crowd. Not because the onward sliding which left the bridge free of steam clouds left it free also of all trace of those wrestling figures. That was only to be expected, since, if they had not fallen victims to the steam-devil, the water must have claimed them.
It was because the river was claiming something else, and the bastion, cracked so long, had yielded to its importunity at last--yielded perhaps to the shock, perhaps to that reckless rush of spectators to one side, perhaps to fate! And with a silence, awful in comparison with the clamour around it, it was sliding outwards, downwards. Sliding so slowly that it was well on its way ere an answering yell of terror rose from the figures upon it. Sliding so softly--brick holding fast to brick--that the final rending was almost unheard in the sound of hissing water closing in on water.
So, for an instant, nothing remained except two kites whirling distractedly at the swift downpull on their strings, until, giving up the battle, giving in to fate, they yielded the Sovereignty of Air and sank slowly into the river.
By this time, however, some of the claimants to that sovereignty had come to the surface again, shrieking for help, and reaching round for anything to support them.
Lateefa, luckily for him, found that bundle of the vanquished close to his hand, and managed with its help to get a grip upon a jag of wall. Luckily, for something had struck him on the back as he went down.
But there was no sign of Jehân or Burkut Ali; no sign even of those other two whom the river had claimed.
And none came to seek for one; for none knew rightly what had happened or who the bridge-savers had been, save the bridge-wreckers, and they had fled. Most of the crowd, therefore, drifted back to the station or the city. The station that was full of the rattle of rifles being shouldered, of the tramp of feet falling into line.
'How on earth you got here so soon, I can't think,' said a police-officer who had ridden up in hot haste at the news of some disturbance on the bathing-steps. 'The up-mail? By Jove! what luck! It will settle the whole "biz," I expect.'
And in the city voices were saying much the same thing.
If the troops were there, ready for the first sign, what was the use of making it? Let the rabble rise if they chose. Let fools commit themselves. Wise men would wait a better opportunity.
Nushapore, however, was not all wise; very far from it. Out of its two hundred and odd thousand souls, there were some to whom the possibility of disturbances meant a long-looked-for opportunity of indulging--with comparative safety--in criminal habits. And there were many also, who, without any special desire for evil, regretted the diminishing chance of a night's excitement and amusement.
At first some of these found solace in the catastrophe at the kite-flyers' bastion; though, after a time, this proved to be less disastrous than might have been expected, for, out of all those who were known to have been on the building, only two or three were even injured. Jehân Aziz, it is true, had disappeared, but even in the first knowledge of this, the fact brought scarcely a word of regret--especially in the Royal Family. It felt vaguely that it stood a better chance without him, even though the next heir was not close enough to that dead dynasty to hope for the practical recognition of an increased pension from Government!
Neither did the sight of Burkut Ali being carried off to hospital on a stretcher distress it much. But it had a word or two of encouragement and sympathy for Lateefa who, still clinging to his kites, refused all help as he sat propped against a wall waiting for the numbness to pass from his legs--as it must pass, since he had no pain.
Of Jân-Ali-shân and Chris no one thought on that side of the bridge; for the simple reason that the disaster to the bastion absorbed all tongues for a time, and, in addition, beyond the fact that there had been some fighting for the bridge, no one knew anything.
In the station, also, there was no one to explain what had happened. Thebaboo, who might have told what he knew, had, in that interval of suspense, discreetly fled to his lodgings in the city, where he was trying to concoctalibis.
It was only on the bathing-steps that anything definite was known, and there a curious consternation had followed immediately on the rapid raid made by those two through the temple. For, when the brief tumult of resistance had passed with their passage, the only trace of it that remained was fateful, beyond words, to the superstitious eyes which saw it.
Swâmi Viseshwar Nâth, the high priest of Shiv-jee, lay with crushed skull onMaiKâli's very lap! His blood was pouring out upon her altar; yet, despite the blow which all had seen, despite the crash which all had heard, not one of her many widespread arms was injured!
Here was a miracle indeed! For what had been her words on that golden paper which she had flung, in defiance as it were, into the temple of her rival?
'Yea! though they smite me, there shall be Blood upon Mine Altar.'
And there was. The blood of the arch-detractor of Her Supremacy.
A miracle indeed! to be affirmed or denied to the exclusion of all other thoughts.
And so, on those wide steps leading down to the river, the newcomers, hastening thither at vague rumours of strange doings--stranger even than fixed bayonets at the city gates--were caught in the conflict of opinions and held captive by the question--
'WouldMaiKâli stay the plague now, as She had promised to do when there was blood upon Her altars, or would She not?'
In other words, dare men--mere men--take the remedy into their own hands, and risk offending the Great Goddess by lack of faith?
Would it not be better to wait a bit and see what happened? So, coming and going on the steps--coming in fierce haste, going in awestruck doubt--men asked themselves if their part was to wait and watch. But, inside the temple, two poor souls crouched in a corner knew what their part as women must be; and therefore, after a time of fruitless waiting, they stole out hand-in-hand and went back to the city, back to their empty house, realising but one thing: that the stray sheep which had been lost and found, had gone astray once more; had defied the priests, perhaps killed hisguru.
And they had left that house empty with such joy, believing they were to bring their dear one back to it! And now, to whom were they to go for advice; for weddings and burials--since such things must be--if Viseshwar Nâth was dead? Viseshwar who had known all things concerning the family? So they wept, not knowing that his death made future happiness for one of them possible.
The city itself was by this time like a hive of bees about to swarm, which is disturbed by a finger-touch. People hurried hither and thither causelessly; excited, anxious, yet harmless; for those who had meant to give the cue for action hung back at the sight of the soldiers. Yet many of these would-be mischief-makers had not quite given up hope, and their unwillingness to do so, strangely enough, was in inverse ratio to their hope of achieving any good by raising a riot. For, while every minute that passed showed the more reasonable, the more interested, that wisdom lay in postponement, those who had very little stake or thought in the matter beyond a general desire to kick over the traces, grew more and more desperate as the opportunity for this seemed to be slipping from them. Govind the editor was one of these, and, gravitating naturally to his like, found himself after a time in one of the bands of discontents who were ready for any trivial mischief that might come handy. But as yet, even these had no objective.
And so, after all, Jack Raymond had time for a late dinner. And he ate a good one too, in ignorance--like every one else except a few of the would-be train-wreckers who discreetly held their tongues--of the real history of the drawbridge. For the steam fog had effectually hidden all the heroism of that struggle for it. Had hidden all things save the voices in the fog; save that almost incredible chanting of a sailor's chorus heard by the engine-driver, those few words, 'Keep your head, sir, and take a holt of me,' half-heard by some of the officers.
And Sir George Arbuthnot, too, ate his dinner at the club. He did not make so good a one, however; and when he had finished it, hurriedly, he paused beside the table where Jack Raymond was finishing his, leisurely, to say with rather elaborate point, 'So you were right after all, Mr. Raymond!--and--and I was wrong--should, I expect, have been still more wrong, if Kenyon here had not insisted on telegraphing to Fareedabad.' He looked as he spoke at the Commissioner, who had come in for a mere bite and sup.
Jack Raymond rose, feeling that he liked the man better than he had ever done before; feeling for the first time that he was glad he had helped.
'I don't know, sir,' he said cheerfully, 'about the right and the wrong. I happened to hear. But it was uncommonly lucky the troops managed to nick the up-mail, or they might have been a bit late. It must have been a near shave!'
'Very!' put in the Commissioner with a slightly puzzled frown. 'I don't know exactly how the deuce they did it, but that's a detail for the present. Now, sir, if you will write that note to relieve Lady Arbuthnot's anxiety, we can start back to the hospital--though really there is no necessity for it--the danger is over.'
Jack Raymond shook his head. 'Not till daylight--it never is. I don't mean for the hospital. If nothing happens at midnight, nothing will; but there are lots of other games--at least I should fancy so,' he added as he sat down again, resuming his dinner and his indifference.
'That is one of the most able men in India!' remarked the Commissioner to Sir George; 'it is a thousand pities he allowed----'
And then, hurriedly, he changed the subject. It would have been less significant if he had not done so, and Sir George felt inclined to ask him to finish the sentence. But even that defiance would have been significant in its turn, so he gave in resignedly to the awkwardness of the situation--for he could not help feeling it was awkward--and sat down to write his note to Grace before returning to the city.
She had been hoping for some message all the evening, and Lesley realised how great a strain the waiting for news had been on Lady Arbuthnot's nerves when she saw the sudden relief the note brought with it.
Till then the Sunday dinner-party had been unusually dull. Now, just as people were beginning to wonder if they had not ordered their carriage to come a trifle late, a new life seemed to spring up. The hostess herself started music by going to the piano, and as she did so, she found time for a whisper to Lesley--'It's all right! The troops caught the up-mail and came back in it--sharp work, wasn't it? and George says everything is settling down, but I am not to expect him home till one or two. Oh! I feel so happy!'
She looked it, and--good singer as she was--she sang as few had ever heard her sing. Lesley for one, who listened to the quaint little Frenchchansons, half-laughter half-tears, and the pretty, comic-opera trills and runs with a new perception of the woman who sang them--the woman who was, as a rule, so unlike most of her sex in her calm intelligence.
And now? Now every man in the room was crowding round the piano. She was holding them there by something that was not beauty or intelligence, not by her looks or her singing, but by the woman's desire to have and hold the admiration of her world by making it depend on her for pleasure--the desire which made Eve share her apple with Adam!
Yes! that was it! The woman's desire to have and to hold for herself alone.
But while the dinner-party at Government House had taken a fresh lease of life under Grace Arbuthnot's guidance, there was another dinner-party going on in Nushapore, where the good wine of high spirits had come first and the ditch-water of dulness last. This was at Mr. Lucanaster's; and it had been the probability of being late for this--a supreme effort on his part towards something preeminently jolly--which had made him sulky at being delayed by the 'memorable occasion.' For, to begin with, more time would be required for dressing than usual, since the party was to be aréchaufféof the Mutiny Lancers. It was to be a Mutiny dinner; and for the first time Mrs. Chris had consented to act as hostess and sit at the top of Mr. Lucanaster's table; Mrs. Chris in that bewildering costume of pink roses and white shoulders.
And everything had been perfect. The dinner worthy of achef, the champagne iced enough to cool the tongue, not enough to lessen its sparkle. And yet, at eleven o'clock, the guests were beginning to leave. At half-past, Mrs. Chris--there was no mistake in her costume either--was eyeing Mr. Lucanaster with the amused superiority to the trivialities of sentiment or passion which--as she had always told poor Chris--made her absolutely capable of taking care of herself in any situation.
'No, thanks! I don't want another cigarette, and I'd rather not have a cherry-brandy before I go back; but you can tell the bearer to tell myayahto bring my cloak and overshoes in here. I told her to come and wait.'
Mr. Lucanaster swore under his breath.
'Oh! I don't think it was quite so bad as that,' she continued cheerfully, ignoring the palpable cause of his annoyance. 'It really was quite jolly at first, and nothing could have been better done. It was that little fool Jones with his cock-and-bull story of a row in the city; and then the dresses, you know, made one a bit shivery, thinking of the Mutiny. It did--even me--and I'm not that sort. But you couldn't help that, you know--your part of it was perfect.'
He looked at her grimly, his determination not to be played with in this fashion growing.
'Not quite!' he answered. 'There was yet one thing lacking; one thing that I had meant to have secured--only I could not--you were so late in coming.'
'I?' she asked curiously. 'Was it something to do with me, then?'
'With the perfection of your dress--it needs something!'
She coloured up pink as her roses, and gave a hurried glance at a mirror opposite. 'I do not see it,' she said angrily.
'Yes, you do!' he persisted, looking in the mirror also. 'There is something wantedhere.' He pointed to her white throat, and in the mirror his hand pointed to it also.
'Ah'h,' she sighed thoughtfully.--'Yes! pearls--but I had no real ones. And--and I can stand paste--but somehow sham pearls----!'
'No! not pearls! No! never! Not milk-and-water pearls!' he protested. 'Not with roses there'--he pointed to the glistening shoulders--'and roses there'--the hand in the mirror seemed almost to touch the glistening hair.--'It should be roses here. And--and I had some pink topazes--a bagatelle--you might have bought them from me if you would not take them as a gift. Bah! a trifle!--just drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain----'
Her hard blue eyes grew covetous; she drew in her breath. 'Drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain!--How--how perfectly delicious! And cheap too--oh! do let me see them.'
'Why not, madame? Are they not in my office room; but'--he looked at her and laughed--'will you not smokeonecigarette while you inspect them?'
She looked at him sharply in her turn, then laughed too. He had been clever! She rather admired him for it; though, if he thought he had gained any advantage, he was mistaken.
'Why not, monsieur?' she answered, coolly helping herself from the box. 'As I have to see the topazes, I may as well smoke while you are fetching them.'
She threw herself into an arm-chair and nodded at him. But when the pink topazes came, as they did come to her, after a minute or two, she stood up again in the intensity of her admiration. There were other jewels in the quaint little Indian casket which, with an ill grace, he had brought back with him from the office;--among them a string of remarkably fine pearls--but she never even looked at them. The topaz dewdrops absorbed her. He had been right! They were the one thing wanting.
The only question that remained was, briefly, how much she could afford to give for them.
As she stood calculating, as only women of her type can calculate, Mr. Lucanaster watched her with an easy smile, thinking what a curious hold little stones--which to him only meant so much money--had upon humanity. There was a ruby, for instance, in that very casket, which had taken him three years to wile away from a minor member of the Royal Family. Then there was the emerald----
A sudden sound of distant voices echoed through the stillness of the night, and Mrs. Chris looked up from the pink dew, startled.
'I wonder what that is?' she said, pausing. 'I wish that man Jones hadn't told his foolish tales. He has made me nervous, quite nervous.'
Mr. Lucanaster moved a step nearer. 'You needn't be afraid with me, Jenny,' he said, attempting sentiment, 'even if there was----'
He got no further, for the figure of a very old native, withered, bent, dressed (or undressed) in the nondescript garb of a scullion, showed at the door, then advanced with furtive haste and equally furtive importance.
'Khodawund!' it said toothlessly and with joined hands. 'It is about to come again. This slave saw it then--in '57. He waskhânsâmanthen to Ricketts-sahib bahadur, who was killed----'
'Curse you!' shouted Mr. Lucanaster, 'what the devil----? Then, as the simplest way of getting at the truth, he ran into the verandah. Every servant had disappeared; but there was no mistaking the sound that came clearer now--it was the sound of a crowd, an angry crowd! He stood irresolute for a moment, and then, along the road that lay between his house and Chris Davenant s, he saw two men running with torches.
'There is thatch to both,' called one. 'We will takehisfirst--he who spoilt our plan. The others will settle the depraver of Kings' Houses!'
That was enough! He was back in the house in a second, but not in the drawing-room. In his office, at the safe which he had left open!
Meanwhile Viva, alone with the furtive haste and furtive importance which had seen it all before, stood paralysed with terror; stood in that dress of the year of grace 1857, feeling as if that past had claimed her.
But ithadclaimed the old anatomy who had returned, in his old age, to the first rung of the ladder whence he had climbed to that dignity of 'khânsâmanto Ricketts-sahib bahadurwho was killed.'
They had come back to him, those days of livery and gold lace when he had served a lady, dressed perhaps in pink tarlatan! They had come back, and the furtiveness left the remnant that remained of that dignity; the importance returned. 'But thememwas not killed,Huzoor! How should it be so when Mohubbut Khân was there? Quick! follow me,Huzoor! This slave knows where safety lies! Has he not seen it all before? Quick,Huzoor, quick! Themem-sahibais safe--quite safe if she follows Mohubbut Khân.'
Safe, quite safe! Those words were enough for this woman in her pink tarlatan, whose nerves, such as they were, had been juggled with by that same pink tarlatan! She forgot everything else, even the pink dewdrops!
The next instant she was out--as many amem-sahibahad been out in that fateful May-time more than forty years before--with no guide to safety but a native servant. And this was no servant of hers, bound to her by the slender tie--slender in the West, at any rate!--of personal service. Mohubbut Khân was only servant of that past--the past which had brought him nothing for his old age save a return to the greasy swab and miserable pittance of his apprenticeship to service!
Yet as, with a breathlessness that had not been in that midnight flight of forty years ago, he headed straight as a die for the Garden Mound, he prattled cheerfully of the future as he might have done then.
Let themem-sahibastay herself on the Merciful and Clement, including, of course, His servant Mohubbut! As for the master, theâkâ-sahib, who, perforce, had to think of more than mere safety, the Merciful and Clement had him in his keeping also. And though Mohubbut could not, unfortunately, be in two places at once, some other slave would doubtless be raised up!
There was no fear; none! Was not Jân-Ali-shân-sahib--he pointed into the night--there to be reckoned with still? And had it been possible during that nine long months for any black face--even Mohubbut's, which had remained outside after he had put thememinside--to win in to the Garden Mound?
So, hovering between past and present, the old man who had been 'khânsâmanto Ricketts-sahib bahadurwho was killed,' chattered of safety----
Until the Garden Mound was reached, and then----
Then he stood in the dim moonlight--helpless--bewildered--importance gone! For where was safety, where was Jân-Ali-shân?
Ruins, and flowers! Only one thing as it had been forty years before.
The English flag!
He headed straight for it comforted, the importance returning. 'Themem-sahibaneed have no fear,' he muttered glibly; 'was not Mohubbutkhânsâmanto Ricketts-sahib bahadurwho was killed?--but thememwas not. Ah! no!'
Yet, once more, the wide ruined doorways of the Residency upset the unstable balance of the half-crazy old man's confidence. But only for a moment. The next, he had lost even importance in quick decision, as the sound of running footsteps, of men's voices, rose against the background of faint elusive cries and distant disturbance which had been with them, fitfully, in their flight.
'Quick,Huzoor, quick! they come! Have no fear! Thememwas never killed! yet they came before!'
And Viva, tarlatan in ribbons, almost fainting with fear, followed blindly; then sank behind a heap of stones that lay--part of a ruined stair--in the lowest story of the turret.
Only just in time; for the voices were close at hand, the steps upon the outside stair that led to the roof.
'Lo! we can do so much, if naught else,' came savagely: 'we can end their boast, brothers!' The voice was an educated one, and there was some answering laughs, as five or six white figures passed upwards.
'Have no fear,mem-sahiba!' whispered the toothless comforter. 'Jân-Ali-shân will settlethem.'
Apparently he did; or some one else carrying on the tradition of the dead man who lay in the Hollow of Heroes; for almost ere the last climber could have reached the top, they were down the narrow stairs again helter-skelter.
'Trra!' said one vexedly. 'To think they should not have forgotten that! Truly, it is ill doing aught against them, and they so wise! Let us go back to the city--there be plenty of fools there.'
'Said I not so?' whispered the toothless comforter triumphantly, as the steps died away. 'He hath sent them forth discomfited. It was even so before, when Mohubbut waskhânsâmanto Ricketts-sahibwho was killed--but themem, was not.'
Mrs. Chris, however, was past comfort. Had they come back again she would not have stirred; and she sat in the darkness behind the heap of stones, shuddering and sobbing, too terrified even to hear that monotonous refrain--'Have no fear! Have no fear!'
They are idle words when the heart is full of forebodings. Grace Arbuthnot was finding them so but a few hundred yards away, though she stood calmly saying them to herself.
'There can be no fear!' she said. 'Why should they do him an injury?'
'Why, indeed?' echoed Sir George with an inward groan, born of wider experience of what men can do in such times as these; 'but whatcanhave become of the child?'
He had returned home but a few moments before--and far later than he had anticipated, owing to a raid which had been made on Chris Davenant's and Mr. Lucanaster's bungalows, which had ended in the burning of both--to find the whole household distracted.
For Jerry had disappeared; he was not to be found anywhere, neither was his Mohammedanchuprassi, nor his Hindoo bearer; both men who worshipped the child, who would to all appearance have given their lives for him.
For an instant Sir George's face had cleared at this information; but it had clouded again at the utter incomprehensibility of the whole affair. Lesley had put the child to bed before she had gone out on her cycle. He had then been quite happy, and was to play with his soldiers on 'The Land of Counterpane' till he felt sleepy. That was the last that had been seen of him. Needham, the maid, who worked in the next room, had heard no disturbance. She had been in and out of other rooms, naturally, but not for long. Grace had given a look in about eight o'clock, had seen the nightlight burning as usual--a little dimmer, perhaps--and, Jerry not having called to her, she had not risked disturbing him. Then had come the dinner-party. People had stayed late; and after they had gone she and Lesley had sat up talking, expecting every instant to hear Sir George return;--growing a little anxious as time went on, until, about half an hour ago, Captain Lloyd--who had gone off after the guests had left to see what news he could pick up--had come back with such good accounts, that Grace had sent Lesley to her bed.
Then, not till then, the child's absence was discovered. How long he had been absent, none could tell, for the only two servants likely to know, the two who never left him day or night, were gone also.
They had hunted everywhere: Nevill Lloyd had run back to the club to give the alarm to the men he had left there a few minutes before, Grace had made every inquiry of the other servants; but, she suggested, perhaps a man accustomed to cross-examining native witnesses might get at some clue--'There is nothing else to be done for the moment,' assented Sir George briefly. 'You had better leave me to do it, Grace--if you are here, they will be remembering what they saidto you.'
So Lesley and Grace--the latter still repeating those words: 'There can be no fear! Who would hurt the child? Why should they choose him, of all others?'--went and waited in the verandah overlooking the Garden Mound, for the first hint of Nevill Lloyd's return. And yet, while Grace said the words, she was conscious that there might be a reason. If some one wanted to force their hand about that unlucky letter--the letter that now meant the worst, since the troopshadbeen sent for, the promise of no coercion broken at the very beginning; unavoidably of course, yet none the less disastrously, if that letter became public property.
And Lesley's mind, also, was not without its sting of remorse added to its anxiety, as she stood in the fast-lightening dawn looking out into the dim shadows for hint or sign. Ought she to have told Grace why her cycle ride had been so long? Yetthatmade no difference tothis, and a knowledge of the truth would only take from Grace a belief that had made her glad.
No! she could not tell her now! She would wait till Jerry returned--if he did return!
Oh! what could have become of the child?
'Jerry! Jerry!' she called almost involuntarily, and with the cry came back a memory of that midnight chase after the boy.
And with that, came the thought of Jack Raymond and his warning--'He takes it too hard, dear little chap.' She laid her hand quickly on Grace Arbuthnot's wrist. 'I believe I know!' she said, starting to run. 'Come! Let us find Budlu first.'
But she was too late; as they rounded the carriage-drive, and saw on the grey sky of dawn above the blossoming trees the flagstaff with its drooping flag ready to welcome the sun as ever, there was a sound of voices, of laughter, from the ruins. And the next moment Nevill Lloyd, catching sight of them, was tearing across the lawns to meet them, shouting as he ran--
'It's all right, Lady Arbuthnot! Raymond ran the little beggar to earth in five minutes. He was up on the top of the tower with hischuprassi, his bearer, and Budlu the caretaker, and the young imp had got my whole sporting-magazine too! By Jove! if I'd only knownthat, I might have guessed--but Raymond did----
Grace, who had pulled up, felt the relief almost worse than the suspense; yet she kept calm.
'Lesley!' she said, 'run back and tell Sir George.'
'Let me!' cried Nevill Lloyd. 'Or stay! I'd better go and stop the search-parties.'
So, with light hearts and feet, they left Grace alone to meet the little procession that was coming across the dim lawns. Rather a crestfallen little procession--Jerry, full of yawns and but half awake, led by Jack Raymond, and followed by guilty figures carrying the sporting magazine.
'He is very sorry to have made you so anxious,' said Jack Raymond, grave with difficulty, 'but I have promised you won't scold him, because he meant well. He thought it was a mutiny, and he went to guard the flag.'
'And I did guard it!' put in Jerry aggrievedly, 'afore I went to sleep. For they comed to pull it down--didn't they?' He turned sharply to his henchmen.
'Huzoor!' they assented eagerly, seeing extenuation in the plea, 'without doubt they came.'
'They may have!' said Jack Raymond aside, 'I haven't had time to find out yet. He was asleep when I came, with the key of the door in his hand; and they were positively afraid to take it from him till I insisted!'
'He is more than half-asleep now, poor child,' replied Grace in the same tone, struggling with her desire to laugh, and cry, and hug Jerry all at once. 'Bearer, you had better take thechota-sahibback to his bed, and I will inquire about the rest by and by. Good-night, Jerry! or rather good-morning! You gave poor mum such a fright!'
'I'm solly,' murmured Jerry sleepily, shrinking as ever from the passionate caress she could not help giving, 'but they weally did come--didn't they?'
'Huzoor!without doubt they came!' echoed the trio forlornly.
'And I wouldn't be hard on them either,' said Jack Raymond, as the disconsolate little group moved homewards. 'I fancy they must have had some inkling of the city business, and then, when he started this game, they were in two minds if he wasn't right. You were all away, you see. And Master Jerry was completely master of the situation, I can tell you. He must have been thinking about it for some time, for he had provisions--chocolate caramels, and heaven knows what!--stored in the crevices--dear little chap! And that reminds me'--he paused with a laugh, and drew an official envelope sealed with a red seal out of his pocket--'here's his "Secret Despatches." They fell out of Lloyd's cartridge-case he was wearing, as he came down-stairs--he was so dead sleepy he could hardly stand--and I promised to hand them over to you. He has had them, he told me, these two months! and they are most important.'
Grace Arbuthnot took the envelope, gave a glance at it, a cry, certain, yet incredulous--
'It is my letter--theletter--how could he have found it!'
There was a pause as those two stood, in the dawn of another day, with that immemorial past about them, looking at each other almost doubtfully.
'There are more things in heaven and earth,' said the man at last. 'And so Jerry really has--hullo, what's up now? What doyouwant?'
'Khodawund!' replied the furtive importance, which was all that remained of the 'khânsâmanto Ricketts-sahib bahadurwho was killed,' as it salaamed low to the masters. 'There is amemyonder in the Residency, whom I, Mohubbut, brought thither as I brought the other, into the keeping of Jân-Ali-shân. And he hath kept her! Yea! during the night when the evildoers came, he kept her safe as he did of old. But now it is dawn, and though I tell thememit is safety, she listens not; but if theHuzoorscome, she will believe.'
'During the night!' commented Jack Raymond swiftly, as, scarcely able to believe their ears, those two followed the old man's lead. 'Then it is true--Jerry has--has kept the flag!'
The pendulum of India is a heavy one; it soon returns to its normal arc; and so, after a very few days, nothing remained to show that any force had sent it beyond its usual swing in Nushapore except the charred ruins of two bungalows; and they, being in Shark Lane, were not so muchen evidenceas they would have been elsewhere.
So far, even, as personal disturbance to the owners was concerned, the sum-total of effect was small; for Chris Davenant had not returned to hear of his loss, and Mrs. Chris, after the terrors of that night, when she had become part of the old half-crazykhânsâman'smemory of the past, seemed glad to be rid of any tie to India. Indeed, as the faces around her became graver when no tidings came of her husband, and the impression grew that he and Jân-Ali-shân had, in some mysterious way, been mixed up in the attempt to wreck the train, and the fall of the bastion, she seemed almost relieved. Her one desire was to escape from a place where such terror was possible; to return to London, to its ways and works. To the red Hammersmith 'bus that runs to Kew on Sundays; to the baker, the butcher, and the little greengrocer round the corner. And when she wept, it was chiefly because--having no worldly goods beyond a torn and tattered pink tarlatan--she could not engage her passage home, until a sufficient subscription was raised to pay for it. And she had not many friends.
So far as the one bungalow, therefore, was concerned, there were few regrets. On the other hand, Mr. Lucanaster's were distinctly above the average. He had not only been burned out of house and home, but of other more valuable things; since, almost before he had had time to consider how best to ensure their safety, an inrush of voices and steps in the verandah had made him think of that most valuable of all possessions--his life--and leave the rest--even the woman in the next room!
And as if this was not bad enough, something else had occurred which had reduced him to helpless impotent cursing and swearing against Fate, Jehân Aziz, Mrs. Chris Davenant, and everything that had conspired to bring about such incredible ill-luck.
And yet it was a very simple thing, almost ludicrously so.
The very day after the rioting, when all Nushapore was being searched for evidence, the police with great pride had brought him back the casket which had been left open on the table with the pink dewdrops beside it, when Mrs. Chris fled with thekhânsâmanof Rickett-sahib bahadur(who was killed). It was now closed, and had been discovered, they said, in the house of one Govind, who had been arrested on suspicion. And he, to screen himself doubtless from worse accusations, had stated that he had found it flung away on the road not far from the blazing bungalow. Therefore, since it was evidently a jewel casket, it was most likely part of theHuzoor'slost property; and if so, he could detail its contents and open the spring-lock with his key, in order that the description might be duly verified and the necessary forms filled up.
For one brief second Mr. Lucanaster had returned thanks to such gods as he possessed for this small mercy. Here was something saved from the generaldébâcle; to begin with, a very valuable ruby--and----
And then had come the horrid recollection of a certain string of pearls which could not be claimed.
It had nearly killed him to deny the ownership of the casket; but he had denied it. There was literally nothing else to be done, with that spring-lock and the key in his possession.
So when the police took it away in order to find the rightful owner, he had gone into his room at the hotel--it was next the one to which Mrs. Chris had been taken--and shaken his fist at her through the wall, and sworn horribly not only at his own loss, but at the gain of others, which, with his experience in jewel-jobbing, he knew would follow.
And it did; for no sooner was the casket filed open by the police and its contents made known by a list, than owners began to crop up--crowds of them.
But it was when an assistant police-officer at the club, thinking to rouse him from his general despondency by putting him on the track of a good thing, mentioned that there had been a ruby in the casket which he really ought to get hold of; a ruby that had been claimed, on irrefragable evidence, as an heirloom by a peculiarly impecunious member of the Royal Family, from whom he could no doubt get it cheap without much trouble--it was then that Mr. Lucanaster had fled from his fellows, and actually wept to think that after three years' hard scheming he had bought that ruby at something like its real value.
That had been the worst blow; but there had been similar ones, and quite a large number of the pensioners invested in new cocks and quails and went about with cheerful countenances.
Another result was that Grace Arbuthnot, as she stood one day re-threading the four pearls which Sobrai Begum had brought to Miss Leezie's house on to the string that had been found in the casket, declared that it was just like the last chapter in a novel. Everything was clearing itself up--her face certainly warranted the remark--and rounding itself off neatly for the end. She thought, as she spoke, of the lost letter, the recovery of which, as Jerry's 'Secret Despatches,' had seemed so mysterious, until the child had told her quite simply that he had found the envelope in a bush in the garden--flung away most likely by the thief as valueless--and had kept it to play with, because some one 'must have hidden it, you know, an' didn't want people to wead it, so it was secwet.'
But she did not speak of this; she only said that she had never expected to see her pearls again, yet here they were, with only one a-missing--her dear old pearls! She held them up to her white throat and smiled, thinking of the many happy hours she had spent with their touch upon her.
If any one had told her that that was the first time theyhadtouched a slender white throat, and that the last time a woman had worn them, they had been snatched from a slender brown one and flung in the dust from scorn of the hours they had brought to a bride, she would not have believed it.
Not her pearls! Whose else could they be? Had not even Mr. Lucanaster given his opinion on them as an expert? for even that agony had not been spared to the unfortunate man.
'Yes,' answered Sir George, who had stopped his writing to admire his wife and think how happy and handsome she looked, and how glad he was for her sake that the strain and anxiety was over, as it seemed to be, 'it is rather curious how everything is falling into line. It is always the "first step" in India, of course, and so it was only to be expected that things would settle into march time after a bit. But Jehân Aziz's death and this finding of the pearls has disposed of that story, for Burkut Ali, the doctors say, isn't likely to live, and the girl is certainly a thief, whatever else she may be. And it disposes of the pestilent fellow who wrote that threatening letter also.' He paused. 'Then Kenyon was only telling me this morning what an extraordinary quieting effect that incident inMaiKâli's temple has had. Of course, we haven't got to the bottom of it quite. No one will give evidence, because of the miracle; but the fact remains that the prophecy was fulfilled.'
'Then there is the bridge business,' said Grace thoughtfully. 'Has anything new cropped up?'
Sir George shook his head, then frowned. 'Not about that, beyond the fact that the engine-driver is quite certain he heard singing, and that of course points to the loafer Ellison; and as he was Davenant's foreman of works, the two were likely to be together. But--but,' he frowned again, and let his hand busy itself impatiently with a pile of papers, 'there is something else. You know, we wondered how the troops got here so soon. Well, there is something odd about the telegram. Times don't tally, and it seems another telegram was sent direct to the station to detain the up-mail, pending orders. It came in--"urgent"--just as the train was in, and the station-master--he is a native--got flurried and sent up, with the telegram we know about--at least I suppose so--to cantonments for further orders, when, of course, the commandant jumped at the chance. And now the station-master can't find the wire, isn't sure if it ever was written out, as he was in the telegraph-office at the time waiting for the up-signals. And there is no trace of it this end. Nothing but the telegraph--form I gave Kenyon to fill in, and which he sent to the railway-office. But there, again, the time doesn't tally with Kenyon's recollections, and though the order is identical the wording is slightly different, for he put in something about stopping the night-mail, which isn't in the wire the commandant received. That part seems to have been made into a separate order and construed into the up-mail. But that may be due to thebaboos; a couple of greater fools never were. They seem to know nothing; especially the one here. Kenyon says the clocks may have been wrong; but I can't help wondering. Davenant seems to have known something, and he was seen at his works after dusk; if he had been another sort of fellow--but it is impossible! There isn't one Englishman in a thousand, let alone a native, who would take such a responsibility. I wouldn't, and I don't know any one who would; at any rate who would, and then keep quiet when it was successful--for it was! It made all the difference: as I've told Kenyon, he has the entire credit; but for him we should have had a row.'
'But if you hadn't given him the telegram----'
Sir George shook his head in honest obstinacy. 'I never meant it to be used; I didn't believe in the danger. As I told Mr. Raymond, he was right, and I was wrong; so that is an end of it, my dear.'
He seemed quite satisfied, especially when his wife stooped suddenly, and kissed the top of his head; though he wondered, as she left the room, if he was really getting a little bald! not so much because her lips had thrilled him, but because he was observant enough to have noticed that a partially bald head is provocative of wifely kissing. Still, even that evil had to be faced in the cause of empire, and so the honest gentleman took up his pen and continued the report of recent affairs which he was writing, and in which the credit of saving the situation was given unstintingly not to himself, but to others; for Sir George was a gentleman.
Grace, however, though she was a lady, and despite that kiss of approval, felt a trifle annoyed. It was very nice of George to minimise his part in the business; yet when all was said and done, hehadconsented to give the order--consented almost in defiance of the official programme. The more she thought of it, the more aggrieved she felt for him; and so, when she found Lesley alone in the school-room, she sought her sympathy, explained the whole position at great length, and wound up by the appeal--
'Now, do you see what right Mr. Kenyon has to all the credit?'
Lesley had so far managed to keep a calm sough without much difficulty; at the present moment, however, something seemed wrong with her work, for she was very busy with it at the window.
'No!' she said at last, 'I don't!' and then she repeated the remark with palpable resentment: 'Certainly not! He had nothing to do with it--nothing at all.'
Grace looked in her direction with dubious curiosity.
'You don't mean, do you,' she asked, 'that you think any one else----'
'I don't think anything at all,' interrupted the girl hurriedly. 'I only say that Mr. Kenyon didn't--I mean that he isn't the right person to praise.'
But Lady Arbuthnot was not to be put off. 'Because that really is quite absurd, as I told George. And he admitted that he did not know of any one--not a single man who would have taken such a grave responsibility. Now do you? Tell the truth, Lesley! do you know any one?'
'Perhaps there was more than a single man,' suggested Lesley evasively, the knot in her thread becoming extremely troublesome.
Grace, from her chair, gave an irritated glance towards the window. 'My dear Lesley! you are not often so--so precise! As if it mattered to my argument if there were one or two! I wish you would leave off threading your needle, or whatever it is, and come here and be a little sympathetic. It means so much tome, you know--so, if you wish it, we will say two! Do you know of any two people who could and would do such a thing?'
Lesley folded up her work with great method, but remained where she was.
'Why should we complicate matters by saying two?' she asked pugnaciously. 'And after all, it wasn't--I mean it would not be such a very big thing. There must be lots of people in the world who could do it. Just think! even among the men one knows.'
'People who could, and would!' echoed Grace in the same tone. 'No! I don't know any one!' She paused, and added a trifle bitterly: 'I know one, whocould; but then he wouldn't!--Mr. Raymond.'
'Mr. Raymond! Why should you say he wouldn't?' asked the girl swiftly. 'Why----?'
'You needn't be so fierce, Lesley!' interrupted Grace, with a little hard laugh, 'though you don't think him half bad. For many reasons! No--he wouldn't help--us--in a thing like that--not he!'
'That isn't fair,' cried Lesley in a flame. 'If you knew----' She paused, but was too late.
'If I knew what?' asked Lady Arbuthnot, rising and coming to the window; then standing before the girl, to say, after a pause: 'You will have to tell me, you know, Lesley; you have started me, and I'm not a fool. And of course I know--Jerry told me--that Mr. Raymond had come to cycle with you that evening--thatthatwas why you were so late; but I said nothing, because I thought it was only----'
'I don't care what you thought,' interrupted Lesley angrily; 'and I won't tell you anything unless you promise not to speak----'
'I will promise not to tell any one who ought not to know that I know,' put in Grace Arbuthnot proudly. 'I won't promise more----'
'And who wants more?' cried the girl hotly. 'Of course, if people ought to know, they must know. That is the only reason why I'm telling you. I didn't mean to, but if you can be so--so unjust, it is only right that you should know the truth.'
'I can judge of that for myself when you have told me, so you needn't waste time,' retorted Grace.
A sudden antagonism had sprung up between the two women of which they were both aware, of which they were both vaguely ashamed, but which they could not ignore.
'Thank you!' said Grace, with chill dignity when the recital was over. 'You were right to tell me. I will apologise to Mr. Raymond.'
'To Mr. Raymond!' echoed Lesley, carried beyond her resentment by eagerness. 'No! Lady Arbuthnot--not to him. He is not one of the people who ought to know that you know!'
'May I ask why?'
For an instant it seemed as if Lesley would have matched Grace in resentment, and then suddenly she held out her hands in swift appeal.
'Oh! don't be angry, please! but surely after what happened between you--I cant help knowing that, can I?--you owe Mr. Raymond something--you ought to let him have this--this revenge to himself--just to take the sting away.'
'To himself!' echoed Grace scornfully. 'I presume you mean to himself and you----'
'Oh! you may be as nasty as you like about that,' interrupted Lesley hotly, 'but I know I am right. It would only be a fresh tie between you--a new sentiment.'
Lady Arbuthnot flushed up to the eyes. 'Really, Lesley! you pass bounds! You speak as if I wanted to--to clutch at Mr. Raymond, when I should only be too glad if---- However, as you say, my apology is a triviality. Sir George shall----'
'Sir George!' echoed Lesley in her turn, shaking her head. 'No! he is not one of those who ought to know that you know, either. He may have to know, perhaps, but it should not be through you. Look! how hewillgive the credit to Mr. Kenyon; and if he knew it was Mr. Raymond, he would insist still more on giving it to him. You know he would, Lady Arbuthnot--there would be a fuss, and every one would talk, and he would hate it--almost worse than Mr. Raymond. Why not leave it alone--if we can--what harm does it do?'
'You have grown very wise, Lesley,' said the elder woman after a pause. 'Love, they say, has eyes----'
'Love!' Lesley flashed round on her like a whirlwind. 'Ah! I wish there was no such thing in the world. Then we women would have a chance of being sensible. Love! No, Lady Arbuthnot, love has nothing to do with it---nothing.'
They stood facing each other, those two, and then a smile--distinctly a pleased smile--came to the older face. 'But, my dear child, you don't mean to tellmethat you are not in love with Mr. Raymond!'
The flush up to the eyes was Lesley's now; but she stood her ground bravely. 'It does not matter if I am or not; I am not going to talk of it. And I promised him----'
Grace broke in with a little peal of laughter, tender, amused, pathetic, yet acquiescent laughter. 'Has it got so far as that? Ah! Lesley dear! I'm so glad.'
The girl looked at her with a faint wonder, a great admiration, then shook her head.
'I believe you are made different from me,' she said soberly. 'I can only understand one thing about it all--how it was thathenever forgot--well, never quite forgot. For there is nothing to be glad of, I can assure you--nothing at all.'
She did not, in truth, look as if there was; but Grace, as she took Sir George his tea, as she always did, had her eyes full of that mysterious gladness which any sentiment, even sorrow, brings to some women's faces. It suited hers, and so her husband's had quite a lover-like diffidence in it as he watched her fingering the thin gold chain with pink topazes hanging from it, which he took from a drawer.
'It was in that casket the police found,' he explained, 'and I told them, if no owner turned up for it, to send it for you to see, and then if you liked it----'
She looked up, smiling. 'It is too young for me. Yes! it is true, George, I am getting old--ever so old! But I'll tell you what we will do! If we can buy it, we will give it to Lesley as a wedding-present when she marries Mr. Raymond.'
Sir George sat back in his chair--perhaps she had meant that he should.
'My dear girl!' he said feebly, 'this is the first I have heard of it. Mr. Raymond! And I thought----'
'Never mind what you thought,' she put in decidedly: 'it isn't quite settled yet; but it is going to be. Oh yes! it is going to be!'
'Well!' said Sir George--recovering himself for the usual formula,--'he is a very lucky fellow! But it is--er--all the more likely to be so, because, curiously enough, I have been told to offer Mr. Raymond the trusteeship of the old Thakoor of Dhurmkote's affairs. In fact, the old man refused pointblank to have any one else, and as we want him to retrench and adopt an heir properly----'
'My dear George!' exclaimed Lady Arbuthnot, 'how perfectly delightful!--it--it will settle everything!'
'Yes; I--I suppose it will,' replied Sir George dubiously, and then his sober common sense came to the front--'not, my dear, that I exactly see what had to--to--er--be settled.'
'No! perhaps not,' said Grace thoughtfully, 'but it will, all the same.'
With which mysterious remark she went off to set springes for that Love with a big L, whichwasto settle all things.
She was an expert in the art, as women of her type always are, and yet the days passed without bringing her success. For something, of which she knew nothing, stood between those two.
Put briefly, it was arâm-rucki. And so when they met--which was inevitably often, under Lady Arbuthnot's skilful hands--they talked of everything under the sun--of their adventure together, of the extraordinary way in which Fate had favoured them, of Chris Davenant and Jân-Ali-shân's mysterious disappearances, of the pearls, and the signet of royalty that was not to be found anywhere. They even talked of the Thakoor of Dhurmkote, and the almost endless interest and power of such a life as that now offered to Jack Raymond--they even quarrelled over his hesitancy in accepting it; but they never talked of what Lesley had asked him to forget--what she had stigmatised scornfully as the 'rest of it.'
Grace became almost tearful over the fact. It seemed to her at last as if, even here, hers was not to be the hand to wile Jack Raymond back either to duty or pleasure.
And it was not. That task was reserved for a simpler hand; a hand that had neither clutched nor refused, the hand of a woman to whom 'the rest of it' was neither to be despised nor overestimated, and who had neither scorned it nor sought for it.
It was Auntie Khôjee's when, one day, Jack Raymond and Lesley found themselves deftly manœuvred by Grace Arbuthnot into thetête-à-têteof a visit to the old lady; not in the least against their wills, for he was quite content with, and she vastly superior to, such palpable ruses; besides, she really wanted to see the originator of therâm-rucki, who was now decently established on the top of an offshoot of the city, which jutted out into that very pleasure-garden to which the old lady had come with her petition to the bracelet-brother.
So, one morning, Lesley drove down to the Garden. Jack Raymond met her, riding, at the gate, and together they strolled along that wide cross of water and marble and flowers, and climbed the dark stair which led to the little square of roof and the little slip of room that were only just large enough for Auntie Khôjee and the helplessness for which she cared; for Khôjee, helpless as she was, had always stood between some one still more helpless and the buffets of fate, and would have felt lost without the occupation.
And there was no reason why she should be without it, when Lateefa, paralysed from the waist beyond all hope of ever getting about again, lacked a caretaker.
And so he sat, busy as ever, with slips of bamboo and sheets of tissue-paper on the little square of roof, just as he had sat in the wide courtyard where the royal peacocks now spread their broken plaster tails over plague patients--those plague patients which the vast stability of the Oriental had by this time accepted as inevitable; which it had taken, as it were, into its immemorial custom.
Lateefa had been once more asking for paste, and Khôjee had brought him some--without lumps!--in a leaf cup; for she laid it aside to receive Jack Raymond with a 'Bismillah!' of pleasure, and the strange Miss with a ceremonioussalaam. Lateefa had the latter for both visitors, but there was a bold questioning in his black eyes for theHuzoor, who gave back the look with a valiant attempt at unconsciousness.
There was a curious peace up there on the roof, Lesley felt, with only one or two of Lateefa's kites between you and the sky, and the even flow of Lateefa's Persian quotations in your ears; for Auntie Khôjee--after disposing her guests on two rush stools--had hurried into the slip of a room for cardamoms, since they belong to congratulations as well as to consolations.
And, nowadays, what with her pension and Lateefa's earnings, there were always cardamoms, real cardamoms, on the roof, and many another comfort besides.
Lateefa, making polite conversation, admitted this openly, while Jack Raymond looked uneasily at Lesley, wondering--if her knowledge of the vernacular had not been mercifully limited--what she would have said to the pointed allusions to the benefit every man derived from associating himself with a truly virtuous woman, and the desirableness of settling down in time; not as he--Lateefa--had done, too late for hope of leaving aught behind him but the flimsy children of naught above him! A sorry legacy to the world; though in their day they had done strange things! But theHuzoorwas wiser! He----
Here Aunt Khôjee--who with the most innocent of vanities had spent part of her absence in putting on a very stiff new pink net veil, which during the rest of the visit refused to stop on her head, and to the old lady's intense discomfiture left her sparse grey hairs indecently exposed at crucial moments--reappeared with the cardamoms, to Jack Raymond's great relief; though he soon discovered that the real horror of the situation was only just beginning.
For, seated decorously apart, yet with her half-averted face alight with smiles and interest, she began on a series of questions which made his heart sink within him, since he knew Lesley of old.
And sure enough it was not long before the latter said, aggrievedly, 'You might translate what she is saying. After all, I did come to visit her, you know!'
He left the path of truth, then, desperately, with the result that Lesley commissioned him to make the proper reply to such Oriental periphrasis--something,he was to be sure, that would please the dear old thing.
Then he realised that he was hopelessly emmeshed, for, of course, Auntie Khôjee wanted a reply to her question; and it was not what she had desired, at all.
'She doesn't look a bit pleased,' remarked Lesley,de haut en bas. 'Dear me! I wish I could speak. I know I could do better than that! And I hate being dependent.'
'I wish you could,' said Jack Raymond grimly. 'I don't want to be a go-between!'
His evident ill-temper mollified her. 'Well! at any rate, you might try again, and say something else.'
So he did; and he and Aunt Khôjee had quite an animated passage, while Lateefa from his kites listened, and looked knowing.
'Well!' remarked Lesley at last, quite angrily. 'I don't see what was the use in my coming at all! You might at least give me a hint of what you are talking about! It is very rude.'
His temper went then altogether. 'If you want to know,' he said, still more grimly, 'she was asking when we are going to be married.'
Lesley gasped. 'Married!'--she echoed indignantly, yet conscious of a curious desire to smile and feel happy which must be squashed firmly--'well! if she does, Mr. Raymond, you can tell her--never!' Her dignity was tremendous.
'I have told her so three times,' replied Jack Raymond gravely, 'but she won't believe it; she says----'
'I don't care what she says,' retorted Lesley quickly. 'She must bemadeto believe it. Tell her--tell her about therâm-rucki, and all that. She will understand then.'
'She may,' assented Jack dubiously; 'but it is a little--ahem--mixed up----isn't it?'
A suspicion that the situation was beginning to amuse him made her say--
'Not at all! Of course she will understand. She gave you arâm-rucki, and why--why shouldn't I?'
'No reason at all. I'm awfully glad you did.'
He looked it, and Lesley felt once more that absurd desire to smile and feel happy as she sat listening, watching the withered old face, waiting for the answer.
It was not much when it came. It was only a pursing up of the lips that had never known a lover's kiss, a gentle raillery in the kind tear-dimmed eyes, and a brisk flirt of the fingers that had worn themselves to the bone to bring happiness to others.
'Trra!' said Auntie Khôjee, with supreme unconcern for explanations. 'Trra!'
'I'm afraid it is no go, Miss Drummond,' said Jack decorously. 'I believe it--it would save trouble if we--for the time only, of course----'
Lesley blushed a fine blush. 'I daresay you are right,' she assented, supremely superior; 'it doesn't really matter--for the time,' she added significantly.
And after that an almost reckless happiness was added to the peace of the roof.
Lateefa quoted Hâfiz by the yard. Auntie Khôjee got hold of Lesley's hand and held it fast with one of hers, while the other slid up and down the girl's arm with the little caressing pats and pinches with which she had tried to wile away Noormahal's weariness, and Jack Raymond sat and looked on with----