CHAPTER VII. ON THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
The more a man has in himself, the less he will want from other people.
“Here—hi!”
As no one replied to this summons either, by voice or approach, the young man subsided into occupied silence.
He was a very large young man, with a fair moustache which looked almost flaxen against the deep tan of his face. This last, like the rest of him, was ludicrously typical of that race which has wandered farther than the Jews, and has hitherto managed, like them, to retain a few of its characteristics. The Anglo-Saxonism of this youth was almost aggressive. It lurked in the neat droop of moustache, which was devoid of that untidy suggestion of a beer-mug characterising the labial adornment of a northern flaxen nation of which we wot. It shone calmly in the glance of a pair of reflectively deep blue eyes—it threw itself at one from the pockets of an old tweed jacket worn in conjunction with regulation top-boots and khaki breeches.
Moreover, it gave birth to a quiet sense of being as good as any one else, and possibly better, which sat without conceit on his brow.
It would seem that he really did not want to be answered just then, for he did not raise a voice accustomed to dominate the clatter of horses' feet, nor did he pass any comment on the carelessness or criminal absence of some person or persons unknown.
He merely took up his pen again, and proceeded to handle that mighty weapon with an awkwardness suggestive of a greater skill with another instrument only less powerful. He was seated on two reversed buckets, pyramidally balanced, at a small table which had the air of wide capabilities in some other sphere of usefulness. There was a weird cunning in the legs of this table indicative of subtle change into a camp-bed or possibly a canoe.
The writing materials consisted of a vaseline bottle (fourpenny size) full of ink, and two weary pieces of blotting-paper. The paper upon which he was writing had a travelled and somewhat jaundiced air, the penholder was of gold. In the furniture of the tent, as in the canvas thereof, there was that mournful suggestion of better days which is held to be a virtue in furnished apartments. But over all there hovered that sense of well-scrubbed cleanliness which comes from the touch of a native military servant. An indulgence in this habit of rubbing and scrubbing was indeed accountable for much dilapidation; for that silent little Ghoorka man, Ben Abdi, had rubbed and scrubbed many things not intended by an ingenious camp-furnisher for such treatment. James Edward Makerstone Agar was engaged in the compilation of a diary, which volume there is reason to believe is still preserved in a woman's jewel drawer.
It has not run through any editions—indeed, no compositor's finger has up to this time defiled its pages. This, in fact, was one of those literary works, ground slowly out from the millstones of the brain, of which the style fails to please the taste of the present day. To catch the fancy of a slang-loving and thoughtless generation the writer must throw off his works. This is an age of “throwing off,” and it is to be presumed that future ages will throw the result away. One must be brilliant, shallow, slightly unpleasant and very unwholesome, to acquire nowadays that best of all literary reputations which leaveth a balance at one's bank.
J.E.M. Agar—or “Jem” as his friends call him to his face and his servants behind his back—Jem Sahib to wit—was no Pepys. His literary style was disjointed, heavy, and occasionally illiterate. This last peculiarity, by the way, is of no consequence nowadays, but it is mentioned here for ulterior motives. In the pages of this little black-bound volume there were no scintillating thoughts scribbled there with suspicious neatness of diction, such as one finds in the diaries of great men who, it would seem, are not above post-mortem vanity. The diary was a chronicle of solid facts—Jem being essentially solid and a man of the very plainest facts.
Speaking as an impartial critic, one would incline to the opinion that Agar devoted too much thought to his work—in strong contrast, perhaps, to the literary tendency of his day. He nibbled the leisure end of his penholder too much, and allowed the business extremity thereof to dry in inky conglomeration. The result was a distinct sense of labour in the style of the work. After having called in vain, perhaps for assistance, the scribe returned to the contemplation of his latest effort. The book was one of Letts's diaries, three days in a page, which are in themselves fatal to a finished style of literature. There is always too much to say or too little. One's thoughts never fit the rhomboid apportioned by Mr. Letts for their accommodation. Great men who have thoughts when the diary is handy do not, of course, patronise Letts, because he could not be expected to know when there would be a sunset likely to stir up poetic reflections, or a moonrise comparable with the cold light cast by some unsympathetic young woman's eyes upon the poet's life.
For such men, however, as Agar, Mr. Letts is a guardian angel. The space is there, and facts must be forthcoming to fill it. Agar was, and is still—thank Heaven—a conscientious man. He had promised to keep this diary and keep it he did. And surely he hath his reward—remembering the jewel drawer.
At the moment under consideration he was filling in yesterday's rhomboid, and paused at the conclusion of the following remarks:
“Seven A.M. Turned out, and shot a Ghilzai. Saw him sneaking up the valley. Long shot—should put it down at a hundred and seventy-five yards. Hit him in the stom—abd—chest. Looked like rain until two o'clock. Then cleared up. Walter caught a mongoose and brought him in with much triumph. He got conceited afterwards and slept on my bed till kicked off by Ben Abdi. I see it's Sunday. Church four hundred odd miles away.”
This, my masters, is not the stuff to quote in extenso, and yet in its day this diary was cried over—before it was put away in the jewel drawer. Truly women are strange—one can never tell how a thing will present itself to them. Honest Jem Agar, nibbling his penholder and jerking these lucid observations out of his military brain by mere force of discipline, never suspected the heart that was in it all—that minute particle of himself that lay in the blot in the corner carefully absorbed by the exhausted blotting-paper.
“Sunday, egad!” he muttered, leaning his arms on the cunning table, and gazing out across the pine-clad valley that lay below him in a deep blue haze.
He stared into the haze, and there he saw those whom he called “his people” walking across a neat English park toward a peaceful little English church. To them came presently a young person; a young person clad in pink cotton, who walked with a certain demure sureness of tread, as if she knew her own mind and other things besides. Her path came into the park from the left, and among the trees into which it disappeared behind her there stood the red chimneys of a long low house.
Suddenly these visions vanished before something more tangible in the haze of the valley. This was the flutter of a dirty white rag which seemed to come and go among the fir trees.
Jem Agar rose from his temporary seat and walked to the door of the tent—exactly two strides. A rifle lay against the canvas, and this he took up, slowly cocking it without taking his eyes from the belt of fir trees across the valley.
Presently he threw the rifle up and fired instantaneously. He had been musketry instructor in his time and held views upon quick firing. The smoke rose lazily in the ambient air, and he saw a figure all fluttering rags and flying turban running down the slope away from him. At the same moment there was a crashing volley, followed by two straggling reports. The figure stopped, seemed to hesitate, and then slowly subsided into the grass.
Agar put his head out of the tent and saw half a company of Goorkhas, keen little sportsmen all standing in line at the edge of the plateau, reloading.
This was the force at the disposal of Major J. E. M. Agar, at that time occupying and holding for Her Majesty the Queen of England and Empress of India a very advanced position on the northern frontier of India. And in this manner he spent most of his days and some of his nights. In addition to the plain Major he had several other titles attached to his name at that time, indicative of duties real and imaginary. He was “deputy assistant” several things and “acting” one or two; for in military titles one begins in inverse ratio in a large way, and ends in something short.
Jem Agar was thought very highly of by almost all concerned, except himself, and it had not occurred to him to devote much thought to this matter. He was one of the very few men to whom a senior officer or a pretty girl could say, “You are a nice man and a clever fellow,” without doing the least harm. Men who thought such things of themselves laughed at him behind his back, and wondered vaguely why he got promotion. It never occurred to them to reflect that “old Jem” invariably acquitted himself well in each new position thrust upon him by a persistently kind fortune; they contented themselves with an indefinite conviction that each severally could have done better, as is the way of clever young men. One of the many mysteries, by the way, which will have to be cleared up in a busy hereafter is that appertaining to brilliant boys, clever undergraduates, and gifted young men. What becomes of them? There are hundreds at school at this moment—we have it from their own parents; hundreds more at Oxford and Cambridge—we have it from themselves. In a few years they will be absorbed in a world of men very much inferior to themselves (by their own showing), and will be no more seen.
Jem Agar had never been a clever boy. He was not a clever man. But—and mark ye this—he knew it. The result of this knowledge was that he did what he could in the present with the present, and did not indefinitely postpone astonishing the universe, as most of us do, until some future date.
At this time he was banished, as some would take it. Banished to the top of a pass which was nought else than a footway between two empires. Forty miles from men of his own race, this man was one of those who either have no thoughts or no wish to impart them; for this racial solitude, which is an emotion fully explored by many in India, in no way affected his nerves. Some say that they get jumpy, others aver that they begin to lose their national characteristics and develop barbarous proclivities, while one Woods-and-Forests man known to some of us resigned because he had a buzzing in the head during the long solitary, silent evenings.
Major Agar made no statements on this point, though he listened with sympathy to the assertions of others. If the sympathy were subtly mingled with non-comprehensive wonder, the seeker after a purer form of commiseration attributed the alloy to natural density, and turned elsewhere.
Accompanied by a handful of Goorkhas, Major J. E. M. Agar had occupied the key to this narrow pass for more than a week, vaguely admiring the scenery, illustrating upon living “running deer” in turbans his views upon quick firing to his diminutive soldiers, who worshipped him as second only to the gods, and possessing his soul with that trustful patience which is rapidly becoming old-fashioned and effete.
During that same week the newspapers at home had been very busy with his name. Some had gone so far as to lay before a greedy public a short and succinct account of his life, compiled from the Army List and a journalistic imagination, finishing the record on the Monday, six days previously, with the usual three-line regret that England should in future be compelled to limp along the path to glory without the assistance of so brilliant a young officer.
Such a word as brilliant had never been coupled with the name of Jem even by his best friend in earnest or his worst enemy in irony. Such sarcasm were too shallow to be worth sounding even in disparagement. But we never know what an obituary notice may bring. Not only had he been endowed with many virtues, manly qualities, and the record of noble deeds, but more substantial honours had been heaped upon his fallen crest or pinned upon his breathless bosom. To some of his distant countrymen he was the proud possessor of the Victoria Cross, awarded him post-mortem in the heat of obituary enthusiasm by more than one local paper. To others he was held up by what is called a Representative Press as a second Crichton. And all this because he was dead. Such is glory.
All unconscious of these honours, honest Jem Agar sat in his little tent, nibbling the end of his penholder—the gift, by the way, of his father—and wishing that he had bought a Letts's diary with six days in a page instead of three.
CHAPTER VIII. RELIEVED
Well waited is well done.
“Here—hi!”
This time some one heard him, and that small, silent man, Ben Abdi, stood in the doorway of the tent at attention.
“Are you keeping a good look-out down the valley?” asked Major Agar.
“Ee yess, sar.”
“No signs of any one?”
“No, sar.”
Agar shut up the diary, which book Ben Abdi had been taught to regard as strictly official, laid it aside, and passed out of the tent, the little Goorkha following close upon his heels with a quick intelligent interest in his every movement which somehow suggested a dusky and faithful little dog.
For some moments they stood thus on the edge of the small plateau, the big man in front, the little one behind—alert, with twinkling, beady eyes. Behind them towered a bleak grey slope of bare rock, like a cliff set back at a slight angle, so treeless, so smooth was the face of it. In front the great blue-shadowed valley lay beneath them, stretching away to the south, until in a distant haze the sharp hills seemed to close in and cut it short.
Perched thus, as it were, upon the roof of the world, these two men looked down upon it all with a calm sense of possession, and to him of the dominant race standing there some thousands of miles from his native land—alone—master of this great stretch of an alien shore, there must have come some passing thought of the strangeness of it all.
There was something wrong—he knew that. His orders had been to press forward and occupy this little ridge, which was vaguely marked on the service maps as Mistley's Plateau, named after an adventurous soul, its discoverer. He had been instructed to hold this against all comers, and if possible to prevent communication between the two valleys, connected only by this narrow pass. All this Agar had carried out to the letter; but some one else had failed somewhere.
“It will be three days at the most,” his chief had said, “and the main body of the advance guard will join you!”
Jem Agar had been in occupation a week, and it seemed that he and his little band of men were forgotten of the world. Still this soldier held on, saying nothing to his men, writing his intensely practical diary, and trusting as a soldier should to the Deus ex machina who finally allows discipline to triumph. He looked down into the valley, piercing the shimmer of its hazes with his gentle blue eyes, looking to his chief, who had said, “In three days I will join you.”
It was not the first time that Agar and the little non-commissioned native officer, Ben Abdi, had stood thus together. They had taken their stand in this same spot in the keen air of the early morning, with the white frost crystallising the stones around them; in the glow of midday; and when the moon, hanging over the sharp-pointed hills, cast the valley into an opaque shade dark and fathomless as the valley of death.
Scanning the distant hills, Agar presently raised his eyes, noting the position of the sun in the heavens.
“Have you tried the heliograph a second time this morning?” he asked without looking round, which informality of manner warmed the little soldier's heart.
“Yes, sar. Three times since breakfast.”
It was the first time that Ben Abdi had found himself in a position of some responsibility, in immediate touch with one of the white-skinned warriors from over seas whose methods of making war had for him all the mystery and the infinite possibilities of a religion. This silent looking out for relief partook in some small degree of the nature of a council of war. Jem Sahib and himself were undoubtedly the chiefs of this expeditionary force, and to whom else than himself, Ben Abdi, should the Major turn for counsel and assistance? The little Goorkha preferred, however, that it should be thus; that Agar Sahib should say nothing, merely allowing him to stand silent three paces behind. He was a modest little man, this Goorkha, and knew the limit of his own capabilities, which knowledge, by the way, is not always to be found in the hearts of some of us boasting a fairer skin. He knew that for hard fighting, snugly concealed behind a rock at two hundred yards, or in the open, with cunning bayonet or swinging kookery, he was as good as his fellows; but for strategy, for the larger responsibilities of warfare, he was well pleased that his superior officer should manage these affairs in his quiet way unaided.
During a luncheon more remarkable for heartiness of despatch than delicacy of viand, James Edward Makerstone Agar devoted much thought to the affairs of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of India. After luncheon he lighted a cheroot, threw himself on his bed, and there reflected further. Then he called to him Ben Abdi.
“No more promiscuous shooting,” he said to him. “No more volley firing at a single Ghilzai or a stray Bhutari. It seems that they do not know we are here, as we are left undisturbed. I do not want them to know—understand? If you see any one going along the valley, send two men after him; no shooting, Ben Abdi.”
And he pointed with his cheroot towards the evil-looking curved knife which hung at the Goorkha's side.
Ben Abdi grinned. He understood that sort of business thoroughly.
Then followed many technical instructions—not only technical in good honest English, but interlarded with words from a language which cannot be written with our alphabet for the benefit of such as love details of a realistic nature.
The result of this council was that sundry little dusky warriors were busy clambering about the rocky slope all that day and well into the short hill-country evening, working in twos and threes with the alacrity of ants.
Jem Agar, in his own good time, was proceeding to further fortify, as well as circumstances allowed, the position he had been told to hold until relief should come. In addition to the magic of the master's eye he lent the assistance of his strong right arm, laying his lithe weight against many a rock which his men could not move unaided. By the evening the position was in a fairly fortified state, and, after a copious dinner in the chill breeze that rushed from the mountain down to the valley after sunset, he walked placidly up and down at the edge of the plateau, watching, ever watching, but with calmness and no sign of anxiety.
Such it is to be an Englishman—the product of an English public school and country life. Thick-limbed, very quiet; thick-headed if you will!—that is as may be—but with a nerve of iron, ready to face the last foe of all—Death, without so much as a wink.
To his ear came at times the low cautious cry of some night-bird sailing with heavy wing down to the haunt of mouse or mole; otherwise the night was still as only mountain night-seasons are. Far down below him, the jungle and forest were rustling with game and beasts of prey seeking their meat from God, but the larger beasts of India, unlike their African brethren, move in silence, stealthy yet courageous; and the distance was too great for the quickly stifled cry of the victim of panther or tiger to reach him.
When the moon rose he made the round of his pickets—a matter of ten minutes—and then to bed.
On the morning of the ninth day he thought he detected signs of uneasiness in the faces of the men. He found their keen little visages ever turned towards him, watching his every movement, noting the play of every feature. So in his simplicity he practised a simple diplomacy. He hummed to himself as he went his rounds and while he sat over his diary. He only knew one song—“A Warrior Bold”—which every mess in India associated with old Jem Agar, for no evening was considered complete without the Major's one ditty if he were present. He had stood up and roared it in many strange places, quite without sentiment, without self-consciousness, without afterthought. He never thought it a matter of apology that he should have failed to learn another song. The smile with which many ladies of his acquaintance sat down to play the accompaniment by heart conveyed nothing to him. He did not pretend to be a singer—he knew that one song, and if they liked it he would sing it. Moreover, they did like it, and that was why they asked for it. It did some of them good to see honest Jem get on his legs and shout out, in a very musical voice, with perfect truth to air, what seemed to be a plain statement of his creed of life.
So, far up on Mistley Plateau, nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, Jem Agar advised his little dark-visaged fighters, sotto voce, while he puzzled over his diary, that his love had golden hair, with eyes so blue and heart so true, that none with her compared; moreover, that he didn't care if death were nigh, because he had fought for love, and for love would die.
It was not very deep or very subtle, but it served the purpose. It kept up the hearts of his handful of warriors, who, in common with their chief, had something child-like and simple in their honest, sporting souls.
Shortly after tiffin Ben Abdi came to the Major's tent, speaking hurriedly in his own tongue.
One of the men had seen the sunlight gleam on white steel far down in the valley. He had seen it several times—a long spiral flash, such as the sun would make on a fixed bayonet carried over the shoulder. Such a flash as this will carry twenty miles through a clear atmosphere; the spot pointed out by the sharp-eyed Goorkha was not more than ten miles distant. They stood in a group, this isolated little band, and gazed down into the depth below them. They gazed in vain for some time, then a little murmur of excitement told that the sun had glinted again on burnished steel. This time there were several flashes close together. These were men marching with fixed bayonets through an enemy's country.
“Heliograph,” said Agar quietly, without taking his eyes from the spot far down in the valley; and soon the little mirror was flashing out its question over the vale. After a few anxious moments the answering gleam sprang to life among the trees far below. Agar gave a quick little sigh of relief—that was all.
Then followed a short conversation flickered over ten miles of space.
“Are you beset?” asked the Valley,
“No,” replied the Hill.
“Is the enemy in sight?”
“No,” replied the Mountain, again, with a sharp click.
“Are you all well?” flashed from below.
“Yes,” from above.
Then the “Good-bye,” and the glimmer of the bayonets began again.
Two hours later Major Agar drew his absurd little force in line, and thus they received the relieving column, grimly conscious of dangers past but not forgotten.
At the head of the new-comers rode a little man with a prominent chin and a long drooping nose; such a remarkable-looking little man that the veriest tyro at physiognomy would have turned to look at him again. His black eyes, beaming with intelligence, moved so quickly beneath the steady lashes that it was next to an impossibility to state what he saw and what he failed to see.
He returned Agar's salute hurriedly, with a preoccupied air. He wore a quiet uniform tunic almost hidden by black braiding, a pith helmet which had seen brighter days and likewise fouler, and the leg that he threw over his horse's head was cased in riding trousers and a neat little top-boot of brown leather.
He slipped from the saddle with a litheness which contrasted strangely with his closely cropped grey hair and white moustache and Imperial. He walked towards Agar's tent after the manner of one who had sat in the saddle for many hours. His spurs clanked with a sharp, business-like ring, and his every movement had that neat finish which indicates the soldier born and bred.
Wheeling round he faced Agar, who had followed him with a more leisurely gait based on longer legs, looking up keenly into the quiet fair face. Turning he shot his sword home into its scabbard with a click.
“Thank God,” he said, “you're safe!”
Agar awaited for further observations. This was not the man whom he had expected, but another, far greater, far higher up in the military scale—a man whom he had only met once before, and that at an official reception.
Seeing that his guest was unbuckling his sword, he presumed that the task of continuing this conversation lay with himself.
“M' yes!” he replied, rubbing his pannikin out clean with the corner of a towel, and proceeding to mix some brandy and water; “why?”
“Why!” answered the little man scornfully, “WHY! damn it, sir, Stevenor's command has been cut off by the enemy in force—massacred to a man. That is why I say 'Thank God, you're safe!' It is more than I expected.”
CHAPTER IX. RE-CAST
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what, we have been makes us what we are.
There was a momentary pause; then Major Agar spoke.
“In that case,” he observed, “the British force occupying this country for the last week has consisted of myself and thirty Goorkhas.”
“Precisely so! And it was by the merest chance that I found out that you were here. It was only guesswork at the best. A bazaar report reached me that poor old Stevenor had been cut to pieces. I hate blaming a dead man, but I really don't know what he can have been about. He made some hideous mistake somewhere. We buried him yesterday. On hearing the report, I thought it better to come up myself, having a little knowledge of the country. Brought two companies, and half a squadron to act as scouts. We reached Barkoola yesterday, and found the poor chaps as they had fallen. And some of those carpet-warriors at home say that a black man can't fight! Can't he! Not so much brandy this time, please. Yes, fill it up.”
Agar set the regulation water-bottle down on his gifted table.
“I have the Devil's own luck!” he murmured. “While they were burying I missed you from among the officers; and then it struck me that you might have got away before the disaster. We counted the men, and found thirty-four short, so we came on here. By God! what a chap Mistley was! We came here without a check. His maps are perfect!”
“Yes,” admitted Agar, “that man knew his business!”
There was something in his tone that might have been envy or perhaps mere admiration; for this man knew himself to be inferior in many ways to him who had first crossed the mountain pass on which he stood.
“The worst of it is,” went on the great officer, “that you are telegraphed home as killed.”
He paused on the last word, watching its effect. It would seem that, behind the busy black eyes, there was the beginning of a thought hatched within the grey close-cut head which, en fait de têtes, was without its rival in the Empire.
“That is soon remedied,” opined the Major with a cheerful laugh.
“Ye—es!”
The great man was thoughtfully rubbing his chin with the tips of the first and second fingers, drawing in his under lip at the same time, and apparently taking pleasure in the rasping sound caused by the friction over the shaven chin.
There is usually something written in the human countenance—some single virtue, vice, or quality which dominates all petty characteristics. Most faces express weakness—the faces that pass one in the streets. Some are the incarnation of meanness, some pleasanter types verge on sensuality. The face of the man who sat watching Agar expressed indomitable, invincible determination, and nothing else. It was the face of one who was ready to sacrifice any one, even himself, to a single all-pervading purpose. In this respect he was a splendid commander, for he was as nearly heartless as men are made.
The big fair Englishman who had occupied Mistley's Plateau for a week, exactly one hundred and seventy miles from assistance of any description, and in the heart of the enemy's country, smiled down at his companion with a simple wonder.
“Got something up your sleeve, sir?” he inquired softly, for he knew somewhat of his superior officer's ways.
“Yes!” replied the other curtly. “A trump card!”
He continued to look at Jem Agar with a cold and calculating scrutiny, as a jockey may look at his horse or a butcher at living meat.
“It's like this,” he said. “You're dead. I want you to stay dead for a little while—say six months to a year!”
Agar seated himself on the corner of the table, which creaked under the weight of his spare muscular person, and then, true to his cloth, he awaited further orders; true to his nature, he waited in silence.
After a short pause the other proceeded to explain.
“You frontier men,” he said, “are closely watched; we know that. There will be great rejoicing over there, in Northern Europe, over this mishap to Stevenor, although, God knows, he was not a very dangerous man. Not so dangerous as you, Agar. They will be delighted to hear that you are out of the way. Stay out of the way for a year, and during that twelve months you will be able to do more than you could get done in twelve years when you were being watched by them.”
“I see,” answered Agar quietly. “Not dead, but gone—up country.”
“Precisely so; where they certainly will not be on the look-out for you.”
The bright black eyes were shining with suppressed excitement. The great man was afraid that his tool would refuse to work under this exacting touch.
“But what about my people?” asked Agar.
“Oh, I will put that right. You see, they have got over the worst of it by this time. It is wonderful how soon people do get over it. They have known it for a week now, and have bought their mourning and all that.”
There came a look into Agar's face which the little officer did not understand. We never do understand what we could not feel ourselves, and it is not a matter of wonder that the lesser intelligence should foil the greater in this instance. There was a depth in Jem Agar which was beyond the fathom of his keen-witted companion.
“I am going home,” continued General Michael, “almost at once. The first thing I do on landing is to go straight to your people and tell them. We cannot afford to telegraph it. Telegraph clerks are only human, and it is worth the while of the newspapers in these days of large circulation to pay a heavy price for their news. We all know that some items, published can only have been bought from the telegraph clerks.”
Agar was making a mental calculation.
“That means,” he said, “two months before they hear.”
The expression on the face of the little man was scarcely human in its heartless cunning.
“Hardly,” he answered carelessly. “And when they hear the reason they will admit that the result is worth the sacrifice. It will be the making of you!—and of me!” added the black eyes with a secretive gleam.
“It is,” went on the General, “such a chance as only comes once to a man in his lifetime. I wish I had had it at your age.”
The voice was a pleasant one, with that ring of friendliness and familiarity which is usually heard in the tones of an educated Jew; for General Michael was that rare combination, a Jew and a soldier.
“I don't like leaving them so long under the mistake,” answered Agar, half yielding to authoritative persuasion, half tempted by ambition and a love of adventure. “I don't like it, General. The straight thing would be to telegraph home at once.”
In the wavering smile that crossed the dark face there was suggested a fine contempt for the straight thing unaccompanied by some tangible advantage.
“Who are they?” inquired the General almost affectionately. “Who are your people?”
Agar walked to the tent door and looked out. There was some clatter of swords going on outside, and as commander of this post it was his duty to know all that was passing. He turned, and standing in the doorway, quite filling it with his bulk, he answered:
“My father died three years ago. I have a step-mother and a step-brother, that is all—besides friends.”
The General stooped to loosen the strap of his spur.
“Of course,” he said in that attitude, “I know you are not a married man.”
“No.”
Beneath the brim of the helmet, which he had not laid aside, the Jew's keen black eyes were watching, watching. But they saw nothing; for there is no one so impenetrable as a man with a clear conscience and a large faith.
“My idea was,” continued General Michael, “that two, or at the most three, people besides you and I be let into the secret.”
“Three,” said Agar, with quiet decision.
“Three?”
“Yes.”
The General tacitly allowed this point and passed on with characteristic promptitude to another.
“Are you a man of property?”
“Yes, I inherit my father's place down in Hertfordshire.”
“I'll tell you why I ask. There are those beastly lawyers to think of. At your death it is to be presumed that the estate comes to your brother. The legal operations must be delayed somehow. I will see to it,” he added in a concise, almost snappish way.
Agar smiled, although he was conscious of a vague feeling of discomfort. He was not a highly sensitive or a nervous man, and this feeling was more than might have been expected to arise from an attendance, as it were, at one's own obituary arrangements. The General seemed to be remarkably well informed on these smaller points, and something prompted Jem Agar to ask him if the idea he had just propounded was a suddenly conceived one.
“No,” replied the General with a singular pause.
“No, I once knew a man who did the same thing for a different purpose, but the idea was identical. I do not claim to be the originator.”
“And there was no hitch? It was successful?” inquired Agar.
“Yes,” replied the older soldier in a far-away voice, as if he had mentally gone back to the results of that man's deception. “Yes, it was successful. By the way, you say your people live down in Hertfordshire?”
“Yes.”
“I once knew a girl—long ago, in my younger days—who married a man called Agar, and went to live in Hertfordshire. The name did not strike me until you mentioned the county. I wonder if the lady is now your step-mother.”
“My step-mother's name was Hethbridge,” replied Jem Agar.
“The same. How strange!” said the General indifferently. “Well, she has probably forgotten my existence these thirty years. She has one son, you say?”
“Yes, Arthur. He is twenty-three—five years younger than myself.”
The shifty black eyes excelled themselves at this moment in rapidity of observation. They seemed to be full of question, of many questions, but none were forthcoming.
“Ah!” said General Michael indifferently. “He is,” pursued Jem Agar, “a delicate fellow; does nothing; though I believe he is going to be called to the Bar.”
The General, having passed most of his life in India, where men work or else go home, did not take in the full meaning of this; but he was keen as a ferret, and he saw easily that Jem Agar despised his step-brother with that cruel contempt which strong men feel for weak.
“Mother's darling?” he suggested.
“Yes, that is about it,” replied Agar. He was too simple, too innately upright and honest to perceive the infinite possibilities opened up by the fact upon which General Michael had pounced.
“In case you decide to accept my offer,” the older man went on, “you would wish your stepmother and step-brother to be told?”
“Yes, and one other person.”
“Ah, and another person. You could not limit it to two?” urged the General.
“No!” replied Agar with a decision which the other was wise enough to consider final. Moreover, the General omitted to ask the name of this third person, urged thereto by one of those strokes of instinct which indicate the genius of the commander of men.
General Michael, moreover, deemed it prudent to carry the matter no further at that moment. He rose from his seat on the bed, stretched his lithe limbs, and said:
“Well, this won't do! We must get to work. I propose retreating to-morrow morning at daylight.”
They passed out of the tent together and proceeded to give their orders, moving in and out among the busy men. There was a subtle difference in their reception which was perhaps patent to both, though neither deemed it necessary to make any comment. Wherever Agar went the eager little black faces of his Goorkhas met him with a smile or a grin of delight; when General Michael passed by, the dusky features hardened suddenly to a marble stillness, and the beady eyes were all soldier-like attention.
They feared and loved the one because they felt that there was something in him which they could not understand; they feared and hated the other because his nature was nearer to their own, and they defined the evil in it.
Moreover, each had his reputation—that of General Michael dating from the Mutiny; the other, a younger and a cleaner record.
It is considered the proper thing to talk in England of the unvoiced millions of India. No greater mistake could be made. These millions have a voice, but it does not reach to us because they do not raise it. They talk with it among themselves.
They had talked of General Michael for thirty years, and all that there was in him had been discussed to its very dregs. Thus their impenetrable faces hardened when he passed, their shadowy secretive eyes looked beyond him with a vacancy which was not the vacancy of dulness.