“Then the rulers of Farangistan also do not like their subjects to be too rich,” chuckled Gul Ali.
“To strip a conqueror of his booty is poor policy,” said Kamal-ud-din with a fine air of detachment. “My Sardars will always be allowed to keep what they win.”
“Lest, being robbed of their due by their own master, they should seek it at the hands of his enemies,” said his cousin Karimdâd, going a step further. The prudent Khair Husain pulled them up hastily.
“Nay, nay; what foolish talk is this? Did not the General Sahib refuse at our hands the great gift we offered him, though the Lât Sahibs who visited us before accepted a lesser one?”
This was another of Colonel Bayard’s troubles—the simplicity with which two Generals fresh from home had accepted the large sums of money ceremonially offered them on their way up the river towards Ethiopia. Apparently no one who knew the interpretation that would be placed upon their action had liked to warn them of it, with the result that the two wholly innocent soldiers were regarded by the Khans as their pensioners for the future. He took refuge in sententious generalities.
“It was taught me in my youth that the richest man is he who has fewest wants. May we not then say that the enemy most to be dreaded is the man who needs nothing for himself?”
For once the Khans appeared impressed, and before the effect could wear off he asked permission to depart, leaving them to digest his words. Each and all overwhelmed him with demands that he would assure the General of their affectionate interest in his welfare, and thus reminded afresh of his own eclipse, he escaped at last. It was in one way a relief to be offered no more substantial parting gifts than the wreaths of strongly-scented yellow flowers with which he and Richard were invested with due ceremony, but there was a sting in the omission. A robe of honour and a jewelled sword would not have cost the Khans much—even if he had kept them, like the Generals, instead of refusing them.
“Queer set of chaps those,” growled Richard, as they rode away decorated with their floral boas. “Every time I see ’em I feel it more strongly.”
“I fear they are hopeless,” responded Colonel Bayard, with unusual depression. “If they won’t take Lennox seriously, they’re done for. He ain’t going to stand any nonsense.”
“Is the country to be annexed, then?”
“I believe not. But he is very strong on getting rid of the family’s collective authority, and setting up a single Khan with full responsibility. And that will mean the end of all things to the rest.”
“But very good for Khemistan, and our relations with it.”
“True. You look at the matter in a common-sense light, but it’s a positive pain to me to think of the extinction of this benevolent patriarchal rule.”
Richard wondered a little at his leader’s idea of benevolence, but still sought to comfort him. “Perhaps they’ll all refuse to accept the change.”
“You say that, knowing how sadly ready they always are to intrigue against one another? D’ye know that Khair Husain sent to the General secretly the one night he was here, to try to curry favour with him?”
“No, indeed. Khair Husain? But he ain’t in the running for the succession, even.”
“He meant to be. He offered to declare for us if we would make him Chief Khan and back him up against the rest. The spies should have told you. Not that there’s anything to complain of in old Harry’s action in the matter. He told the Vakil that he couldn’t deal with Khair Husain unless he spoke in the name of the rest—which of course he couldn’t. Then the fellow was idiot enough to say that if he appeared to take part against us, we were kindly to understand his heart was in the right place nevertheless, to which the General simply replied that he wasn’t going to help him to deceive the other Khans. If he wanted to take our side, he must come out and do it openly. Exit the Vakil highly disgusted.”
“Serve the rascal right! But we shall have plenty of that sort of thing if Sir Harry presses ’em hard.”
“I believe you—particularly if it occurs to Gul Ali to try to square him in the matter of the succession. Has the old man been trying any fresh tricks to get the turban for Karimdâd, d’ye know?”
“Oh, he’s always at it—trying to make a party in his favour among the other Khans, and he has been uncommonly busy lately.”
“I thought so—from the extra special affection in Shahbaz Khan’s manner to him. That chap is a deep one.”
“Shahbaz Khan? I suppose so. But after all, he is the rightful heir, and he has to sit by and look on while his brother tries to steal his inheritance away. Gul Ali has a good deal to offer, and poor Shahbaz can only give promises at present. You haven’t turned against him, have you?”
“I? No, certainly not. But I have always a weak spot for Gul Ali, and to see Shahbaz fawning upon him——”
“But what can the fellow do? There’s no open war. He can only keep the peace—and keep his eyes open. They’re a nice set—all the lot of ’em. I dare be bound Kamal-ud-din’s the only one that wouldn’t sell the rest to the General for the promise of the turban, and that’s because he don’t care about it. So long as he has Umarganj to retire to, and a caravan to plunder now and then, he’s happy.”
“He seemed precious full of fight, I noticed. What’s that new decoration he sports so conspicuously? They can hardly have got back that Luck—what was it called?—which was stolen years ago.”
“I’m afraid they have—and I’m afraid it’s my fault.” Richard told the story of the Seal of Solomon, and Colonel Bayard laughed.
“Well, I don’t suppose it will make much difference, though they may think it will. Mrs Ambrose is the only sufferer so far, it seems to me.”
“I was going to ask you if you would get me something in the way of jewellery in Bombay—to give her. Fact is, I’m in a precious awkward position. I think I told you she had spent a lot of money in paying the debts of that brother of hers—the General’s A.D.C.? Well, if you’ll believe me, the fellow’s begun to pay it back!”
“You couldn’t well sound more disgusted if he had begun borrowing afresh! But I see your difficulty. You feel bound to lay it out on something for her personal use? By all means—I quite agree with you. Give me some idea what you want, and I shall be honoured with the commission.” He glanced across approvingly at the younger man. He had not looked for such delicacy of feeling from Richard Ambrose, who might have been expected to welcome the return of the money too eagerly to think of the circumstances, and he stretched out a hand and laid it kindly on his shoulder. “You feel you ought not to have brought your wife to Khemistan? But cheer up, my dear fellow! Her health and spirits have stood it amazingly so far. If only my own dear wife—— But I shall soon be with her at home now, so I must not repine. You ain’t afraid of Sahar for Mrs Ambrose? Don’t let them frighten her by calling it ‘the Graveyard.’ It’s not that it’s unhealthy, simply that the desert round is packed with graves—a burial-place for thousands of years, I dare say.”
“She ain’t frightened—not she! Haven’t you observed that ladies never are frightened or miserable about the things they ought to be—that you expect them to be? They go through ’em as cool as a cucumber. And then some ridiculous little thing, that no man in his senses would ever think of again, they go and break their hearts about!”
“Indeed I had not noticed. I fear I have always taken it for granted Mrs Bayard would be alarmed, and she has indulged me by letting me think so. Very kind of her, ’pon my word! But I trust the other half of your observation ain’t true. I should be sorry to think I had made my wife unhappy—however innocently.”
His tone was so anxious and grieved that Richard administered comfort hastily. “Oh, don’t be afraid. If you ever did such a thing, Mrs Bayard would know it was unintentional, trust her! I wish Mrs Ambrose enjoyed that consolation.”
“Tell her so—and she will,” suggested Colonel Bayard.
“But I’m hanged if it would be true. Tell you what—a cross-grained fellow who has lived all his life alone has no business to marry. It’s no happiness for either of ’em.”
“Ask Mrs Ambrose,” said Colonel Bayard again.
Mrs Ambrose’s husband smiled reluctantly. “You know as well as I do that whether the answer I received was that she was happy or miserable, it would be liable to be reversed the next moment, for no reason that anybody could perceive!”
“The very wife for you, Richard, my good fellow!” Colonel Bayard shook his head wisely. “You ain’t allowed to presume on your happiness, nor yet to persist in your misery, for if you ain’t in a new mood a quarter of an hour later, Mrs Ambrose will be! Be thankful for your good fortune, I tell you. Most men would give their ears for such a wife as yours—and a brother-in-law a friend at court to boot!”
“I never thought I should have to be grateful for being related to that young rip Brian!” growled Richard.
“Well, if you ain’t grateful, I am for you. The General may pride himself on never taking a suggestion, but he can’t be altogether uninfluenced by the members of his own family. And if you can make use of that influence in favour of my poor foolish Khans, they and I will bless you yet.”
Not even the chilliness of that last interview could lessen Colonel Bayard’s sense of responsibility for the wayward charges he had watched over so long. Despite all his admiration for him, Richard waxed a little impatient when he thought of it. It would be uncommonly good for the Khans to come in contact with some one who did not mind letting them know that he saw through their foolish stratagems, and would brush away their subterfuges—however roughly. Colonel Bayard, with the kindest intentions, had left them in a fool’s paradise too long; they thought the length of their tether was infinite. But unless he was much mistaken, the old warrior now at Sahar would bring them up resolutely with a round turn before very long. Even now, from certain enquiries which had been addressed to him, Richard judged he was preparing to do this.
There was nothing shilly-shally about Sir Henry Lennox’s methods. He had been ordered to disband the Political Establishment, and that unlucky body faded like the baseless fabric of a vision. The Asteroid, in bringing Colonel Bayard, brought also orders, addressed to Richard, dealing with the Qadirabad Agency and its staff. The place was to be closed and left in charge of a reduced guard with one European officer, to prevent plundering, and a few servants. Though there was to be no Resident in future, it would no doubt be necessary to send frequent envoys to the Khans, and a European-built house in healthy surroundings was a prize not lightly to be let go. The rest of the inmates went various ways. Some were summoned to Sahar—the Ambroses, that part of the Khemistan Horse which was not already with the General, Captain Crosse, Sir Dugald Haigh, and a few other officers whose units were in the country. But most followed Colonel Bayard by the next steamer down the river—first to Bab-us-Sahel and thence to Bombay, where the outraged Services, already on bad terms with Sir Harry, swore that even if Lord Maryport’s inspiration had not come from him, the brutal haste with which the order had been carried out was all his own, and vowed vengeance accordingly.
CHAPTER IX.
DINNER AT THE GENERAL’S.
As usual after the cool weather had begun, the river was beginning to go down, and it was no easy matter for the Nebula to pick her way up-stream. As her captain said pathetically, “If the sandbanks would only stay where they were, you’d know where you were. But when a great beast of a shoal was in one place when you went down the river, and on the return voyage you found it somewhere else quite different, where were you?” A further handicap was imposed by the necessity of towing two or three large flat-bottomed boats—carrying the fortunes of the Eurasian and native clerks, peons and other underlings, whom Sir Harry had selected for Sahar from the derelict staff of the Qadirabad Agency,—since these displayed a positive genius in fouling the bank, the shoals, the frequent islands, floating tree-trunks, one another, the ship herself, and everything else possible and impossible. But despite all obstacles, progress was made somehow, and Brian, who had come down by sailing-boat to meet the steamer a few miles below its destination, was able to assure his relatives that they would get in comfortably in time for dinner.
“Y’are to dine with us, by the way,” he said. “The General will take no denial. We tried to put it to him that you’d rather be getting comfortable in your own quarters the first night, but the old lad said that was just it—the servants would be settling your things for you while you were being properly fed. So we saw him safely established with dear Munshi—he always calls the chap that, as if ’twas his name—and Stewart started out to borrow crockery fit for a lady to eat off, while I came down to meet you.”
“Who will he be borrowing from?” asked Eveleen curiously.
“How’d I know? The Mess, I suppose, or some of the civilians—they’re the boys for style. Don’t be afraid—Stewart will do things for you as they ought be done, or die.”
“Has the General picked up the country talk yet?”
“Has he not, indeed!—in spite of all his sarcastic remarks! He came out t’other day with bundibus—meaning bandobast, I suppose as pat as you please, and Stewart and I winked the other eye behind his back till we nearly burst. But listen now, how he’ll be leaving his mark on the map. There’s some forsaken place up beyond Pagipur, where the Khemistan Horse are to have a post to keep the tribes in order. Just a heap of ruins—old fort and so on, but I suppose it had some sort of name once. Anyhow, the General says it shall have a new one now, and he’ll compliment Gul Ali Khan by naming it after him. Quite so—Gul Aliabad; everybody agreeable—most neat and appropriate. ‘Not a bit of it!’ says the old lad; ‘far too long; call it Alibad and be done with it.’ Munshi and your humble servant venture to point out that ain’t grammar—or whatever you call it. Quick as lightning the old fellow barks out, ‘The Lennoxes make their own grammar. Alibad’s the name, and be hanged to it and you!’ So there you are, hukm hai, [it is an order] unless future ages dare to correct old Harry’s grammar—which the present one won’t while he’s alive.”
“D’ye expect us to believe that yarn, Brian?” asked Richard, shifting his cheroot lazily for an instant.
“Just as you please. Sure it won’t hurt me if you don’t—only yourself. Now, Evie, be on the watch for the first sight of your new home. Between this island and the next you’ll get the full view of it in all its sandiness.”
Undoubtedly the prospect was a sandy one—particularly so after the rich black soil of the Qadirabad district, with its countless villages embowered in the vivid green of the nîm groves. Immediately ahead was a long low island—fortified within an inch of its life, as Brian pointed out; the great battlemented walls and bastions rising from the very edge of the water—to the right a shapeless collection of mud hovels straggling out into the desert, and to the left an assemblage of similar buildings, not quite so aimless-looking, since it centred round a more or less ruinous fort on a low hill. This was Sahar, the fortified island was Bahar, and the native town on the farther bank Bori—a name which naturally lent itself to innumerable puns on the lips of the young gentlemen quartered at Sahar. If military exigencies left any room on Bahar for vegetation, it did not venture to show itself over the battlements, but the plumes of scattered date-palms mitigated a little the prevailing sand-colour of the buildings on either bank.
“I wonder why would it all look so dead and ruined?” said Eveleen, in some dismay, as they drew in to the shore. “Like some place in Egypt that nobody has lived in for two thousand years.”
“Pray, my dear, say something original,” said her husband impatiently. “It’s impossible for anybody to mention Khemistan without comparing it with Egypt.”
“But if it’s not like anything but Egypt, how would I say it was?” she demanded triumphantly. “Tell me now, Brian—this place which I mustn’t say is like Egypt, whereabouts in it do we live?”
“Ah, not here, I tell you! Sure the new town is a mile out. The General was to send horses for you, that you mightn’t be delayed while they landed your own. He wanted to puckerow [commandeer] a side-saddle from one of the ladies in Cantonments, but I told him you’d be just as happy with a stirrup thrown over a man’s saddle, and he listened to me for once.”
Eveleen was quite satisfied, but her husband was not, unless his expression belied him. The horses were duly waiting, and she flew into the saddle with all the ease of past disgraceful experience—so Brian declared,—to the great interest of her fellow-passengers. It would have been too much to expect Richard to be pleased at this unconventional method of travelling, but she did think he need not have muttered something that sounded like “Circus tricks!” as he gathered up the reins and put them into her hand. When Brian had directed the servants where to go, they rode out of the town—which looked more than ever like one of those deserted cities one reads of in the Nearer East, uninhabited, but as habitable as it ever was. As the sun neared the horizon, however, the inhabitants began to show themselves lazily at their doorways, and children came scrambling over the rubbish-heaps, on which everything seemed to be built, to stare at the riders. Beyond stretched a sea of sand dotted with tombstones, which seemed to extend as far as eye could reach, and then they came suddenly upon a great cantonment, with solid houses covered with shining chunam, and gay with rows of bright-coloured chiks, and long ranges of “lines,” large enough to accommodate several regiments.
“Somebody’s folly!” remarked Brian sententiously, pointing with his whip. “They’ll have sunk a pretty penny in building this big place, and it’s said the neighbourhood ain’t healthy, though we haven’t found anything wrong with it as yet. This way, Evie!”
Passing two sentries, they rode into a compound which was a miniature of the desert without—so wide was it and so sand-swept,—with an enormous house at the far end, like a small town in itself. The chiks were being drawn up now that the heat of the day was over, and on the verandah stood a small spare figure with grey beard blowing about in the breeze.
“Why, there’s my old lad—loose!” said Brian, much perturbed. “I hope he’ll not have been getting into mischief. Stewart will be certain to say ’twas my fault. But I ask you, could I have locked him into the office, and told Munshi to sit on him? That’s the only thing would really keep him quiet. Happily there’ll be three of us to look after him next week, if his nephew who’s on sick leave turns up all right. Now what has he been after, I wonder?”
“Welcome, a thousand times welcome, Mrs Ambrose!” cried Sir Harry, hobbling with perilous haste down the steps. “These young fellows call this place a desert, but it blossoms like the rose to-night. Allow me!” he lifted her paternally from the saddle. “Oh, fie, fie! what an uneasy journey you must have had on that contrivance! Ambrose, I am very glad to see you. Plenty to do, believe me—start to-night. But first we’ll have dinner—at once.”
“I beg your pardon, General, but ’twas not to be for an hour yet,” put in Brian.
“Don’t trouble yourself about that, my lad. I have put it forward an hour—bustled the cook a bit.” The General’s voice was happy and triumphant. “Knew your sister would be starving. It’s coming in now.”
“Ah, Sir Harry, but you’ll let us have a second to make ourselves respectable and get the sand off?” urged Eveleen.
“Sand, ma’am? I’ve been out in it a good part of the day, and look at me! No, no; come to dinner.”
“Ah, but you were born tidy!” she sighed, giving her clothes furtive shakes and pulls, and hoping fervently it was not to be a dinner-party. In this she was reassured when Sir Harry led her into a vast dining-hall, with one absurdly small table spread in the midst. The servants hovering about looked unhappy, and Brian said something under his breath.
“Will I go and look for Stewart, General? Sure he mayn’t know of the change of hour.”
“No, no, lazy fellow! he must put up with a cold dinner. These youngsters are apt to grow negligent where there are no ladies—eh, ma’am?”
Gathering from Brian’s silence that she must not attempt to defend the maligned Stewart, Eveleen found herself gallantly placed at the head of the table, and heard her husband and brother warned they would be put under arrest forthwith if they let her so much as touch a carving-knife. While they wrestled with the dishes placed before her, in silence save for the enquiries necessary to the polite carver of the day, Eveleen looked down the table at the General, beaming through his glasses opposite her.
“It’s a big house you have here, Sir Harry! Sure it must feel like living in a church.” Her eyes wandered round the huge room.
“Glad it inspires you with such creditable sentiments, ma’am. There’s another about the same size waiting for you. These Khemistan Politicals knew how to make the money fly. No reflection on you, Ambrose—it was before your day. Besides, they needed a big place to house the establishment. A hundred and fifty souls in this house alone, besides the servants—until Lord Maryport’s order came. Now there won’t be forty, when we have you all at work.”
“But how will you get the work done by such a few, with so much fever about?” asked Eveleen in dismay.
“Fever, ma’am? there’s no fever! What put that into your head?”
“Why, all the talk at Qadirabad was that you had half the army in hospital!” she cried. Her husband came to her help, for the General was looking wrathful.
“That was undoubtedly the impression when we left, General. I believe the Khans shared it.”
“They did, did they? And that’s why they have been so impudent, I haven’t a doubt! Well, the next Vakils they send shall have a nice little bone-shaking ride over the hills, and see two or three thousand men trotted about—just to show ’em. My beautiful camel battery will open their eyes a bit, I promise them. D’ye ever see a camel battery, ma’am?—the dear solemn beasts looking so philosophical with their noses up in the air, and dragging the nine-pounders as if they were feathers!”
“Have you ever been with camels on the march, General?” asked Richard, bitter reminiscence in his voice.
“Never, but I shall try ’em on my little trip to Pagipur. Why, ain’t they satisfactory?”
“Sure you’ll find you can’t get fond of a camel, Sir Harry,” said Eveleen. “You couldn’t have one tied up outside your tent, as you would Black Prince and Dick Turpin, the way they’d put their noses in and ask for a bit of biscuit. A camel would take a bit of you instead—without asking.”
“One for me!” chuckled Sir Harry. “What nice beasts horses are, ain’t they? But this husband of yours is looking mighty superior over my follies, ma’am. It’s high treason—or ought to be—to hold up a commanding officer to the contempt of his subordinates. Don’t you do it again!”
“Never—till the next time!” Eveleen assured him. “And did you get the third horse you were thinking of?”
“I did—worse luck! The uneasiest beast in creation, I believe. Selima is her name officially, but that ribald brother of yours dubbed her Tippetywink—how he spells it I don’t know—and now she answers to nothing else.”
“Because you’d not dare even wink when you’re riding her, General. She takes it as an invitation to dance—you’ll see, Evie.”
“Not with me on the lady’s back she won’t,” grumbled Sir Harry. “Any little frivolity of that sort Miss Selima and I will have out by ourselves in private. She’s as undependable as—the Khans. D’ye ever hear of the dodge, Ambrose”—turning suddenly on Richard—“of having two seals, one for ordinary use, and t’other just a little different, so that if you want to deny it you can point out that it can’t be yours? That’s what it seems to me our friends have been up to just lately.”
“Yes, General; I have heard of the trick.” Richard spoke with notable lack of enthusiasm. How was he to fulfil his pledge to Colonel Bayard to do his best for the Khans if the fools were up to these dodges already? Sir Harry caught him up eagerly.
“Well, you shall see after dinner. I am practically convinced, but I won’t act unless I’m positively certain. The Governor-General is very strong on that, too, and I’m glad of it, for I was afraid he was unjust about poor Bayard, and whatever happens to these chaps ought to be absolutely clear and above-board.”
Talking, as he did, continuously and at railroad speed, it might have seemed difficult for the General to satisfy his hunger, but he ate as fast as he talked, with a kind of mechanical action. Presumably some one had instructed him in the deadly nature of bazar pork, for that delicacy did not appear on the menu. Though the table service came obviously from one or more canteens, the dinner had evidently been carefully chosen, and a lady’s probable tastes consulted in the selection of sweet dishes; but it was naturally not improved by being put forward—the only wonder was that it was not worse. Bad or good, however, there was little time to savour it, for Sir Harry set the pace, and allowed no pauses. It did not strike Eveleen at first that he was mischievously determined to get the meal over before the absent Stewart could return, but she realised it when, just as the dessert was put on the table, a worried face appeared for an instant in the doorway, with two laden coolies dimly visible behind. The one word “Jungly!” floated bitterly to the ears of the diners, and the General exploded in such a paroxysm of mirth as might have betrayed into unfair suspicions those who had not seen that he drank nothing but water.
“And now he’s cursing me in blackfellows’ talk!” were the first coherent words to obtain utterance. “Why don’t he use the Queen’s English like a gentleman? Captain Stewart, come and apologise to Mrs Ambrose for being absent all dinner-time. Make no mistake; I am very seriously displeased with you.”
But the unhappy Stewart had betaken himself out of hearing, probably to dismiss his useless coolies, and the General chuckled himself silent again. When Eveleen rose, he sent Brian to join her on the verandah, and carried off Richard to his office, there to set to work with compasses and spaced rulers to investigate various impressions and drawings of seals, each with its more or less legible inscription in beautiful but intricate Persian characters. Richard’s expression made Brian exclaim discontentedly as soon as he had his sister to himself—
“I hope to goodness Ambrose ain’t going about for ever with that glum phiz! What’s the matter with the fellow?”
“Sure he’ll be sorry to lose his friend Bayard, and afraid things are going to be different,” said Eveleen wisely.
“But why wouldn’t they be different? Can’t go on always in the same old rut. It ain’t as if his place was going begging. The General has a step-grandson or something that he would have liked greatly to put into it.”
“D’ye tell me that, now? But of course I knew he only appointed Ambrose because he felt he would be unfairly treated otherwise, and to please Bayard.”
“Well, then, if Ambrose knows ’twas not for his sweet face nor his charming manners he got it, will you tell me why he wouldn’t try to make himself agreeable at all? Sure it reflects on me—the way he looks and talks.”
“Reflects on you?” said Eveleen, in amazement.
“Well, and why wouldn’t it? Wasn’t it a compliment to me his getting the post? You don’t think the old lad would have picked out Ambrose out of all the unjustly treated men in Khemistan if you were not my sister? Then don’t my fine Major owe it to me to look a bit grateful—whether he is or not?”
Amazement had kept Eveleen silent for the moment, but now she descended on him crushingly. “I never heard anything like it!” she declared indignantly. “A little weeshy bit of a boy like you to dare to criticise Major Ambrose! A compliment to you, indeed! I’d have you know, my bold fellow, that Ambrose stands on his own feet, and needs no help from you or anybody. Why would he look grateful to you, pray, when he owes you nothing, nothing in the wide world? I’d advise you be ashamed of yourself to be talking such nonsense.”
“Oh, all serene,” growled Brian, considerably taken aback. “Don’t think I want to put you under an obligation, I beg of you. And if you prefer Ambrose to go about with the face he has, sure I’d be the last to wish it altered! Some people would say his manner to you would be the better of a little change too, but——”
“You dare! Brian, you dare!” Eveleen’s eyes flashed fire, and once more her brother withdrew discreetly.
“Ah, then, don’t destroy me entirely! As I say, if you like it, it’s your business it is, not mine.”
“And for once in your life y’are right! Take this from me, Brian Delany: if ever you dare speak against Major Ambrose again, I declare to you I’ll make you sorry y’ever were born! Is that clear to you?”
“It is, it is! ’Pon my word, old Evie, I never meant to rile you like this. ’Twas just that I felt——”
“Take care!” warningly.
“I will, indeed. Sure I ought remember that only a fool would go interfering between a man and his wife. ’Twas none of my business, and I ask your pardon.”
“Well, be careful, then.” But Eveleen’s wrath, never very long-lived, was melting like snow at the sight of her boy’s penitence. “Listen, then, Brian”—in a burst of confidence,—“Ambrose is English. That’s what gives him the manner you think I’d dislike. But I don’t, because it’s his. I’ll tell you this now—it did take me by surprise at first, but now I’m accustomed to it I wouldn’t know him without it. Indeed—and this is more I wouldn’t have him different, because it wouldn’t be him, d’ye see?”
“So long as you can stand it—— I mean,” hastily, “as you like it—it’s no business of mine. I suppose I ought be thankful you take it this way, for what would I do if you didn’t? Call him out—eh? and you running in between to try and reconcile us at the last moment.”
“No, too late, and receiving the fire of both parties, and with my last breath joining your two hands, and vowing you to eternal friendship in memory of the hapless Eveleen! There’s tragedy for you! But talking of tragedy, what’s happened that poor Captain Stewart of yours? I declare he looked so crushed when he put his head in at the door I was afraid of something terrible.”
“Will I go and see? He takes these things to heart greatly. He had made up his mind to have a dinner worthy of you, and now he’s touched in his tenderest point.”
“Yes, do go. Bring him here to have a talk, and we’ll make him laugh till he forgets all about it.”
But when Brian returned he shook his head.
“No go, Evie! He’s holding his head and groaning, and vowing he’ll resign and go back to his regiment if Freddy Lennox don’t keep the General in better order than we can. His heart is broken entirely, I tell you.”
“The poor fellow! Will we go and dig him out, Brian?”
“I believe you’d do it! ’Twould shock him horribly—do him all the good in the world! We will. Come along—no, hist, we are observed! Here’s my old lad and your good man.”
“You are sure of the writing?” Sir Harry was demanding eagerly of Richard as they came towards the others.
“Absolutely certain, General. I’ve seen enough of it!”
“You have specimens you can produce?”
“Dozens, sir—the moment I can get my papers unpacked.”
“Good. That settles his hash, I think. Now, Mrs Ambrose, I’m not going to keep your husband longer to-night. Your brother will take you round to your quarters, and if you find anything wrong with ’em, let me know at once, d’ye see?”
“Indeed I will, Sir Harry, but it’s too good and kind y’are to us. Sure we’ll be spoilt!”
“There ain’t many people to call me good and kind—outside my own family and the private soldiers,” chuckled Sir Harry. “But listen a moment, ma’am.” Richard and Brian had gone down the steps to the horses, and he held her back. “I have asked Lord Maryport for Bayard as my Commissioner in settling the new treaty, so if all goes well he will be coming back here almost as soon as he sets foot in Bombay. What d’ye think of that?”
“Ah, now, how pleased Ambrose will be! You have told him?”
“Nay, I leave that for you to do, when you can speak to him quietly. I can see he finds it difficult to work under any one but his ill-used friend, and I honour him for it.”
“Sure y’are too good to us entirely, Sir Harry!” and the General was well pleased with voice and look. But it is probable he did not intend the news to be reserved, as Eveleen did reserve it, until she and her husband, having been duly inducted by Brian into the palatial quarters reserved for them, were in bed on opposite sides of a room which looked about half a mile across. Richard was just dropping asleep when he heard his wife’s voice.
“Ambrose! Ambrose! Are y’asleep already? Listen to me now.”
“What is it? A snake? a lizard?” he asked drowsily.
“Neither—nothing of that sort. Why will y’always be thinking of such horrid things? No, the General bid me tell you he has asked to have Bayard sent back to help him with the treaty, and he expects him here in no time.”
The news was so unexpected that it woke Richard effectually. “I wonder whether he is wise,” he said, without any of the enthusiasm Eveleen had looked for.
“And is that all you have to say? I thought you’d be jumping out of bed and dancing on your head for joy!”
“Really, my dear! Have you ever known me do——”
“No, never! never anything of the sort!” Eveleen was sitting up in bed, and her voice floated over to him in a bitter wail. “Always and always y’are the most disappointing creature ever I saw in my life!”
“I am sorry. If you had let me know beforehand——”
“And then where would be the surprise—the delightful surprise?—and y’are not a bit delighted, or surprised either. And I saving it up since the moment he told me——”
“Perhaps you had better have told me at once, my dear. You are rather like the General——”
“Like the General!” burst forth Eveleen. “If you think it polite to tell your poor unfortunate wife she’s like an ancient old man with a nose as big as the Hill of Howth and a beard like a billy-goat! You told me before I was as ugly as sin, but I thought you maybe didn’t mean it—but now you’ve said it again——” a sob.
“Mrs Ambrose, will you be good enough to tell me when I said anything so preposterous?”
“When I was ill at Bab-us-Sahel. At least, I said ’twas what you thought about me, and you didn’t say no, so I had to think you did! And now you say I’m like the General!”
“If you will be quiet a moment and listen to me—— Now; do you seriously expect me to contradict all the absurd things you say every day? If you do, I will make a point of it, but it will add a good deal to my work—and shorten my life by some years, I imagine. But perhaps that——”
“I don’t—you know I don’t! Y’oughtn’t be so cruel, Ambrose! You know if you were ill I’d be nursing you day and night, and neither eat nor sleep till you were well again.”
“I am sure you would,” with a slight shudder. “Let us hope it won’t be necessary. At any rate, there seems no present likelihood of my inflicting such a task on you. As to my saying you were like the General, I apologise if it was the wrong thing. You are so fond of him, I thought it would rather please you than otherwise. Not like him in face, of course—you know very well I meant nothing of that kind,—but in saying or doing what you have in your mind without thinking a moment how it will affect other people.”
Eveleen sat silent a moment, somewhat dismayed. “Will I really be like the General in that way?” she asked at last in a subdued voice.
“Don’t be afraid I shall say you are. I have learnt my lesson.”
“But I see what you mean. That trick on poor Stewart to-night—I’d have done just the same. And——”
“Pray don’t task your memory.” Richard smothered a colossal yawn. “I haven’t said I mean that, you know.”
“But I know you did. Oh dear, how will I ever make you think differently? I don’t mean to be ill-natured, but when a thing comes to me—— If only there was something I could do to show you—something you wanted very much——”
“There is something I want very much,” in a ghostly voice.
“Ah, tell me now! tell me! Can I do it?”
“You could, but you won’t.”
“Ah, how can you say so? You know I’d do anything——”
“It ain’t great or grand enough—nothing heroic or romantic about it.”
“Just tell me—just let me hear.”
“Merely to let us both have a night’s rest—that’s all.”
“Oh!” in dismay. “Oh, you shocking tease!” in indignation. “But I’ll do it; I won’t say another word.” A pause, during which Eveleen lay down vigorously, and remained silent a moment. “Ambrose!”
“All present and correct, sir,” sleepily. “No—I mean, Yes.”
“What about those seals? Just tell me that.”
“Gul Ali’s without a doubt. One of the papers in the writing—of his Munshi—Chanda Ram—know his fist as well—as I do my own.” A snore.
“Oh!” said Eveleen again.
CHAPTER X.
A CONTEST OF WITS.
Public opinion at Sahar was divided on the subject of Sir Henry Lennox. To the elegant he was a disreputable old figure of fun, certain to bring irreparable disgrace upon British arms if he was so foolish as to provoke a conflict with the Khans. Kinder-hearted people referred hopefully to his Peninsular record, while admitting mournfully that the Peninsula was a very long time back. Civilians declared him a bloodthirsty soldier, out for loot; soldiers lamented audibly that a fellow who had not the faintest notion of military discipline or etiquette should have been shoved into a position where the absence of these might, and almost certainly would, do untold harm. The sepoys regarded him with distant respect, not unmixed with dread, since the tempests of wrath they heard clattering on the heads of their superiors might at any moment fall on their own. The British private developed an unaccountable taste for turning out when the General went by—because he had never seen a General looking like a scarecrow before, said his officers bitterly—and greeting him with broad smiles which impaired distressingly the martial woodenness of the regulation salute. And the General pandered to this unmilitary behaviour, stopping to talk to individual privates in a human—not to say friendly—fashion, and actually invading the barrack-rooms when these were not prepared for inspection. He might say that in this way he found out that things were not as they should be: of course he did, the officers retorted indignantly; what did he expect? He would have found nothing wrong if he would only come at proper times.
But little by little an uneasy feeling was gripping the hearts of the placid oligarchy which had ruled the Sahar Cantonments hitherto. The old joker meant business; it was not all fuss and bluster when he called together the officers of a regiment and addressed them in language that lacked nothing in strength, if much in polish. Responsibility was his text; he was mad on responsibility: responsibility towards the men—that, at any rate, was universally admitted in theory; towards other branches of the Service—even, if it could be believed, towards the native regiments; and most incredible of all, responsibility towards the “black” population. And it was not possible to listen politely to his views and ignore them as an amiable eccentricity, for he went so far as to promulgate them in General Orders, and enforce them by penalty. Moreover, the orders were drawn up so clearly that any one could understand them, and in such improperly sarcastic language that it was plain the grinning privates who heard and read them regarded them as an entertainment freely provided for their delectation. The Army was certainly going to the dogs, and that part of it which was quartered at Sahar would arrive first, thanks to the Governor-General for sending this doddering old lunatic to vex it. It was not Sir Harry’s age that was the chief count against him—for in those days the nearer a man was to seventy, the greater seemed his chances of high command—but his eccentricity. He had somehow managed to pass through the Army mould without taking its impression, and as a result, he spoke a language strange to Army men.
It was some consolation to the few Politicals left at Sahar that the General was evidently as great a puzzle to the native rulers as to his own subordinates. All his movements were watched and reported by a horde of spies, and his utterances, which were numerous, often lengthy, and frequently quite inconsistent with one another, noted down with care and pains by hearers who only understood half of what they heard, and by them translated into Persian for transmission to the Khans. Of more value, perhaps, was the ocular demonstration of the condition of his troops, whom he was training hard. The “trotting about over the hills,” which he had promised himself to give the Khans’ messengers in company with two or three thousand men of his force, impressed them deeply, though the impression wore off a little when it came out that the General had remarked artlessly that this and the many similar field-days that followed it were intended to train himself as much as his men.
These field-days were a continual delight to Eveleen. The Great Duke had set the example of allowing ladies to ride with the staff on such occasions, and take station at the saluting-point—judiciously to the rear, of course—and Sir Harry would have regarded it as blasphemy to seek to improve upon his master’s methods. He was careful to detail an aide-de-camp to keep Mrs Ambrose from getting into danger or obstructing the manœuvres, but those two conditions satisfied, she might gallop where she liked. Sometimes, of course, she would arrive at an awkward moment, when Sir Harry was on the point of telling a unit candidly what he really thought of it, and then he would turn upon her an awful glare. “Madam, be good enough to retire!” was the formula barked at her from lips so clearly struggling to restrain a pent-up flood of vitriolic language that even Eveleen never dared to defy the mandate. From a safe distance she would hear the General’s voice rising and falling in alternate denunciation and irony—the words being happily undistinguishable—and discern through the sand-clouds the wilting of the officers beneath the storm; and then Sir Harry would ride after her refreshed and genial, the gayest-mannered martinet that ever killed a regiment with his mouth. He had a great fancy for her little horse Bajazet, but having learnt his history, insisted on renaming him the Street Arab—the expression was just coming into use,—since Bajazet was no name for an Arab, he said, but mere romantic female foolishness.
Richard did not take part in these field-days. They afforded him a much-needed opportunity for getting on with the work of the office, unhindered by the incursions of his chief. The Khemistan Political Establishment might have been excessive hitherto, but there was no denying that its sudden reduction imposed an enormous quantity of work on the few men who remained. Sir Harry himself was tireless, and seemed to find no difficulty in working all night after riding all day; but his inexperience added not a little to the labours of his subordinates. He had a rooted distaste for the elaborate forms of courtesy without which no Persian communication would be complete, and lest he should be set down as a barbarian absolutely destitute of breeding, Richard and the Munshi found it necessary to prepare two copies of every letter and order that was to be sent out in his name. One was in the plain blunt terms he himself favoured—he was very proud of these, and often copied the English rendering into his diary, presumably as a model of official correspondence for future generations,—the other embellished with the polite circumlocutions without which the recipient would have regarded it as a calculated insult. In like manner all the letters he received had to be most carefully scanned before being submitted to him, for in his impatience of the involved compliments set forth at extreme length, he would brush aside the whole document as of no importance, and thus fail to reach the weighty meaning concealed amid the flowery verbiage. And when, to accent these little peculiarities, Sir Harry was in the state of mind known to all his subordinates as “kicking up a dust”—as happened not infrequently,—the office heaved bitter sighs of longing for the days of Colonel Bayard, now gone by for ever.
Eveleen rode round one evening when office hours were over to pick up her husband, that they might take their ride by daylight. Here, with the desert and its wild tribes so close at hand, it was not safe to ride in the dark, so that during the sunset hour the roads in and about the Cantonments were a scene of tumultuous activity, which ceased, in Cinderella-fashion, the instant after gunfire. Eveleen expected Richard to meet her, but his horse was still waiting in charge of its syce, who said he had not seen his master, and she rode on up to the verandah steps. Then he came out, looking worried, his hands full of papers.
“Sorry, my dear, but I’m afraid you must excuse me this evening. It has been impossible to get anything done, and these letters must be put into shape before I leave. Your brother will escort you if he can get away, and if”—with some bitterness—“you can induce the General to go too, pray do. I shall be thankful not to hear his voice.”
“Ah, but can’t I help you?” she asked quickly. “It’s a headache you have; I see that.”
“No, my dear, thank you. Go and enjoy your ride.”
Eveleen rode away, feeling rather desolate. Round the next corner she just escaped running into Brian.
“Won’t you come and play with me? I have nobody to play with!” she was quoting from the spelling-book in common use, from which she had taught Brian to read, but he did not respond to the familiar tag.
“Have you not, indeed? The General sends his compliments, and may he have the honour of attending you this evening? Take him along with you, pray, and smooth him down a bit. We have had one earthquake after another the whole long day.”
“How very interesting! What about?” she asked curiously.
“What about? Everything—every sole, single, individual thing that has happened or not happened since the early morning. And don’t you tell him things are ‘interesting,’ if you value your life. I believe that was what helped to set him off—my telling him some order or other had been ‘carried out’ instead of ‘executed.’ He’s been going on about cant words, and the correct thing, and the cheese, at intervals ever since. I tell y’ I don’t dare open my mouth!”
“New for you, Brian! But what if he’d snap at me? Are you going to leave me to be eaten up entirely?”
“Oh, I’ll be there—but in my proper subordinate place behind. It’s you will get the fireworks—riding with him.”
They were walking their horses into the main courtyard, and as he spoke they came in sight of a very explosive-looking Sir Harry, standing on the steps and criticising with freedom the appearance and equipment of the escort. It was for once fortunate that he could not speak Persian, for the precise nature of his remarks was lost on the troopers, though his tone and gestures, and the face of the officer who bore the brunt of his words, made the whole drift clear enough. As was natural when he was already ruffled, some evil genius had allotted him the fidgety Selima that evening, and when he saw Eveleen, and politely determined not to keep a lady waiting, hastened to mount, the mare kept him hopping on one leg for some minutes of greater energy than dignity. It took all the little self-control Eveleen possessed not to offer advice or assistance, but she knew that would be a crime beyond forgiveness, and succeeded in keeping silence and a straight face. At last he was in the saddle, and gathering up the reins in stillness more eloquent than speech. With what she felt was supreme tact, Eveleen ignored it all.
“And where will we go?” she asked, as they rode out of the gate.
“We will go,” returned Sir Harry, with concentrated venom, “straight to the sandhills, and let this uneasy jade have her fill of dancing and prancing.”
“Ah, that will be splendid!” cried Eveleen, forgetting tact, and instantly reminded of it by the malevolent glance bent upon her.
“Yes, we shall have a splendid ride, and my lovely companion and my interesting aide will congratulate themselves on carrying out their purpose of seeing the old man look a fool. That is correct behaviour nowadays, I understand.”
So vehemently did he hiss out the fashionable catchwords which he hated, that Eveleen was more taken aback than she had ever been in her life. But she was not the woman to suffer meekly at Sir Harry’s hands any more than at Richard’s. Withdrawing her gaze primly to her horse’s ears, she remained stonily silent, taking no notice of her companion. In this wise they rode through the part of the Cantonments which lay between Government House and the desert, and the ladies they met—after observing with disapproval that there was that Mrs Ambrose riding with the General again—remarked with unction that it looked as though Sir Henry was finding out at last what sort of temper Mrs Ambrose possessed. As for Eveleen, she suspected irony in Richard’s parting injunction—in which she probably did him injustice.
Possibly the air and exercise mollified Sir Harry’s chafed spirit, or perhaps he realised that he had been rude, for instead of calling for a gallop as soon as they were on the sand, he drew rein and said, in a voice half surly, half apologetic—
“Not very much to say for yourself to-night—eh, ma’am?”
Eveleen turned innocent eyes upon him. “Sure I’m afraid to talk, Sir Harry. I’m in a shocking bad temper this evening, and I’d maybe say something I oughtn’t.”
“Meaning that I’m in a shocking bad temper, I suppose? My apologies, ma’am—my most humble apologies. Not that I ever do lose my temper—you’re wrong there.” Eveleen wished she had eyes in the back of her head, to see Brian’s face when he heard this. “I’m apt to be betrayed into using strong language occasionally—very wrong, I know, and I try to break myself of the habit,—but I assure you I have the sweetest temper in the world. All we Lennoxes have; we got it from our parents before us.”
“But oughtn’t a person lose their temper sometimes?” enquired Eveleen meekly. “When there’s good cause for it, I mean?”
The General’s face cleared wonderfully. “Why, so they ought! There are times when no man who is a man ought to keep his temper. And I am proud to say that on occasions like that I have never failed—yes, I think I may say I have never failed—to lose mine.”
Eveleen fought with a wild desire to laugh. “True for you, I’m sure, Sir Harry—most thoroughly. W-will we gallop now?” she welcomed almost hysterically a broad stretch of smooth sand in front, for the General had glanced round suspiciously, and she was afraid of disgracing herself for ever. But when Bajazet broke into a canter, Selima was naturally not disposed to be left behind, and they swept forward grandly, with the escort clinking and clanking after. When they slowed down a little, to mount the steep rise of a sandhill, which stretched right and left, as far as eye could see, like the face of a breaking wave, Eveleen glanced at Sir Harry. He was certainly more cheerful, but not yet his benign self, and without allowing him a moment’s breathing-space she urged another canter the instant they reached the crest of the sand-wave, and never stopped till the ground began to rise for the next. Then Sir Harry checked Selima and laughed.
“There, that will do! The seven devils are gone,” he chuckled, and Eveleen, a little breathless, laughed back at him. Her eyes were shining blue, her hair, crisped by the desert wind, stood out like wires under the heavy gauze veil thrown back over her straw hat. She looked about seventeen, and Sir Harry felt older than ever in comparison with her. He spoke abruptly.
“And now, if you please, we’ll take things easy for a bit. What with you young people egging the old fellow on, we seem to have got the escort strung out over a mile or so of desert.”
“I wonder might I suggest we go back and pick ’em up, General?” suggested Brian, rather anxiously. “If there were any of the Khans’ Arabits about here—or the wild tribes either—you would be something like a prize for them—and with a lady in charge——”
“Quite so. Though I think you and I could put up a fairly good fight while Mrs Ambrose got away. My little friend the Street Arab has a pretty turn of speed. But it would be an ignominious ending to a fit of—no, ma’am, not temper—a fit of righteous indignation such as I hope will ever seize me, or any of our family, at the sight of cruelty or injustice.”
“And why wouldn’t it, Sir Harry?” asked Eveleen boldly. “I’m sure that same righteous indignation has got me into trouble often enough. Would it be the way the people here treat the women made you angry?”
“No, ma’am. It was the way our own people treat their wounded. I rode out this morning to meet the force coming—we mustn’t say retreating—from Ethiopia. A part of the rearguard came into camp while I was there, and I saw the poor fellows taken from their camels and pitched down on the sand like dogs. I promise you the officers concerned got a bit of my mind. Queen’s or Company’s, they are all the same—shamefully negligent of their men. A bad set they are, a bad set—and see if I don’t treat ’em badly in their turn!”
“Ah, but not all bad?” entreated Eveleen, as he laughed ferociously. “And sure they’ll improve, now you have the teaching of them, Sir Harry.”
“Will they, indeed? Then what d’ye say to what I found when I got back? In spite of all my orders against reckless riding in the bazar, a wretched half-caste clerk goes careering along, won’t pull up for anybody, knocks down one of our own sepoys, a fine young fellow as ever I saw—regularly rides over him. Poor chap goes to hospital, and his murderer gets my sentiments—and something more.”
“The poor sepoy was really killed?” in horror.
“Not quite, but no thanks to the cranny. [Krani=writer.] And he shall pay for it—needn’t think he’s going to get off. But this ain’t ladies’ conversation, is it?” pulling himself up suddenly. “Fact is, ma’am, this cantonment has to be got into order, and it don’t like it. It ain’t altogether the officers’ fault—there are some magnificent youngsters among ’em—but they have had no one to command ’em, simply a lot of suggestors suggesting that they should do this or that, and it’s gone far to ruin ’em. There they go muddling themselves with beer all day long, but when the private soldiers get drunk on country spirits, it’s ‘Nasty drunken wretches! why can’t they keep sober?’ As if there was a chance of their keeping sober in barrack-rooms not fit for swine! How is a soldier to have confidence in his officer in war if he has shown no concern for his welfare in peace? It’s the same all round. There are the black artillery drivers with eight rupees a month of pay, no lodging-money, and no warm clothing. Of course in Ethiopia they deserted wholesale, and took their horses with ’em. But while I command here we ain’t going to risk having our batteries crippled at the critical moment just to save the Directors the price of a suit of clothes. That matter’s set right, at any rate.”
“Sure you talk as though you expected war, Sir Harry.”
“Then I don’t, ma’am, but I mean to be prepared for it.”
“I wonder don’t you rather look forward to it really?”
“Look forward to it? Well, a man who has never commanded a brigade in action may be excused for feeling some desire to know how he would acquit himself at the head of an army. Not that I confess to much doubt on the matter. One who has served under Wellington—you might almost say under Napoleon, so closely have I studied him, though we were on opposite sides, worse luck!—has little to do but put in practice his master’s lessons. Yet I admit there’s an attraction in the thought of handling in earnest a magnificent force such as I have here, massing it against the foe, flinging it hither and thither, leading it to victory—— Ah, but then! Heaven forgive me! do I desire to appear before my Maker—as must happen before long—with my hands imbrued in the blood of my kind, of those very troops whose proud bearing and lofty confidence fills me with elation? No, a thousand times no!”
He spoke aloud, but as though to himself, with eyes fixed on the distant horizon, and Eveleen was awed. “But there won’t likely be war at all?” she asked, almost timidly.
“How can I say? Is there any knowing what might suffice to stir to a murderous resolution these poor foolish princes, who are drunk with bhang every day after three o’clock, and peevish all the morning till they can get drunk again? They are at the mercy of a moment’s impulse, if the heads of their army had the strength of mind to take a decisive step when ordered, without waiting for the inevitable reversal.”
“The younger Khans might do so, Ambrose thinks,” she suggested—“especially Kamal-ud-din.”
“True, but would he find a sufficient following when old Gul Ali says in open audience that if the British will only take money to go away he’ll sell all his wives’ jewels to satisfy ’em? Then the next thing one hears he and the rest have sent their women away into the desert, and swear they will cut all their throats to prove to us they are in a desperate determination to resist. Well, do it, my good princes, do it! and I swear by all that’s holy I’ll cut yours, to the last man of you! When it comes to throat-cutting, you’ll find me a good deal apter than in chopping words with your Vakils.”
“Ambrose believes they intend fighting,” said Eveleen.
“I know he does, but the other Politicals assure me with one voice that all this assemblage of troops is under taken solely with the design to intimidate me—which design, by the way, is uncommonly mistaken! Poor Bayard himself could hardly depart for assuring me that his dear Khans hadn’t an ounce of vice in ’em—that it was their nature to bluster and talk big, but if I took ’em at their word I should be guilty of murder at the very least. So be it, says I to him, if murder starts it won’t be because I begin it. If the princes will keep the peace, peace they shall have; but if they fire a shot, Khemistan shall be annexed to the British Empire, and good for Khemistan it will be.”
“Bayard don’t think that,” said Eveleen slowly. “’Twould break his heart, I believe.”
“Then he must get his friends to keep their treaties—and mind you, the new one I am to make is a long way stiffer than the last. The Khans are to pay in territory for all their dirty tricks—give back to the Nawab of Habshiabad the districts they stole from him, and cede Sahar and Bab-us-Sahel to us permanently.”
“They won’t like that either, will they?”
“That they won’t, and very naturally. In their place I should object strongly myself. In fact, I object now, for what right have we here, taking possession of towns that don’t belong to us? But the Khans entered into the treaties, and they must keep ’em—or if they want to break ’em, they must fight fair. Those letters now, with the doubtful seals—you have heard of them?”
“I heard you speaking to Ambrose about them, but I don’t know what they would be. He don’t tell me things.”
“Wise man! Well, ma’am, they were merely written at the time of our Ethiopian disasters to incite Maharajah Ajit Singh of Ranjitgarh to form a league against us, and to the chiefs of the wild tribes to get ’em to fall upon our retreating troops. They were sealed with a seal closely resembling Gul Ali’s, but with some slight differences that made me think a forgery had possibly been attempted. But then Munshi puts me up to a nice little trick these fellows have of keeping two seals—one just sufficiently different from the other to justify doubts if there’s any wish to disavow a document,—and your good husband not only identifies the seal as genuine, but swears to the handwriting of the letters as being that of Gul Ali’s chief scribe. So he at least—and his brother Khans are all tarred with the same brush—stands convicted of a diabolical attempt to take advantage of our calamities. He’ll deny it, of course, as he will the latest evidence of his perfidy—a bond written in his own copy of the Koran, and sealed by all the Khans but Shahbaz, pledging ’em to unite in driving us from the country,—but I’ll bring him to book. What can you do with a man whose word can’t be trusted and who’ll forge his own seal? Nothing but bind him down so tight as to put it out of his power to do mischief, says I. My friend Gul Ali is taking a little trip in this direction, I hear, and when he and I meet to exchange compliments, there will be something more than compliments in store for him. I’ll wager he’ll be uncommonly taken aback when he finds I am acquainted with the engagement he carries in his Koran.”
“But if he denies it? Why, he might even produce another Koran to show you there was nothing in it at all.”
“To be sure he might—and most certainly will. And therefore my only course is to make it impossible for the suggested combination to take place. Believe me, ma’am, I have a rod in pickle for old Gul Ali. My sole fear is that he mayn’t care to face me.”
“But sure that would be to admit his guilt?”
“True, but a tacit admission of guilt don’t do you much good when the guilty person remains so discreetly at a distance that you can’t lay hands on him.”
“The sun is getting precious low, General,” ventured the watchful Brian, riding up level with Sir Harry.
“That’s true, and we seem to have collected the escort without the loss of a man. Ma’am, I owe you an apology for trespassing on your patience with these public affairs, thinking less of your entertainment than of relieving my own mind. My comfort is that you’ll forget ’em speedily.”
“True, Sir Harry. I’ll not remember anything but that you complimented me by talking about them.”
“Delany,” said Sir Harry solemnly to Brian, “were there any fragments of the Blarney Stone left behind when your sister quitted Ireland, or was the whole of it concealed in her baggage?”
“Blarney Stone, indeed!” said Brian enthusiastically, when he looked in on the Ambroses late that evening. “’Tis a harp y’ought be having, Evie—like David with Saul,—and I’ll not say but the staff will be getting up a subscription to present you with one. Think of the convenience of being able to call you in to lay the dust as soon as the old lad begins to kick it up!”
“Is it a harp, indeed! Much good that would be!” said Eveleen scornfully. “Why, I’d never be able to resist trying it on Ambrose, whom nothing on earth will move, and the General would soon find out what a useless sort of thing it was.” She stopped suddenly, catching on her husband’s face the uneasy look which showed that he could not decide whether she was in earnest or not, and a disagreeable thought struck her. Richard had said she was like the General. She had felt embarrassed this evening when the General put into words his deepest thoughts. Could it be that Richard also was embarrassed when she spoke out her thoughts without considering whether they were likely to be acceptable or not? She brushed the question aside quickly. “But I assure you Sir Harry considers it right and proper to lose his temper when the occasion calls for it,” she said.
“I believe you!” agreed Brian dolefully. “Ain’t it a pity, though, that we can’t pull a string and make him lose it when we think the occasion calls for it? With the Khans, now! If they once saw him in one of his rages, sure they’d be tumbling over one another to try and appease him.”
“Ah, then, old Gul Ali will never dare to stand out against him when he has once heard him talk seriously,” said Eveleen. “You don’t really think they’ll fight, Ambrose?”
“They would not fight if they knew him as we know him,” said Richard slowly. “But with these fellows, his violence and severity defeats its own object. They are incapable of believing any one could take such a tone seriously with persons of their importance. He must be endeavouring to hide his weakness, they imagine.”
“Well, now!” said Brian. “And what can you do with people like that at all?”
“Pray don’t ask me. If they can’t see the difference between him and Bayard, how is it to be got into their heads? Bayard might employ threats, but I can’t believe the utmost exigency would have driven him actually to demand the annexation of the country. But this chap will do it if they don’t behave themselves.”
“Well, our own people are learning to know him,” laughed Brian. “Munshi was telling me to-day that they say he ain’t merely a commander, but the Governor-General himself in a military disguise. Some of ’em say he’s the Duke come back, but the old sepoys, who knew the Duke forty years ago, won’t have that. But they all agreed he might be an uncle or cousin of Her Majesty’s, sent out to cope with the posture of things here.”
“Aye, they are beginning to call him the Padishah,” said Richard. “Well, if the tales get to Gul Ali’s ears, so much the better, if they make him disposed to submit. But he can’t sign a treaty by himself, unfortunately, and by the time the rest are assembled, he will have been in as many different minds as there are Khans.”
“I’d dearly like to see Sir Harry talk to him for his good,” said Eveleen eagerly. “Where is it they’ll meet? Will we—ladies, I mean—be allowed to be there?”
“Certainly not,” said Richard crushingly. “It will be across the river—in that garden with the palm-trees just on the other side.”
“Sure you needn’t be so horrid about it! I dare say there won’t be much to see after all—maybe nothing.”
As it happened, that was exactly what there was. Sir Harry and his staff, all in full uniform, set out by boat, reached the meeting-place in good time, and waited there—in vain, returning after an hour or so in high dudgeon. Nor was their wrath mollified by a message from Gul Ali, conveying a perfunctory apology for his non-appearance, and appointing a meeting the next day in another garden, six miles down the river. This time it was Sir Harry who did not keep the appointment, returning the curt answer that he was not going to be insulted. Colonel Bayard’s partisans went about with long faces all day. Were the Khans to be defied on their own soil by this ignorant stranger? But by the evening, when reports began to filter in, they saw reason to change their tune. The messengers had found Gul Ali’s son Karimdâd waiting half-way, nominally to receive the General with honour, but actually—every one was sure of it—to note what troops he brought with him, and send word to his father, who had six thousand Arabits concealed in and about the garden, and reinforcements within call. Sir Harry was too much gratified by this proof of his foresight to exult unduly.
“I should have looked foolish—going into the middle of a body of Arabits with only a few officers at my back,” he said. “Whether there were six thousand or six hundred, they could have done for us pretty thoroughly. Nice old chap, Gul Ali!”
“The messengers say he had heard a rumour that you intended seizing him, General,” said Richard.
“That’s the Ethiopian affair rising up again to plague us! But I am not going to have it perpetually thrown in my teeth. Write to the fellow, Ambrose, that I am no traitor, as he evidently is, and that if I wanted to seize him, I could and would come and pull him out of Qadirabad itself. Send it at once.”
The effect of the message was instantaneous. Apparently Gul Ali felt the garden where he was encamped less secure even than Qadirabad. He, his son and his army, evacuated their camp during the night, and the next day were out of reach in the desert.