“And would that be where you were wounded?”
“Just outside it. Chap made a cut at me wrong way about—up instead of down—nasty sort of blow. If it hadn’t been that I got in my cut at the same minute, and spoiled the force of his—well, the old man’s despatches would have regretted the loss of another promising young officer. So you were very near rid of me, don’t you know?”
“Ah now, don’t, then! I can’t bear to think of it. How do any of y’ever come out alive? Y’are sure”—with a break in her voice—“that Ambrose was safe after that?”
“Didn’t I say so? Keeling sent back a message to the General that he had cot sight of Kamal-ud-din’s elephant, and was going to pursue him to Umarganj if necessary, and the old man sent Ambrose to catch him up and see what direction he was taking. Couldn’t have the Khemistan Horse lost in the desert and perhaps cut off, you see.”
“There, now! your voice is quite weak and shaky, and it’s my fault for letting you talk so much. I wish Sir Harry would come—sure he’d soon send you to bed.”
“He may not come back at all to-night—that’s why I’d so greatly have liked to stay on the field. If he finds there’s reason to hope Kamal-ud-din ain’t got very far, he’ll risk everything to catch him and end the war at one blow, if I know him. But if he’s taken to the desert, then it’s a case of rest for the troops before they can push on farther.”
But Sir Harry did return that evening, though only for an hour. The joyful shouts of the soldiers in the camp heralded his appearance, and he rode into the compound looking very old and bent. After a word or two to the Munshi salaaming respectfully at the door of the great tent, he came across at once to the Residency.
“And what d’ye think of this fellow, ma’am?” he demanded of Eveleen as Brian staggered to his feet and supported himself by one of the verandah pillars. “No thanks to him that you have got him back safe, I can tell you! I found him riding furiously all over the battlefield, bleeding like a pig, looking for some other village to give its name to the day, because he wouldn’t have it put on his tombstone that he was mortally wounded at the battle of Mussuck!”
“And did he find one?” asked Eveleen, rather absently. It might have been that the coarseness of the General’s language—so unheard-of when speaking to a lady—betrayed unusual turmoil in his mind, or—had she really caught him trying to signal to Brian unperceived?
“Not the ghost of one! To get him to go home quietly, I had to decree that it should be for ever called the battle of Qadirabad, and he promised me to die happy on that condition.”
“Sir Harry!” her voice was sharp. “Y’are not here to cut jokes about Brian. There’s something wrong with Ambrose. What’s happened him?”
“My dear Mrs Ambrose, what should make you imagine——?”
“Will you tell me what it is? Is he—is he——?”
“No, he ain’t,” said Sir Harry gruffly—“if you mean dead—nor even wounded. He had a slight sunstroke, but happily a surgeon was at hand to bleed him, and he is recovering his senses in due course.”
Eveleen put her hand to her head. “But the sun is not hot yet—to speak of,” she said in a puzzled voice.
“He had fever on him this morning, it seems. It was a foolish business his setting out to ride all day in that state, but nobly foolish. You must be proud of him.”
“’Twas my fault—I ought have seen it—begged him to remain behind. I noticed he was cr—unlike himself.”
“Sure if that was the way of it, he’d have gone all the more, the more you begged him,” said Brian, trying rather unsuccessfully to improve matters. She looked at him as though she had not heard him.
“It’s my fault, I tell you. And now he’s sick, and away from me. Sir Harry, you’ll let me——”
“I won’t let you go to seek him, ma’am, for he’s coming to you, as fast as a Medical Department palanquin can bring him. We are encamped on the battlefield, but the wounded must return hither, that the hospital establishment may follow the army. So your mind may be at rest as far as that’s concerned.”
“Y’are very good, Sir Harry. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see everything is ready for him.”
“Why, Evie, he’ll not be here for hours yet!” remonstrated Brian, but the General signed to him to be silent.
“Do, ma’am, do! Can’t make too much of our brave fellows, can we? I must be off too.”
“But not without some refreshment.” Her hospitable instincts prevailed even at this moment of desolation. “Brian, bid the servants bring some food for the General, will you not?”
“Only too thankful to avoid transporting my rheumatic old carcase across the compound again before it’s necessary,” said Sir Harry, when Brian had summoned the butler and given him orders. “I have bid Munshi get the office establishment on the march, for I must have ’em with me since I’m deprived of poor Ambrose.”
“He ain’t worse than y’have allowed my sister believe, General?” with sudden anxiety.
“No, but it’ll be a long business, I fear. To ride at all was bad enough, but to accept that chase across country after Keeling was pure madness. Had I had the slightest notion——! But there you are. I came across two of the Queen’s —th as I left the battlefield—one crouched almost double by the roadside, his comrade trying to cheer him on to reach the hospital tents. I bade my orderly give the sick soldier a lift, and learned from t’other that his friend ought to have reported sick this morning, but refused on account of the approaching battle, and so marched and fought all day before yielding to nature’s imperious weakness. Others I hear of who received wounds in the attack on Rickmer’s baggage, and concealed ’em, lest they should be forbid to fight to-day. Could any enemy in the world defeat such men as these?”
“Did poor Ambrose get the message to Keeling, General?” asked Brian, as Sir Harry wolfed down bread and meat and drank coffee in a way that said much for his digestion, if little for his palate.
“No. Rickmer called off the pursuit when Keeling swears another half-hour would have seen Kamal-ud-din a prisoner in his hands. Never a word of this to Ambrose or your sister, remember. It was the poor fellow’s excess of zeal led him to over-estimate his powers.”
“Then he fell from his horse at the moment you said you feared Kamal-ud-din must have left sharpshooters in ambush to delay the pursuit, sir? when he failed to cross the space of empty ground you were watching with your telescope?”
“That was the place. The patrol I sent out found him lying unconscious, his horse feeding beside him. And you came straight here, as I bid you?”
“As straight as a swimming head would permit, General! Of course I was beset for news as I passed through the camp, but I told all I could to the first officer I met, and stationed a sentry to keep the curious from approaching this house, according to your orders, so everything has been quite quiet.”
“‘Quite quite!’” Sir Harry mimicked Brian’s pronunciation. “Good, I am glad to leave you here to be a support to your sister—possibly also a consolation to poor Ambrose. You and he must keep up one another’s spirits.”
“But sure you’ll let me rejoin you, sir? This scratch—not a cat’s scratch, I’ll allow, but equally not a tiger’s; will we say it’s a tiger-kitten’s?—can’t keep me laid up more than a day or two. One day, I’d say if I was asked, but I know what these medicos are when once they get their hands on you.”
“We march again to-morrow, as soon as the doolies that have brought the wounded hither rejoin. Why, my good fellow, are you blind not to see that all hangs on our catching Kamal-ud-din ek dum? With him in my hands, the last shot is fired, as I believe. But should he escape and raise another army, with the hot weather and the inundations coming on, he may bother us for another year. So hie after him! Let us hope the gentleman will have the politeness to wait for us at Khanpur, and not lead us away into the desert on an unmannerly wild-goose hunt for Umarganj.”
“Hard luck for you to lose him, General, when you so nearly had your fingers on him again!”
“Precious hard luck! But no, I won’t have a word said against my luck—my most astounding good luck! That Rickmer’s column should get in safe, despite its commander’s utmost efforts, that both my reinforcements, from up and down the river, should arrive in the very nick of time, that we should run across that herdsman this morning, and learn that while we were flourishing forth to fight empty air the enemy was in full march for our communications—what d’ye call that? Nay, I will go further, and instead of what in our pagan style we call luck, say that the hand of Providence has been manifest throughout. There is a great future before Khemistan—I’m convinced of it. I see all the hoarded wealth of Central Asia pouring down the river, and making Bab-us-Sahel a port richer and more extensive by far than Bombay. (As soon as I have time to think of anything but fighting, my first care shall be the provision of a proper harbour.) I see the great city of Victoria rising on the upper river, occupying the whole of the site now covered by the wretched hovels of Sahar and Bahar and the mouldering ramparts of Bori—the scene of an annual fair beside which the glories of Novgorod grow pale, where the silks of Gamara and the embroideries of China are spread forth to entrance the eyes of the simple Arabit bringing for sale the precious gums of his mountain deserts and the wiry beasts of his own breeding. I see that Arabit—son and brother of the grim fighters whose piled corpses I passed with unavailing horror and regret on my way hither,—his immemorial weapons laid aside at the behest of British power, not merely cultivating a desire for the manufactures of the West, and thereby benefiting my beloved native land, but perceiving for the first time the blessings of peace and the advantages of commerce, and carrying the tale to the dwellers in his rugged glens. Positively there’s no end to the wonders that will follow naturally upon this day’s conquest. The price is heavy—those gory heaps, not merely of the enemy, but of our own best and bravest,—but Heaven is my witness that had the choice lain with me, not one drop of blood had been shed. My hands are clean, for all that I have been ‘a man of war from my youth.’”
“Who could deny it, General? Certainly no one that knows you, or has taken part in the campaign. The enemy themselves will be the first to admit it, when they are learning under your guidance the lessons of peace as they have done—not by their own good will, I’ll confess—those of war.”
Undoubtedly Brian possessed to perfection the art of smoothing down the lion. Sir Harry’s rugged countenance radiated pleasure and contentment, though he felt bound to protest.
“Well, well, we mustn’t make too sure! Yet it seems as though Heaven had designs for me as well as for Khemistan. To be riding gently up and down for three mortal hours at Mahighar between opposing forces never more than fifteen yards apart, the target of both—for when the —th got excited and fired high their bullets came rattling about my head—and yet to go unscathed! To lead my soldiers unwittingly into the line of fire to-day, then down into that nullah, with matchlocks directed at my heart in dozens from the farther bank, and those fiery swordsmen dashing upon me whirling their deadly blades! Delany, I found my sword-hilt smashed by a bullet; after I had sent you away one of the enemy’s magazines blew up close to me; yet I was unhurt. Not even Black Prince was touched, poor beast!—which at Mahighar was neither more nor less than a miracle—though my orderly behind me was unhorsed both then and to-day. Nor have I been compelled to defend my own life at the cost of another’s. To-day an Arabit ran at me with his sword uplifted. I had a pistol ready, and could have shot him, but a soldier stopped him with his bayonet before he could reach me. Even my staff seem to share my immunity. Though riding hither and thither on errands in the thickest of the fray, not one of you has even been hit until you took this hurt of yours, and you came by that through your thirst for hand-to-hand fighting, against which I have warned you. There is indeed something remarkable in all this. D’ye know the people have found a new name for me? Several times as I rode here I saw groups of ’em bowing profoundly at the roadside, and on my orderly calling out that the Bahadar Jang was in a hurry and could hear no petitions now, their sole reply was to prostrate themselves reverently, ejaculating ‘Padishah!’”
“And why not, sir?” asked Brian heartily—he had been fearing the General had heard himself mentioned by the less complimentary title of “Brother of Satan.” “Who would be so fit as yourself to administer the territory you have added to Her Majesty’s dominions?”
“Well, that ain’t for me to say——” Sir Harry was obviously not ill-pleased. “The Governor-General will select whom he chooses—though I don’t pretend to be ignorant of his appreciation of the efforts of the army. That dâk which came in before we marched this morning was Lord Maryport’s, containing his congratulations to us on Mahighar. I have had no time to read it through, but it contained some awards—Keeling is promoted aide-de-camp to the G.-G., I remember—and he promises further promotions when he has been able to study my despatches more fully. To be elated by the praises of a civilian—pshaw! am I as weak as that? I trust not, I believe not. Praise from the Duke, now—the assurance that the humblest of his Grace’s pupils, endeavouring to put in practice lessons learnt from that great man, had made no heinous mistake,—that would gratify my most greedy desires, and lacking that, I shall remain unsatisfied. Put it that Lord Maryport appoints me Governor of Khemistan, as you suggest. I am touched by such a proof of his lordship’s confidence, and naturally strive to acquit myself to his satisfaction, but if he desired to do me a personal favour, he could please me no better than by sending me back to my wife and girls. What are Khemistan and the winning of battles to me compared with them?”
“But sure you’ll have both, General. Lady Lennox and the young ladies won’t consent to be kept at Poonah much longer with you up here, if I know ’em.”
“Possibly it may be feasible to get them here after the hot weather. Then indeed I should have nothing left to wish for. But I must be moving. I am glad to leave you here to look after your sister. See to it that she never rides alone, by the bye. Munshi was telling me some foolish tale of Kamal-ud-din’s believing that our luck resides in her presence with us, and no doubt he is capable of seeking to transfer my good fortune to himself. The lower he sees his cause sunk, the more likely he is to attempt to re-establish it by some desperate expedient. And see that she don’t drive the unfortunate Ambrose mad by her affectionate assiduities, if you can.”
“Will you tell me you think I’m able for it, General?”
Sir Harry chuckled. “Give the poor fellow the support of your presence when possible. But don’t attempt to dissuade your sister from a close attendance on him, for you’ll get the worst of it. Never interfere with a woman in her own province. She knows what will bring her consolation, though you mayn’t realise it. That’s the advice of one who has had a good deal to do with women.”
“I’m sorry the association has been so unfortunate as to teach you such wisdom, General.”
“You young dog!” Sir Harry turned back on the verandah step and chuckled again. “But you’re wrong there. I thank Heaven no woman has ever known sorrow through me. Many are the tears I have kissed away, but never caused one to flow. And you are thinking, you irreverent young rascal”—with a renewed chuckle—“that to be kissed by a battered old phiz like mine would be more likely to draw tears than to allay ’em. I know you young fellows!”
“I wouldn’t dream of such a thought, sir!” with virtuous indignation. “But all the same, I’d give a good deal to be sure you don’t draw floods of ’em from my little Sally when I ask you for her, before you say yes!” he added sotto voce, as he supported himself by the pillar while Sir Harry mounted his horse and called out a farewell message to Eveleen.
CHAPTER XX.
IF SHE WILL, SHE WILL.
It would be pleasant to state that the shock Eveleen had received turned her in one hour into a normal wife, and that feminine intuition taught her to care for her husband in his weakness without jarring him by too great eagerness, but it would not be in accordance with the facts. Perhaps the ladies who disliked her were justified in saying that she was unwomanly. At any rate, the truth remains that she was absolutely incapable of realising that there are times—and a good many of them—when the soul of a sick person yearns for nothing on earth but to be let alone. She could not let Richard alone. If she was not doing some totally unnecessary and undesired thing for him, she was thinking of something to do, and if she could not think of any thing, she was asking him to suggest something. His bearer knew exactly how to make him comfortable in bed, but it would have been asking too much of Eveleen to expect her to believe this. She was quite certain she could arrange things more to his taste than any one else, and she arranged them complacently to her taste, only to see a possible improvement in less than five minutes, and to proceed to make it. Richard’s hours were passed in undergoing a continual series of experiments—each of which had to be talked about beforehand, discussed while it was in progress, and made the subject of mutual congratulation when it was over, until the next inspiration dawned on Eveleen’s mind. He could not quite decide whether the talking made it worse or better. It added the tortures of anticipation to those of realisation, certainly, but it might have been worse if he had been seized upon without warning. He was too weak to protest, too weary to be sarcastic, though he derived not merely bodily satisfaction, but a glimmering of amusement, from the air of portentous patience with which his bearer would take any and every opportunity of the Beebee’s absence to reverse each and all of her arrangements, and make his master comfortable in his own way. Perhaps it was as well that Eveleen’s inventive brain provided her with so many new and infallible ideas for the better treatment of the sick, since she could never be quite sure that the arrangement she found in force on her return might not have been her own latest experiment but one, and not the bearer’s at all. Her satisfaction in having her husband all to herself, and being able to do everything for him—she told him so perpetually—was so complete that Richard had not the heart to disturb it, and sufferance being the badge of the bearer’s tribe, he refrained likewise. The surgeon was the only person whose authority she acknowledged—to a certain extent,—and he knew better than to wound her, and probably provoke a scene, by throwing doubts on her capacity as a nurse. What he did, and earned thereby the patient’s sincerest gratitude, was to insist on her taking regular exercise—or in the enthusiasm of her self-sacrifice she would have forsworn even her beloved rides. The doctor used to detect, or so he imagined, a faint smile in the eyes of the man on the bed when he took upon himself, with friendly violence, to propel Mrs Ambrose from the sick-room. “Just a short ride, my dear madam, beside your good brother’s palkee”—for the surgeons had fulfilled Brian’s darkest anticipations by condemning him to a recumbent position and no riding for a week at least—“to cheer him up and give you a little change of scene. Otherwise”—darkly—“we shall have you unable to resume your kind care of Ambrose to-morrow, and what would become of him then?” with, it is to be feared, a perceptible wink directed towards the patient.
Richard’s constitution—mental as well as physical—must have been a good one, for he succeeded in surviving not merely his own imprudence on the day of the battle, but his wife’s nursing after it, and in arriving at the point when the surgeon said cheerfully, “Now we ought to see some improvement every day!” But the forecast was not justified. There was no relapse, but also no further improvement. The patient remained in the same state day after day—unwilling or unable to attempt exertion of any kind, still asking merely to be let alone. It was only natural that Eveleen should become impatient. Her active mind had run ahead of reality so far as to picture him convalescent and established out of doors in the shade, with herself fetching and carrying for him and anticipating his slightest wish. The trifling drawback that there was no shade out of doors did not at first suggest itself to her. The hot weather was coming on fast, and the emerald greenery which had made the country round Qadirabad such a refreshing sight to Indian eyes was growing brown and parched. Happily the Residency had been built to suit the climate, with thick walls and heavy chunamed verandahs, and an abundant supply of the mud-brick ventilators evolved by local talent—erected on the roof to catch every breath of air, and convey it in the form of wind down a kind of chimney into each room, accompanied by a disproportionate quantity of dust. But even in the Residency Eveleen gasped for breath behind the close-drawn blinds, and felt that life was only worth living when night and darkness made it possible to move about again outside, though only to find that all her favourite leafy spots were sere and dry. Then—probably by force of contrast—the thought of Bab-us-Sahel and the sea suggested itself to her, and instantly her mind was made up that a trip to Bab-us-Sahel was what Richard needed to restore him to health. Of course he would never shake off his lassitude here, with the hot breath of the desert blasting the vegetation and burning everything up. A voyage down the river—peacefully floating onwards night and day, drawing nearer each hour to real sea-breezes—that was what would cure him, and he must and should have it. She said so—without a thought of encountering opposition—to Brian, just promoted to a gentle ride morning and evening instead of the humiliating palkee, and was astonished and wounded to find that he did not agree with her.
“Can’t you leave the poor fellow alone?” he demanded. “Sure he only wants not to be teased and worried.”
“But who teases and worries him, I’d like to know? It’s rousing he wants—any one could see that.”
“Ask the doctor, can’t you? and see what he’ll tell you.”
“I will not. Don’t I know what my own husband wants better than any doctor?”
“But Ambrose don’t want to go to Bab-us-Sahel.”
“Does he not, indeed?” triumphantly. “I asked him would he like it, and he said he would greatly.”
“I wonder did he even know what you were talking about? Plenty of times I don’t believe he’s so much as listening.”
“Y’are very polite, indeed! I know better.”
“But see here, Evie, the floods will be coming down any day now, and you wouldn’t be safe in any country boat—only a steamer, and you know there ain’t one to spare.”
“Sure that’s the very reason we ought start at once—to make the voyage before the floods begin. They don’t come till a full fortnight after this—I was asking about it this morning—and that’ll give us oceans of time.”
“You can never tell. They would as likely have begun a fortnight ago—only they have not. Anybody will tell you there’s no reckoning on ’em.”
“Well, I can’t help that——” with a sudden shifting of her ground. “I tell you we are going.”
“You can’t go without getting leave. Even if the doctor would let you, Ambrose is on the staff, and you can’t go carrying him off to t’other end of nowhere without a word to the General.”
“Sure I’ll write and ask him. Will that satisfy you?”
“Will you wait for the answer? Nonsense, Evie! y’are behaving like a bit of a child. Look now what I’ll do for you. I’ll go see the General and tell him all about it. He’ll be at Khanpur—or maybe even on his way back here, and I suppose you will take what he says from his own mouth. If he thinks it safe you will go, and if not, you stay here like a rational being. You can trust him. Is that settled now?”
“I’ll be quite satisfied if I once see the General and settle it with him,” agreed Eveleen—which was not quite the explicit pledge Brian would have exacted had he been giving his full mind to the matter. But Brian was uncomfortably conscious of ulterior motives in his opposition to the plan. He was arguing quite as much for his own benefit as Richard’s. The General would give him leave to escort his sister and the invalid to Bab-us-Sahel, he was sure—only too readily, indeed, for he did not want to go. He wanted to be back at his proper work—not leaving Stewart and Frederick Lennox to win all sorts of laurels without him. Khanpur had fallen without a blow—Khemistan is full of Khanpurs, but this was Kamal-ud-din’s pleasure-capital on the edge of the desert, quite distinct from his grim fortress of Umarganj in its deepest depths. The inhabitants met the Bahadar Jang with acclamations, and testified the utmost gratitude to him for delivering them from the Arabit tyranny, but they could only hand over the shell without the kernel. Kamal-ud-din, with his baggage and the remains of his army, had escaped into the desert, presumably to Umarganj, and Sir Harry settled down, with what patience he could command—which was very little—to wait at Khanpur while his subordinates continued the pursuit. It was not etiquette for him to move against Umarganj in person, lest so great a potentate should incur the disgrace of a check before a small desert fort, and he was beginning to pay some attention to Indian opinion, which he had despised so heartily when he landed. But he learned to wish that he had disregarded it on this occasion, for Kamal-ud-din contrived marvellously to baffle his pursuers. He was heard of in many places—now far ahead of his enemies, then at the spot they had just left, and at this time there was a rumour that he had managed to elude the troops altogether, and break back towards the river. With the hot weather and the inundations close at hand, this was a serious matter, and Brian anticipated a regular drive—a combined effort to put an end once and for all to the young Khan’s power for mischief. Little wonder, then, that Eveleen’s insistence on the trip to Bab-us-Sahel failed to meet with sympathy.
Being anxious to get back to active service at the earliest possible moment, Brian had obeyed orders so virtuously with regard to his wound, that the surgeons were quite glad to have an opportunity for rewarding him. His request was so modest—merely to ride out to Khanpur with a supply convoy, which must necessarily travel slowly and by night, pay his respects there to the General, and return, thus at once testing his strength and increasing it, and the doctors sped him joyfully. So did Eveleen. He felt bitterly afterwards that he ought to have extorted a promise from her that she would make no move until his return, but it is probable that at the time she had no thought of anticipating it. According to her wont, she was entirely convinced that things were going to happen as she wished, and referred to Brian’s mission as though the General was merely to be informed politely of the proposed journey instead of being asked to permit it. Brian found this trying, and ventured to point out the misconception, whereupon she faced round upon him with flashing eyes.
“D’ye tell me Sir Harry would have the heart to keep Ambrose here sick when a month or so at Bab-us-Sahel would set him up entirely? It’s yourself is making the difficulty, Brian, and if you say any more I’ll know you don’t want us to go.”
This was precisely the case, but it seemed rather heartless to admit it to an affectionate wife torn with anxiety for her husband, and Brian said no more. His disobliging attitude rankled in Eveleen’s mind for a while after he started, but as so often happens, it was opportunity that provided the impulse to action. She was sitting with Richard as usual, and after a night largely sleepless by reason of the heat, was dozing in her chair—not restfully, but spasmodically. She was too tired even to resent actively the fact that the bearer had seized upon the chance of doing something for his master, and was remaking the bed—if it could be called making when there was so little to make. He was talking, too, and Richard was answering drowsily, or rather acquiescing, at due intervals. It was something about a Parsee trader whose business required his immediate presence at Bombay. He had secured boats and a guard of armed men for the voyage down the river to Bab-us-Sahel, but though he was intensely anxious to get there before the floods began, he was horribly afraid of the wild tribes plundering on the banks, and would give anything for the countenance and protection of European fellow-travellers. By Richard’s murmured assents, the information evidently conveyed nothing to him, but Eveleen was wide awake by this time, and sat up suddenly.
“How did you hear this Firozji would like to take European passengers in his boat, bearer?” she asked—in Persian which was very much of the “station” order, but which long practice enabled Abdul Qaiyam readily to understand. But he did not seem very clear about his answer. The matter had been talked about among the servants. They might have heard of it from Mr Firozji’s servants—he did not know. Eveleen suspected at once that her desire to go down the river had been discussed—as everything was discussed—by the servants, who were always at hand to see and hear, and that one of them knew sufficient of Mr Firozji’s affairs to conceive the idea of bringing the two parties together in return for a tip from the Parsee, and possibly another from herself. But to quarrel with the means by which her wish might be attained would indeed be to look a gift-horse in the mouth, and she questioned the bearer further, finding him better informed than his previous vagueness might have suggested. To secure the escort of Europeans, Mr Firozji would be willing to give up to them his own large and comfortable boat, occupying a smaller one himself, and his servants would undertake catering and cooking, so that only personal attendants need be taken. This clinched the matter. Eveleen bade Abdul Qaiyam summon Mr Firozji to wait upon her as soon as possible, and then turned her attention to the not unimportant detail of getting the doctor’s leave for the move. She met the poor man with shock tactics.
“Such a wonderful chance!” she cried triumphantly when he came in on his evening visit—“splendid, I’d say, only the General hates the word so. You know the way I have been longing and wishing to get Ambrose down the river, but there wouldn’t be any boats going?”
It was the first the surgeon had been told of it officially, but he also had servants, and they also talked. Therefore he was able to answer with truth, “I have heard of it, certainly.”
“Well, and now here’s the very thing—old Firozji in the Bazar going down with more boats than he wants, all in a hurry to avoid the floods, don’t you know. He’ll be glad of European passengers, we’ll be glad to travel with him, so did y’ever hear anything nicer?”
“I am not surprised at his welcoming European fellow-travellers, but I doubt your finding him the safest of company. He’s afraid of the Codgers, of course.”
These were the Kajias, the wildest of the wild tribes of Lower Khemistan, who in the mouth of the British troops naturally became the Codgers, and their Khan the King of the Codgers. The Kajias it was who had been so bold as to raid the outlying houses of Bab-us-Sahel, and Sir Henry had sent the Khan a stern reproof and orders to come in and surrender. Eveleen laughed as she thought of it.
“And the Codgers will be afraid of us. Sure the General has put terror upon them—so that’s all right. After these two victories no one would dare touch a European.”
“I trust you may be correct. But——”
“Ah, then, don’t but at me! Be good and kind like yourself, and help me to make my bandobast in time.”
“Why, when do you want to go?”
“I haven’t seen Firozji yet, but the way the bearer spoke I’d say he would start to-night if he could—and what could be better? I mean”—she explained kindly—“that Ambrose won’t have the worry of looking forward. He’ll wake up out of this drowsy state and find himself on the beautiful cool water, and he will be pleased!”
“There’s something in that,” said the surgeon meditatively, and went and looked at Richard, in whose eyes he caught a fleeting gleam of recognition, which passed as quickly as it came. “But I fear you won’t find it particularly cool on the river. The glare from the sand and the water will be precious trying, after the shade here. You don’t know what it means to be cooped up in a small boat in the hot weather, with nothing but a mat roof between you and the sun, and no possibility of finding even a rock or a tree to shelter you.”
“But it won’t be for very long,” cheerfully. “And nothing could be hotter than ’tis here.”
The surgeon was well aware of the contrary, but Eveleen looked so tired and washed-out that he could not bring himself to dash her hopes. He remembered another objection, however. “But what about getting leave? You can’t spirit away the General’s political assistant without asking him.”
“Why, now, what could be better?” she cried joyfully. “My brother has gone to see Sir Harry and get leave for this very trip, only I never thought we’d find a passage so easily. Sir Harry can’t refuse, and Brian must come on after and overtake us.”
“Or fetch you back, if Sir Harry should refuse.”
“He will not, I’ll answer for him. ’Twould be as much as to say he didn’t wish Ambrose would get better.”
“I have no doubt you would tell him so, ma’am. And you ain’t afraid of the responsibility of looking after your husband with no doctor at hand?”
“Why, what can doctors do for him?” ungratefully. “Ah, now”—realising what she had said,—“you know what I mean. You have done all you can—you said so,—and here he lies in this state, and you can get him no further. You’ll tell me what I’ll do if he seems worse, and I’ll do it. Why would I be frightened at all?”
“I don’t see that the voyage can do him any harm so long as you ain’t shipwrecked or attacked by the Codgers,” said the surgeon dubiously; “and at Bab-us-Sahel you will be able to turn him over to Gibbons. But for pity’s sake don’t go and get marooned on a sandbank, or besieged in some barren spot on the shore without a bit of shade, till your brother comes and rescues you. I can’t answer for Ambrose if he’s exposed to the sun again, remember. The heat is bad enough; you will have to keep the bearer pouring water over him most of the day in any case, I expect.”
“I will, I will; and if we have to be besieged I’ll be sure to pick out a shikargah or some other nice place. And you will see about a pass for us, if one’s wanted, like the angel that y’are, and see that no one would try to stop us, will you not?”
“But I would gladly keep you back myself until your brother was here to take charge of you, if I didn’t know it would mean that you would probably be prevented from going at all. Hang it, ma’am! I wish you had sent me a chit to tell me what you wanted. How is a man to consider things coolly with a flood of blarney pouring on his head?”
“But sure I don’t want you to consider things—only to do them,” said Eveleen innocently, and he went off laughing. That morning it would have seemed absurd that she should actually find her wishes fulfilled by the evening, but so it happened. Mr Firozji, a short elderly man, who contrived somehow to be both stout and wizened at the same time, was evidently waiting outside for the doctor to go. He was very rich, very timid, and so grateful for the prospect of having Major and Mrs Ambrose as fellow-passengers that he would have promised almost anything to secure them, and Eveleen had to insist that they should pay their share of the boat hire and other expenses.
“’Twould be a fine joke against Ambrose to save his pocket by putting him under an obligation to a black man, but I won’t be teasing him when he’s so ill,” she said virtuously to herself. “Though Firozji would maybe think it only fair to pay for the protection of our presence,” she added a little ruefully. “It’s well I’m not timid, for it looks as if my courage would have to do the whole party.”
It was not the first time in her life that she had felt nervous over the fulfilment of one of her impulsive wishes, but she had never had the feeling quite so strongly as to-night. Abdul Qaiyam and Ketty had it too, for they both enquired anxiously if she was not going to wait for the young Sahib. She was obliged to be very firm and cheerful with them over the process of packing, realising that they would not be sorry if they could manage to delay things till the opportunity was lost. Despite the heat, she flew about from the sick-room to her own room and then to the verandah, deciding what must be taken, and seeing with her own eyes that it was packed. Abdul Qaiyam would never let his master go short, she knew—if Richard suffered it would be through forgetfulness, not malice,—but she had an idea that she herself might find various things lacking that were indispensable to comfort unless she looked after them herself. Richard remained in the same lethargic state until the servants lifted him to carry him down to the boat. Then there came another of those brief flashes of full consciousness, and he looked disturbed—even protesting. Eveleen had a moment of terror lest her plan should fall through even now. She bent over him and smiled into his face.
“Off to Bab-us-Sahel!” she said brightly. “Do y’all the good in the world!”
He seemed to try to say something, but in the effort the drowsiness came over him again, and she was guiltily conscious that she was glad. Once get him safely on board, and he might regain command of his senses as soon as he liked. He was certain to make a fuss—especially about her not waiting for Brian’s return—but she would point out triumphantly that his return to consciousness was the best possible proof of the wisdom of her action. The surgeon came to see them on board, and gave anxious directions as to what was to be done if various things happened, and she listened and did her best to label them and stow them away in the proper compartments of her mind. A number of friends were waiting to see them off, for the sudden journey had given every one the idea that Richard had had a serious relapse, and the only chance of saving his life was to take him at once to Bab-us-Sahel, regardless alike of the unpropitious season and the dangers of the way. They were very quiet and sympathetic as he was carried down the path, but a certain revulsion of feeling was perceptible when Eveleen followed. Ambrose looked no worse than he had done for days, and Mrs Ambrose certainly had not the look of strain that the situation demanded. Just a little anxious, no doubt, as any woman is when she is trying to remember whether she has got everything before starting on a journey, but with a look of something like triumph as well. The condolences and good wishes fell rather flat, and as they returned up the cliff by torchlight the ladies told their husbands that either Mrs Ambrose was trying to get rid of the Major by carrying him off away from medical aid, or she was going down the river for some purpose of her own, regardless of the effect on him.
The chill of disapproval made itself felt, and Eveleen was conscious of depression of spirits. The boat was as comfortable as had been promised, their possessions were easily arranged so as to leave ample room for moving about, and one or two suggestions which the doctor made for the invalid’s comfort were instantly carried out. Yet she did not feel happy. The surgeon’s last remark had been that they ought to have a guard of soldiers—he was certain the General would have sent one had he been there,—and anyhow, where were these armed servants of Firozji’s? Mr Firozji explained anxiously that a boat had gone to fetch them, and they would catch up the party below the camp, and the doctor said he hoped it was all right, but his tone was doubtful. Eveleen remembered it when the boatful of guards joined the other two. They were armed, certainly—to the teeth, but they were a wild-looking set, more like outlaws from the hills than the servants of a law-abiding elderly merchant. But had Mr Firozji said they were his servants? She could not remember that he had, and it looked very much as though he had selected his guardians from among the masterless men who had been left without occupation by the defeat of the Khans. If she had guessed that he had carried one of the root principles of Indian housekeeping so far as to guard against trouble from the Kajias by going to some trouble to obtain members of the tribe as his escort, she would have been still more uneasy, but she told herself that it was too late to turn back now, and she must hope for the best. She took out Richard’s pistols, and made sure that they were loaded, and determined to sleep with them under her pillow and a supply of ammunition within reach of her hand. After all, Brian ought to catch them up in two days at most—less if he took a fast boat and kept the crew up to their work. It did not occur to her that Brian might be in no hurry to get back from Khanpur. He was a man of many friends, and there was plenty to hear from all of them, and he had no particular objection to leaving Eveleen to cool her heels at Qadirabad, as he believed, for a day or two. The longer his return was delayed, the more likely was she to have some new plan in her head—completely ousting the Bab-us-Sahel one,—or the floods might even have begun, and the journey be out of the question.
The surgeon’s warning came back to Eveleen many times in the course of the next day, and when evening came she would readily have confessed that at the Residency she had not known what heat was. In her anticipations, the voyage had offered all the advantages of a steamer except its speed, coupled with the absence of smoke and smell, and the delight of being near the water. But she found that with the greater speed of the steamer went the pleasant sensation of moving air, and that the long hot hours when there was no breeze to fill the sails, and the river-current seemed incredibly slow, provided a new form of torture—such as might be experienced by a speck of dross on the mirror-like surface of a huge cauldron of molten metal. Even Richard was conscious of it, as she could not but see. He did not recognise her—not even her voice when she spoke to him,—but he gasped feebly, with now and then a pitiful little moan. The fear gripped her that he might die before her eyes, and with threats and bribes she induced one of the boatmen and a servant of Mr Firozji’s to keep the roof of the cabin continually wet with buckets of water, while Abdul Qaiyam performed the same service for his master beneath it. It was no light task, for the heat seemed to dry things at once, and leave them even drier than before; but she threw all her energy into the business of keeping the men at their work, and when evening came her husband was a little easier. She had a moment to rest, and to notice what she had not done before—the threatening look of the sky. Mr Firozji, in a quavering voice which sounded absurdly small for his substantial bulk, opined that they were going to have a thunderstorm, and Eveleen did not need him to tell her that if this extended far up the river, it would mean that the dreaded inundation would begin at once. Other people realised this as well, for the lazy boatmen began to work with some appearance of energy, and the headman of the guards came into Mr Firozji’s boat to urge some course of action upon him, which he refused, though with a fluttering politeness which betrayed alarm. Since there was still no breeze, it was necessary to pole the boats along, as this wide unsheltered channel was not a safe place in which to be caught by the storm; and the boatmen poled to such good purpose that before the rapid darkness fell, the flotilla was moored under the lee of an island—or rather sandbank—which promised some protection from wind and current.
CHAPTER XXI.
WELL AND TRULY LAID.
Still the storm tarried. Supper was served, and Eveleen made a pretence of eating, lest the servants should attribute her lack of appetite to fear. Then they went away to have their food—Ketty eating in self-righteous solitude, while Abdul Qaiyam fraternised with the boatmen, who had kindled a fire on the island to cook their rice. Eveleen envied them as they sat in the smoke, for it served to keep away mosquitoes and other flying pests, while she durst not light a candle for fear of filling the cabin with the winged intruders. Alone with her unconscious husband, she kept a dreary vigil, fearful of she knew not what. She remembered that Richard had seemed about to say something when the boat with the guards came up, but the momentary impulse had passed, and he had shown no inclination to speak since. What was it that had troubled him? Could it be that he had recognised any of the men? But even so, what could the guards do, even if ill-disposed? They might intend robbery, but the modest belongings of the pair would be poor booty compared with the danger of provoking the certain vengeance of the Bahadar Jang. Or if they were indeed adherents of the Khans, their object might be simply to avenge the wrongs of their former masters; and Eveleen shuddered as she remembered what had befallen an invalid officer, on his way down the river, at the hands of some of Khair Husain Khan’s servants. Dragged from his boat shivering with fever, the sick man had pleaded with the robbers, as he thought them, to leave him his clothes, because he was so cold, and they had responded by cutting off his head. Sir Harry had acted as might have been expected of him, informing the Khan he would hang him from the round tower of the Fort unless the guilty servants were given up. They were produced in an hour, and suffered the penalty their master escaped, though it went sorely against the grain with Sir Harry to spare Khair Husain and punish his tools. That example ought to serve as a salutary warning, surely?
But Eveleen could not take comfort. The servants had returned and made things ready for the night, and she had lain down on her bed, though knowing she could not sleep. Every sense seemed to be more than commonly alive, as though the coming storm, which had lulled Richard into lethargy, merely stimulated her. Theoretically no one was awake within miles of her—for what was the use of posting sentries on an uninhabited island in the middle of a wide river?—but the air was full of little unaccountable noises. A feeble soughing wind that went and came, distant irritable growlings of the storm, the rattling, rather than rustling, of the withered grass and rushes—these sounds she could identify, but there were others whose meaning eluded her. Of course it was only the lapping of the water that sounded like whispers, and when one might think some one had dropped a weapon it was merely the snapping off of a dead branch by its own weight; but she wished they would not happen. The blinds at the ends of the cabin were rolled up to allow the free passage of air, and she lay looking out at the leaden sky, with no companionable stars to brighten it, and listening to the sounds, and there fell upon her at last an agony of terror. It had always been her boast that she did not know what nerves were, but she would never make it again. The beating of her own heart sounded to her like the rise and fall of a tremendous piston, such as she had once heard in a Dublin factory, filling the whole earth and sky; and as she cowered before its relentless thud, she trembled with cold, though the slightest movement made her aware that her whole frame was streaming with perspiration. She who had been afraid of nothing was afraid of everything—the place, the time, the weather, the solitude, the company, the silence, the sounds,—what she saw and what she did not see.
She shook herself angrily free from the overmastering terror at last—or at any rate, which perhaps showed equal courage, she acted as if she did. Struggling from the bed and to her feet—for she found she must put forth all her strength, as though she were really being held down by a powerful hostile hand,—she threw on a dressing-gown and groped her way forward. The old bearer, curled up like a dog beside his master, heard her and looked up curiously: she saw his bright eyes like a dog’s in the dark, lighted by some gleam behind her, perhaps the ashes of the dying fire on the shore. She stood looking out, but there was nothing to see. Dark sky, dark water—a perfect pall of darkness brooding over everything,—and on her left a slightly deeper darkness which showed the position of the island and its ragged grass and shrubs. The voices of the night were whispering as before, and again she felt that terrible sensation of helplessness. Once she opened her lips to pray, but her pride was not broken yet. “And how would I pray,” she asked herself sharply, “when I know every bit of it’s my own doing?”
She staggered as she spoke, and caught at the framework of the cabin to steady herself. What had made the boat lurch suddenly—some wave which was the result of the storm higher up, its precursor here? She looked more narrowly at the water. Was it fancy, or did she see round things moving in it? And surely there were strange amorphous shapes where there had been none before? Her heart stood still. The change, if change there was, was so soundless, so ghostly. But the thought of the supernatural passed from her mind with a shock. The boat was moving. Not merely swaying at its moorings as the current tried to suck it away from the protecting island, but moving out into the stream and leaving the island behind. Wild thoughts of crocodiles rushed into her mind. Could they possibly bite through stout ropes and tow a boat along, or even leave it to float at its own sweet will? Impossible; there must be human agency at work. With Eveleen to think was to act, and kneeling precariously at the side of the boat, she leaned over the gunwale and clutched at one of the round objects she had thought she saw. The yell of horror which came from it told her what the sense of touch told also, that it was a human head. The boat was surrounded by swimming men, who were moving it away from the island—presumably it was also being towed by a rope. But what the great shapeless objects were, which she seemed to see beyond the heads, she could not tell, nor did she trouble to conjecture. Whether she or the man she had grasped was the more astonished might be doubtful, but she had the advantage of position. Catching up an earthen water-pot which stood outside the cabin for the sake of coolness, she hurled it in the direction of the yell, and was on her feet in a moment and under the mat roof. When she came out, Richard’s pistols were in her hand, and she fired one in the direction of the island as a signal. She could not believe that Mr Firozji was concerned in any plot that might be toward, and if he was a man at all he would come to the rescue with those guards of his.
The immediate response to her signal was a startling one. She had barely time to recharge the pistol, working clumsily in the dark, before there was a hasty movement of men aft—whether the boatmen or the swimmers she could not tell, nor was she much concerned to know. At the moment she was more conscious of Abdul Qaiyam’s heavy breathing close beside her as he asked in a bewildered voice whether the Beebee had shot anybody than of her possible assailants. Hurriedly she thrust the ammunition pouch at him.
“Load when I pass y’a pistol!” she said sharply, and then called out in her imperfect Persian to the men in front that if any one came nearer she would shoot him. One man sprang forward, and she fired at him point-blank. The blind shot in the dark must have taken effect, for the man cried out and fell forward. Confused cries of rage and protest came from the rest, and Eveleen held her hand. For the moment she had thought of discharging all the three shots she had left into the group, in the hope of driving them overboard at once, but the imprudence of leaving herself defenceless, even for a moment, was reinforced by mystification. The whole thing was like a bad dream—the shapes in the water, the moving crowd dark against the dark sky, the eager talking in an unknown tongue. If it was Persian, her knowledge of the language was quite inadequate to cope with it. She stooped a moment towards Abdul Qaiyam as he handed her the recharged pistol.
“Speak to them!” she said imperiously. “Ask them who they are—what they want. Tell them we are well armed, and can see them though they can’t see us.”
The old man was too much terrified to obey immediately, and she thrust at him impatiently with her foot. Then his quavering voice made itself heard—“Brothers!” and the men in front appeared to listen. One of them stepped forward a little.
“Stand back, or I fire!” said Eveleen quickly, and the bearer repeated the words in Persian. As he spoke, she remembered suddenly that she must be visible to any one able to see through the cabin from end to end, and she sank on her knees, resting the barrel of the heavy pistol on the back of a camp-chair which she pulled noiselessly towards her. Crouching thus, she was invisible to those in front, and a barrier—if a frail one—between Richard and the enemy. But were they enemies, or was there some absurd mistake? She could not decide, but she felt fairly certain that what they had been speaking was not Persian, though the spokesman—who had withdrawn a pace or two hastily before her threat—was using that language with Abdul Qaiyam.
“These are very bad people,” the old man murmured to her at last, and she listened without turning her head. “Kajia tribe—they come to steal the boat—everything.”
“Nonsense! they’ll not do anything of the sort. Where will the Parsee be, now? letting this kind of thing happen instead of coming to help us.”
To her amazement the meek voice of Mr Firozji answered her—apparently from somewhere close at hand. In her bewilderment she suffered her gaze to stray for a moment, and discerned dimly that he was just outside the boat, but seemingly not in the water. At least, his voice was on a level with the gunwale, though there was no grating sound to show that another boat was rasping alongside. The mad incomprehensibility of the situation was more incomprehensible than ever.
“The Beebee beholds in me a son of misfortune,” he said pathetically. “The Kajias have deceived me. They have stolen the boat, so as to carry away the Sahib, the Beebee, myself, the servant people—all.”
“And what may those guards of yours be about, to let them do it? Call them, can’t you? Shout!”
“The Kajias would slay me,” in affright. “The guards are asleep.”
“Much good they are! But what do the Kajias want to do with us? We’d be no good to them to steal.”
“Are they not taking us to their camp?” he suggested doubtfully.
“Well, they won’t, then. Tell them to go back and leave us on the island, and take the boat if they want it.”
“They say the water will soon be rising, and we should all be drowned. They refuse to leave us.”
“Sure they’re very considerate! Well, tell them we won’t go to their camp—or if we do, there’ll be precious few of them will take us there. I have plenty of shots here, and I’ll use them all first.”
“What does the Beebee please to desire?” was the question asked after some interchange of conversation between Mr Firozji and the captors. Eveleen had employed the interval in thinking hard. She did not believe the Kajias meant to take their victims to their camp—or if they did, it was merely for the sake of killing them more at their leisure. It was in the highest degree unlikely that they would leave witnesses alive to testify against them, or provoke Sir Harry further by attempting to hold them to ransom. No, what they had no doubt intended was to tow the boat out of earshot of the sleepy guards on the island, and then cut the throats of all on board, and gut the vessel and send her adrift, in the comfortable conviction that nothing but unrecognisable fragments would survive the storm. This seemed the more certain from their bringing with them the means of getting to shore again, for the mysterious shapes—on one of which Mr Firozji was uncomfortably poised, like a river-god in difficult circumstances—were obviously the mashaks, or inflated skins, with the help of which the tribes on the banks were in the habit of making such short voyages as they found necessary. How they had managed to abstract the poor little man from his own boat, under the eyes of his servants, was a mystery, but everything was mysterious to-night.
He repeated his question as Eveleen hesitated a moment.
“Why, let them take us over to the other side,” she answered—the desire to be as far as possible from the Kajias conquering all other considerations. “I’d rather choose the desert than their camp.”
“There is no time. They are afraid of the storm.” Mr Firozji’s voice sounded as if he was frightened himself.
“Well, they may say whether they’ll be shot, or drowned in the storm. I’d much rather be drowned——” She stopped suddenly, for the second pistol, which had lain beside her knee, was hastily withdrawn, and a shot rang out behind her. Then she laughed rather wildly, for the deferential voice of the old bearer murmured—
“This humble one made bold to fire at one of the sons of wickedness who was climbing into the boat behind the Beebee’s back.”
“Quite right!” she said, still laughing, then turned sharply upon Mr Firozji. “Tell them they are wasting time. If the storm overtakes us ’twill be their fault. I’m tired of this. Let them make up their minds.”
Again there was a prolonged conversation, and apparently the Kajias gave a grudging assent to the condition. “If the Beebee is determined to drown all of us and the Kajias too, she must,” remarked Mr Firozji sourly as he scrambled on board the boat, having taken the opportunity of putting in a word for himself in the course of the negotiations. Yet Eveleen had the idea that he was not really displeased, and she wondered whether he could possibly be in league with the Kajias after all. But the notion seemed so absurd that she banished it again, though disregarding coldly his hints that the night air was unhealthy, and refusing to invite him into the cabin. The Kajias—or the boatmen—or perhaps they were the same: it was impossible to see—were very busy, working with an alacrity rather surprising in the circumstances. There was a slight chill breeze to be felt now, and they were hoisting the sail, and also getting out their poles. Were they really indifferent which bank they landed on, or were they plotting further treachery? As noiselessly as she could, Eveleen supplemented the chair which served her as a parapet by such other pieces of furniture and packages as she could reach, and whispered to Abdul Qaiyam to do the same at the other end of the cabin, entrusting him with one of the pistols. In feeling about, she came across Ketty, who had preserved such an unwonted silence during the stirring events of the last half-hour that her mistress had forgotten all about her. But she had been employing her time to advantage, as Eveleen discovered when she found her dressing-case open and largely denuded. Her handmaid had been removing such fittings as were of convenient size, and concealing them about her person.
“What in the world are you doing, Ketty?” The tone would have been louder but for prudential reasons.
“What madam doing without her things?” was the self-righteous reply, calculated to make Eveleen repent her unjust suspicions. Were they really unjust? she wondered.
“Well, I hope y’are taking care of the Sahib as well,” she said. “He needs much more than I do.”
The sniff with which Ketty replied suggested that she considered this would be trespassing on Abdul Qaiyam’s province, but her mistress had no time to see whether she was obeying or not, for there were other things to think of. The tardy storm was coming up at last, heralded by the breeze which was taking the boat across the stream. Great drops of rain were falling like bullets on the cabin roof, and the air was full of a hissing noise. The boat was in the main stream now, and the boatmen drew in their poles, and evidently settled down to hold tight and hope for the best. The river seemed bewitched, cross-currents driving the boat now this way, now that, and the men who were managing the clumsy sail had no easy task. The vessel was not built for rough weather, her draught being too shallow and her deck-load too heavy. She bounced and bobbed about, shipping a good deal of water, and hurling all the loose things in the cabin from side to side with every lurch. Fearful of a surprise, Eveleen durst not leave her post even to see that Richard was safe, and had to take what comfort she could from the knowledge that his charpoy was fixed to the deck. By the sounds she heard, she gathered that the two servants were in the throes of sea-sickness, and she wondered dismally what would happen if she herself were prostrated by it as on the voyage from Bombay. But her mental preoccupation probably saved her, and she was able to maintain her watch. Sheets of rain were falling now, and she was soaked to the skin, but did her best to shelter the pistol under the wadded quilt she dragged from her bed. The lightning was almost continuous, and whenever the howling and shrieking of the wind would allow, the rolling thunder filled up any pauses. The boat appeared to have embarked with enthusiasm on a series of experiments—now trying to stand on her head, now on her tail, and then seeing how far she could heel over without actually dipping gunwale under. It was wonderful that the mast did not go, though the great sail had been partly torn and partly cut away, and replaced by a tiny one which just kept the vessel before the wind. By the flashes of the lightning Eveleen noted grimly the miserable huddled figures forward, and guessed that the Kajias were not particularly happy in their conquest.
“If only there was a man on board worth a halfpenny—barring my poor Ambrose,” she said to herself, “we’d retake the ship in no time. But who is there at all? Firozji is no mortal use; if Bearer can fire a pistol, that’s the most he can do; and as for the boatmen, if they ain’t Codgers themselves, they’re every bit as bad. Indeed and they’re worse, for they ain’t sea-sick.”
Her self-communing was interrupted by a tremendous clap of wind, which came down on the boat as though determined to end her gambols at one blow. But once more she righted herself, though the cabin roof was torn bodily from its supports and carried gaily down the river. Eveleen’s heart failed her until she had assured herself, by groping and feeling, that Richard and the two servants were still there. The roar and crack had been so overwhelming that for the moment she fully believed the boat had broken in two, and they were all so wet already that the exposure to the rain hardly signified. Moreover, the loss of the mast and the cabin made the boat decidedly steadier, though Eveleen was less grateful for this than might have been expected, since she saw distinct signs of returning animation among the captors when the lightning made them visible. Could they be nearing the shore? she wondered. How long they had been tossing about, yet on the whole forging eastwards, she could not tell, but now that the lightning was less continuous, it seemed to her that between the flashes the darkness was not quite so in tense. It was a poor prospect—to be turned out on an unknown shore with a sick man and two frightened servants; but the expectation of treachery was so strong in her mind that she would have been thankful if they had been already there. Certainly it was not goodwill on the part of the Kajias that had induced them to undertake a voyage of so much danger and difficulty to get rid of their prisoners, with the prospect of another even more difficult and dangerous in getting back to their own side of the river; what then was it? It was not fear. During her tempestuous vigil she had seen that clearly. Her bluff before the storm had been spirited, but at any moment she might have been rushed from behind and thrown overboard, or a man on a mashak, shooting at the sound of her voice in the dark, might have crippled or killed her without the slightest risk to himself. It could hardly be vengeance, since—though it might involve more suffering to your captives to maroon them on the barren shore where they had mistakenly asked to be placed than to kill them and dispose of their bodies in the river—their sufferings, which you would not see, would hardly be sufficient compensation for the risk to yourself involved in getting them there. Mr Firozji, too. A certain complacence about the little man’s manner led Eveleen to the conclusion that the greater part of his merchandise must consist in precious stones hidden about his person, so that he could regard lightly the loss of all the rest. But if she could guess this, so could the Kajias, and were they really going to allow him to escape with it? The whole thing—like all the events of the night—was beset with riddles, and all that could be done was to keep a sharp watch against surprise. But in what direction? Eveleen did not know where to look, and moreover, the unceasing strain of the last few hours was telling upon her. She had been soaked so repeatedly that she could hardly remember what it was to feel dry and warm; she was aching in every limb, and—what was worse—her eyes would hardly keep open. In spite of the misery of body and anxiety of mind which had already endured so long, she began to find her eyelids closing involuntarily and imperceptibly, when she knew she ought to redouble her vigilance of the night now that dawn would soon give her enemies the advantage. She had no longer even the shelter of the cabin from which to fire, and her poor attempt at a barricade had been disintegrated long ago, and its component parts strewn upon the waters. She turned her head with difficulty, and saw—yes, the light must be increasing, since now she could see dimly Richard’s white face as he lay stark and stiff, like a dead man, on the charpoy, which was fortunately fixed against the framework of the cabin at the corner where it had suffered least, the old bearer crouched beside him, one hand clenched on the pistol, and Ketty hunched up, like a little old monkey, nearer to herself. They were defenceless but for the two pistols—even if the charges were not too damp to fire. The Kajias could shoot them down without the slightest risk, or—supposing their matchlocks also were useless, or their powder too precious to waste on such game—kill them with their knives with little danger to themselves. Why had they not done it long ago?
With equal difficulty Eveleen turned again towards them, where they sat huddled in the bow, with the boatmen as a sort of neutrals between, and Mr Firozji, with chattering teeth, crouching alone as though disowned by all parties. The men in the bows were beginning to lose something of their despairing attitude—taking an interest in things again, and exchanging a word or two with one another. She could see them, though in the driving rain she could not hear them; and she tried to pierce the veil of moisture ahead, and see if land were visible. But as yet she could see nothing but a grey expanse of angry water, yellow in streaks with sand, and bearing on its bosom uprooted trees and brushwood, with the grey sky overhead and the grey curtain of rain between. She tried to collect her thoughts and devise some way of getting Richard ashore—when they reached the shore. But what kind of shore would it be—high and rocky, or the endless flat land over which the flooded river must now be crawling relentlessly? How could she decide till she knew?
The end came suddenly—so suddenly that for the moment she thought she must have been asleep, and missed what led up to it. The boatmen had their poles out again, the keel was grating on ground of some sort, and yet there was still nothing to be seen but the river and the rain. But to the accustomed eyes of the Kajias more must have been visible, for they were standing up and talking eagerly. She noticed indifferently what big strapping fellows they were—picturesque despite their drenched clothes and shapeless turbans, and the ringlets, of which they were ordinarily so proud, lying limp and straight on their shoulders and mingling with their beards. The absurd reflection occurred to her that the rain must have washed them a little clean, which would be a strange experience to them. One of them turned round and kicked Mr Firozji, saying something to him, and the old Parsee stumbled up from the deck and addressed Eveleen in his beautiful Persian, which she found so difficult to understand.
“The boat can go no farther—the water is shallow——” his words tumbled over one another. “The boatmen will carry the Beebee ashore, if she will promise not to shoot.”
“Let them take the Sahib first,” said Eveleen promptly, then hesitated. How could she let them carry Richard away out of her sight, not knowing where they were taking him? Better go first herself. And yet how could she know how roughly they might handle him if she and her pistol were not there? “Won’t you go first yourself?” she asked eagerly. “Then you can see that they put Major Ambrose down carefully, and I will come last.”
Mr Firozji’s face was ashy. “I fear—I greatly fear,” he stammered. “I have the conviction that they will kill me if I leave the Sahib and the Beebee.”
Clearly there was no help here. She must take the risk. She turned to Abdul Qaiyam. “Watch over the Sahib, bearer; see that they carry him properly on the charpoy. Fire the pistol if they are rough, and I will come back. I can’t be any wetter than I am,” she added to herself, and rather wondered that the captors should offer to put her ashore instead of letting her wade. But when she was mounted on the shoulders of a sturdy boatman, with another close at hand in case of accidents, she saw how bad the footing was, and how confusing the currents even in this shallow water. Just as they started she heard a resounding splash, and looking round, was touched to see that Ketty had deliberately thrown herself—or rather let herself—into the water from the boat’s side, and was struggling after her, clutching the scanty drapery of the second boatman. The water was up to the old woman’s chest, but she pushed on bravely, and though the men on board laughed, they did not attempt to stop her.
How far the two men waded Eveleen did not know. The boat was only dimly visible as a misty shape through the falling rain when they reached land as suddenly as they had discerned it earlier. It was land in the sense of not being covered with water, but it resembled nothing so much as a sandbank left bare, though not dry, by the retreating tide. Yet apparently it was not an island, for it seemed to rise slightly on the side away from the boat, and to continue rising; and when Eveleen felt her feet on firm ground once more, her spirits went up with a bound. Anything was better than that dreadful boat and the company it carried, and when the rain stopped—which it must do soon now—they would quickly be dry and comfortable, and could look for some village where there was food and shelter to be found. She said as much to Ketty as they stood looking after the two men, whose forms were soon swallowed up in the driving rain. Most incomprehensibly, Ketty laughed; but before Eveleen could demand the reason, her cheerful anticipations were rudely contradicted by the sound of a shot from the boat, with cries and the muffled noise of a struggle. Unheeding Ketty’s agonised entreaties and attempt to hold her fast, she dashed into the water and began to wade back. The boat seemed farther away than she had been—and surely the boatmen were poling her off? Eveleen gave a great cry as the truth burst upon her, then struggled on again, though with failing strength, hindered by her clothes and the treacherous sand. Somehow or other she reached the boat when the water was up to her shoulders, and clung convulsively to the gunwale, shrieking to her husband to wake, to escape, to save himself, to save her. Mr Firozji lay on the deck in a pool of blood, and the murderers were already stripping off his clothes in search of booty. In front of his master stood Abdul Qaiyam—a most unheroic hero, with the pistol wavering in a shaking hand, and a face grey with fear. A man with a tulwar sprang at Eveleen as she clung to the side, and brought down his weapon with a horrible sweep. In terror she relaxed her grasp just in time, and fell back into the water with a loud cry of despair.