Chapter Fourteen.
A Visit—and its Sequel.
Sarbaland Khan’s village was similar in every particular to that of the greater potentate which we have already seen. Many eyes were watching the approach of the party of four from the loop-holed mud walls, and the glances directed at them as they entered the central courtyard, if not uniformly expressive of good will, were visibly so of curiosity. For these wild beings, to whom raids and forays and blood feuds were as the very salt of existence, now beheld a strange sight—that of a man and a woman—Feringhi infidels—with no other protection than a couple of Levy Sowars, entering their village, quietly, fearlessly, unconcernedly, as though in their own town at Mazaran, and the man was of importance, for he represented the Sirkar at Mazaran; yet here he walked alone into their midst, and to all appearances unarmed. Ya, Allah! but these Feringhi were a mad race—mad and incomprehensible. So pondered these wild mountaineers, salaaming gravely, as they peered at the strangers from beneath their shaggy brows.
The chief received them courteously, inviting them at once into his house. Sarbaland Khan was a tall man with a fine presence and dignified manner, and was clad in snowy white from head to foot. But the appointments of his dwelling were plain in the extreme—the only ornaments being a curious lamp or two, and a beautifully decorated sword, which last, together with a couple of good magazine rifles, hung on the wall. Three or four of his relatives helped to entertain them, and Hilda Clive was vastly impressed with their natural dignity—indeed, she could hardly believe they were of the same race as the shaggy, scowling savages who had so lately threatened them. Tea was brought in, served after the Russian method, and preserved fruits, and then she asked if she could visit the chief’s wives.
“I can do more than even you can, you see, Mr Raynier,” she said gaily, as permission having been given, she rose to follow the veiled figure who was summoned to guide her. “So now for the mysteries of the harem.”
Raynier’s talk with the chief was purely non-official, this being a merely friendly visit. He was asked about his predecessor, whom these people seemed to have held in some estimation—and then they talked about shikar. There were plenty of markhôr in the mountains around his village, declared Sarbaland Khan, and if Raynier Sahib would like to come and stalk some, he would certainly find some sport. Then he sent for some fine heads that had been recently shot to show his guest, and presently these two, the up-to-date Englishman and the mountain chieftain, having got upon this one grand topic in common, set to discussing this branch of sport as animatedly as though fellow-members of an English house party. In the midst of which discussion Hilda Clive returned.
So strange are the writings in the book of Fate. At that very moment a horseman was spurring—his objective the village of Sarbaland Khan. No great time would it take him to reach it either, and did he do so with the message he bore while this friendly conversation was in progress, why, then, Herbert Raynier would never leave Sarbaland Khan’s village alive.
Yet now they took leave of each other with great cordiality—Raynier expressing the hope of welcoming the Sirdar at the jirga, or assembly of all the chief’s and maliks, to be held shortly at Mazaran; and so they fared forth.
“You have given me a most delightfully interesting experience, Mr Raynier,” said Hilda Clive, as they rode campward. “And I admire the chief’s taste. Two of his wives were very pretty, indeed, one quite beautiful.”
“How many has he got?”
“Only three. I expected he would have had about thirty.”
Raynier laughed.
“They’re only allowed four apiece by the Koran,” he said. “But I believe they find ways of driving a coach-and-six through that enactment. Fine fellow Sarbaland Khan, isn’t he?”
“Very. Why, he’s a perfect gentleman. Really he’s quite a splendid-looking man.”
“Many of these people answer to that description, that’s why they are so interesting. Tarleton describes them as ‘niggers.’ But then the British are first-rate at misnomers.”
“I should think so. But how well you talk to them, Mr Raynier. Is it a difficult language to learn. Anything like Hindustani, for instance?”
“No. There’s a lot of Persian in it. I went in for learning Pushtu some years ago, thinking it might come in useful—and it has. By the way, a strange thing happened in London not long before I came back. I can’t help thinking that the man belonged to one of these tribes—but I never saw him again, nor yet the stick I armed him with.”
Then he proceeded to tell her about the incident of the Oriental in the crowd on Mafeking night, and the part he and others had borne in his rescue. Hilda listened, keenly interested.
“And you never got back the stick?” she said.
“No, never. I was going to say—worse luck—but it wasn’t. On the contrary, it was the only ‘lucky’ part of the whole business.”
The dry, satirical tone did not escape his listener’s abnormally acute perceptions. But the recollection seemed to revive the abstraction of thought which had characterised him when they had first set out, and which the incidents of their expedition had gone far to dispel. Now it all seemed to return. This, too, did not escape her, and she was striving to piece the two circumstances together. But as yet all connectedness failed.
They were returning by a somewhat different route, and were already about half-way to the camp. The sun was sinking, and the barren and rugged surface of rock and stunted vegetation was taking on a softer tinge as the westering glow toned down its asperities. But there was a feel in the air as of impending change, and the wind, which had died down altogether, now began to rise in fitful puffs, raising thin spiral columns like dust waterspouts, which whirled along at intervals on the plain around.
“Is there going to be a storm?” said Hilda.
“Yes. But not before we are in camp again.”
He subsided into silence. It was possible that the strange oppressiveness in the atmosphere affected him, to the exaggeration of that which was on his mind, to wit the very disagreeable burden of the news he had just received. Or it may have been that the certainty was brought home to him that a month ago it would not have affected him to any appreciable extent. The unpleasantness, the scandal, would have been just the same, but, somehow, it would have mattered little then. Now it did. But why?
What was to be done? was his ever-present thought. It was simply abominable that he should be pursued in this way. Had the woman no sense of shame? Evidently not. He had heard of ships going down at sea with all on board; was he tempted to feel that this was clearly too good a piece of luck—seen from his point of view—to happen to the one which comprised among its passengers Cynthia Daintree?
What was to be done? He looked at his companion. Should he frankly put the case to her? She was like no other woman he had ever known for clear insight into and ready grasp of the main facts or probabilities of any given question—at least, so he had found reason to decide during their somewhat short acquaintance—which, somehow or other, did not seem short. She could not be more than five or six and twenty at the outside, and yet the knowledge of human nature and capacity for the analysis of human motives she displayed was simply wonderful. He could put it to her as the case of a third party, or simply a case in the abstract, such as they had often debated and threshed out together, and then he laughed at himself in bitter contempt. Where were the qualities with which he had just been endowing her, that she could fail for one single instant to see through so miserable a device? He must put it to her frankly or not at all; and somehow Hilda Clive was the last person in the world to whom he desired to put it at all.
She, for her part, riding beside him, perforce in silence, was thinking of him and his unwonted taciturnity. Some trouble had come upon him—that was certain, and she connected it with the arrival of the mail. Could she but induce him to confide in her? Yet, why should he? She did not know. Still, she wanted him to; for a strange indefinable instinct moved her to the conviction that she could help him. During their acquaintance she had learnt to hold him in high esteem. She admired him, too, for his unassuming nature, the more so that she was able to gauge the real depth of quiet power that lay beneath it. She had noted the ease of his intercourse with these wild and turbulent, but interesting people—for this visit to Sarbaland Khan’s village was not the first time she had been among them in Raynier’s company—and noting it, knew that it bore testimony to the estimation in which he was held by them; for these sons of the desert and mountain, in common with all barbarians, are quick readers of character, and have no respect for that which is weak. And yet, could she have divined what was troubling him then it would have assumed such trivial proportions to her mind, so simple a solution, as to make her laugh outright. And she knew a great deal more about him than he did about her; indeed, the news she had received that morning, and which had somewhat elated her, mainly concerned him.
“What abstruse problem is weighing on your mind, Mr Raynier? Do you know that since we left the chief’s village you have hardly spoken a word. And we are almost home again.”
He started.
“I beg your pardon. How very remiss of me. Well, I was thinking of something. As a matter of fact, it’s something that’s worrying me more than a little.”
“You had bad news?”
“Yes. And yet hardly in the sense of what people understand by bad news. But it was something of an extremely vexatious and worrying nature, and likely to cause me no end of unpleasantness.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, in a tone which invited further confidence. It decided him. He would tell her.
A high ridge rose between them and the camp. This they were the while ascending by a rough road leading to the kotal by which it was crossed. Now, from the other side of this, there boomed forth a long, low, rattling thunder roll.
“Hallo! The storm is a great deal nearer than I thought,” he exclaimed, looking up. “We must hurry on, Miss Clive. I don’t want you to get caught in the thick of it.”
No time for confidences was this, he decided. All women were afraid of thunder and lightning, though all would not admit it. What, then, would be the use of consulting this one on a delicate and highly unpleasant matter what time her thoughts would be running on how quickly at the earliest they could reach the camp?
Another peal rolled forth, dull and distant, tailing off into a sort of staccato rapping rattle.
“Well, these mountains do give out the most extraordinary thing in echoes I ever struck,” he said. “Or else that’s about the strangest peal of thunder I ever heard.”
A clinking sound behind caused both to turn. Mehrab Khan, who, with the other sowar, had been some way behind, was galloping to overtake them, and that at a pace which is hardly put on in ascending such an acclivity unless under weighty necessity. But even before he could come up with them, the dark figure of a horseman appeared on the kotal above, and came flying down the rough and stony road. They made him out to be another of the Levy Sowars.
The pace was too great, or the rider too weak. He was flung off, almost at their very feet—a terrible sight, covered with blood and dust. With a word to Hilda Clive to wait where she was, Raynier and Mehrab Khan went forward to examine the man.
They were only just in time. He could gasp forth a few words, and then fell back dead. Raynier’s voice was very serious as he returned to the girl.
“We cannot go back to camp now, Miss Clive,” he said. “We must travel the other way. But keep up your courage—you have plenty of it—and we will bring you through all safe.”
Chapter Fifteen.
“A Land of Surprises.”
“Raynier may be a smart chap, and a smart official, and all that, but he doesn’t know this country a little hang. He oughtn’t to get wandering about all alone as he does. It isn’t safe—and—it isn’t pukka!”
And Haslam, having delivered himself of the above opinion, drained his “peg” and yelled for his bearer to bring him another.
“But he isn’t all by himself,” objected Tarleton. “He’s got Miss Clive with him, and two Levy Sowars.”
“Oh, as to the first, that of course,” returned the Forest Officer, looking knowing, “he generally has. Think that’ll be a bundobust, Tarleton?”
“I don’t know—and don’t care. It’s no concern of mine.”
“Don’t care what?” said Mrs Tarleton, joining the two, who, seated in long chairs and clad in easy attire, were indulging in “pegs” and cheroots.
“We were talking about Raynier, Mrs Tarleton,” said Haslam. “We agreed he oughtn’t to go and look up a man like Sarbaland Khan attended by only two Levy Sowars.”
“And Miss Clive, Haslam said,” appended Tarleton.
“It isn’t pukka, you know,” repeated Haslam, “nor is it altogether safe.”
“Mercy on us, Mr Haslam! Why, he’d never go taking Hilda anywhere that’s dangerous, surely? Besides, the country’s quite quiet now, and the people friendly.”
“Yes. Still, you never know exactly what may happen next. This is a land of surprises. I don’t trust these soors any further than I can see them, and however friendly it may suit them to be for the moment they hate us like poison underneath it all.”
“Why, you quite frighten me,” said Mrs Tarleton, anxiously. “I wish they’d come back. It’s getting late too. Oh, what if anything should happen!”
“Something is going to happen, and that before long,” growled Tarleton, looking up, “and that’ll be a thunderstorm. Phew! how close it is. I must have another ‘peg.’” And he, too, shouted for his bearer.
It was even as he had said, close—close and brooding. The sun was getting low, but the blue of the sky on the northern side had merged indefinably into a leaden, vaporous opacity which was gradually and insidiously creeping upward to the zenith. Against this, the peaks stood up, black and bizarre, and here and there, caught by a fitful wind puff, a trail of red dust would stream outward from the summit of a ridge, to lose itself in midair, or perchance to mingle with one of the column-like “dust-devils” which rose gyrating from the plain. Something was bound to come of it—an earthquake, a tornado, or a thunderstorm—probably the latter, for a muffled boom in the direction of the advancing blackness now became audible.
“We’re going to get it,” said Haslam, looking upward. “I only hope it isn’t a blow—we don’t want the tents suddenly whirled away over our heads. Rather not.”
“I wish those two were back,” repeated Mrs Tarleton, looking out over the forbidding waste, now more forbidding than ever. “I have a presentiment something is going to happen. Do you think these Levy Sowars are reliable, Mr Haslam?”
“I say, Mrs Tarleton, I believe Miss Clive has been infecting you with her forecasts and clairvoyance and all that sort of thing. I don’t know about the Catch-’em-alive-ohs being reliable—but I don’t believe they could hit a town-hall unless they were put inside it and all the doors locked. Even then they’d miss it by the windows.”
“Well, but—surely they must be some good or they wouldn’t be enlisted,” objected Tarleton.
“I remember trying a chap once. There was an old door stuck on end about sixty yards off. I got him to take three shots at it with his Martini, and he missed it clean twice, the third time just knocking a chip off one of the top corners.”
“Well, but you can’t judge them all by one,” objected Tarleton.
“Hallo. Here comes somebody,” cried Haslam.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” said Mrs Tarleton. Then, disappointedly, “It isn’t them at all. It’s some horrid natives. It’s not in the right direction, either.”
Down amid the sparse vegetation, below the camp on the more open side, the troop horses and baggage camels were grazing, and here it was that a group of figures appeared, surrounding a central one who was mounted on a fine camel. It could be seen that all were armed to the teeth, having Lee-Metfords and Martinis, over and above the inevitable curved sword, but there was nothing unusual in this. It was a national custom among these wild northern tribes.
The group had come to a halt just outside the camp. Haslam sent down one of his forest guards to inquire who was there, and what could be done for them. But it might have been seen that the section of the camp occupied by the Levy Sowars was the scene of some little excitement. The occupants had turned out to a man, and were gazing attentively at the new arrivals.
Soon Haslam’s envoy returned to say that a Sirdar of the Gularzai was anxious to salaam to Raynier Sahib, but, as the latter was absent, perhaps the jungle wallah Sahib would confer with him instead. No, the Sirdar could not rest at their camp. He was journeying on a matter of family and religious importance, and must push on immediately. But he had a communication of official import to make. Perhaps the jungle wallah Sahib would hear it in the absence of the Government’s representative, and transmit it.
“Here’s a ‘dik,’” (bother—perplexity—nuisance) grumbled Haslam. “I don’t want to be ‘dikked’ with Raynier’s official affairs. As if I hadn’t enough of my own. Wonder what he wants—and who he is. Well, here goes.” And gulping down the remainder of his “peg” he strolled down towards the group, doing so, moreover, with a leisureliness of gait that was rather put on, being designed to impress the Sirdar with a sense of his condescension in thus going to him at all.
The man on the camel did not dismount, nor did he cause the beast to kneel. This, again, aroused Haslam’s resentment. What business had a native to remain seated, and talk down to him, so to say? Not only that, but the man on the camel returned his salaam somewhat coldly and haughtily—and the salute of his followers was equally curt. Haslam began to feel downright angry.
“Where is the Sirkar Sahib?” began the chief—his voice taking additional haughtiness, coming down, as it did, from his rather lofty eminence.
“You have been told. He is away,” returned the Forest Officer no less curtly, and speaking in Hindustani.
“Where?”
Haslam did not answer immediately. He stared. He was boiling with rage. To be addressed in this way, and in such a tone. Moreover, he thought to detect an evil grin on the faces of the hook-nosed, turbaned savages standing around, who seemed to be fingering their rifles in a manner that was unpleasantly suggestive.
“Are you the jungle wallah?” went on the man on the camel.
“The jungle wallah Sahib” blared forth Haslam, white with fury. But what was the use? and then he remembered that he had not even his revolver upon him. He had thrown it down upon his camp bed, and there it was. And an unarmed man is a demoralised man.
The chief laughed evilly and spat.
“Well, jungle wallah Sahib,” he said. “I asked—Where is the Sirkar wallah Sahib? I am not accustomed to repeat a question twice.”
“Oh, you are not, your Mightiness, and lord of all the world,” answered Haslam, adopting the other’s sneering tone. “Salaam to you then, for you are far too great a king for me to talk with,” and he turned to go.
“Move not.”
The order came, sharp and stern. Haslam’s first impulse was to ignore it, but a second, and perhaps a safer one, caused him to halt, and half turn. It was high time. Four rifles were levelled straight at him at the distance of a few yards.
Haslam was as brave a man as ever lived, yet at that moment, gazing at the deadly muzzles and the scowling, shaggy visages behind them, well might he have quailed, for his peril was great indeed. But he returned the threatening stare of the chief firmly and unflinchingly.
For a few moments both thus looked at each other in silence. Then Haslam, who had none of the imperturbability of the Oriental, thought he might as well say something, if only to show them he was not cowed.
“Who is the Sirdar with whom I am talking?” he asked.
“Murad Afzul, Gularzai.”
Then Haslam felt more than uncomfortable. The name of this noted border ruffian was known to him, likewise some of his deeds. But it was supposed that he had disappeared from that side of the country for some time past.
“Look now at thy camp,” went on the latter. “But move not, or thou art dead.”
The words were nearly drowned in what followed. A long, rattling roll as of thunder, from the ridge overhanging the camp—then another, and lo! the slope was alive with rushing white figures, and the flash of waving tulwars, as the crowd of fierce assailants charged down with lightning speed upon the practically defenceless camp. Many of the Levy Sowars—upon whose especial side of the camp the volleys had been poured—were dead, or writhing in death agonies and wounds. The remnant huddled for a moment like sheep, then made a rush for their horses, but between these and them was Murad Afzul’s bodyguard—practised marksmen. Coolly, and with deliberate aim, they picked off the units of the demoralised force, bringing the whole to a standstill—and a sorry whole it was by now.
Not all, however—not quite all—were demoralised. One, a brave man, a clansman of Mehrab Khan, who had been detailed for dak duty, leaped on his horse, which was standing ready saddled and bridled, and dashed off at full gallop, to warn the Sirkar Sahib and, incidentally, his fellow-tribesman. Bullets were rained after him, but now, in the excitement of immediate massacre and loot, aim had become wild. Yet, had they looked more closely, a tell-tale squirm or quiver might have told those marksmen that of the multitude of the bullets, one or two—or perchance more—had found a billet.
It was all over very quickly. There was no question of defence. In a moment the whole crowd of copper-coloured, frenzied savages was overrunning the camp. Those that were left of the Levy Sowars, being Moslems, appealed to their assailants in the name of Allah and the Prophet for quarter, and were spared. But the other camp servants—bearers, kitmutghars, syces, and the rest, being Hindus, were cut down without mercy, those who had striven to hide being dragged forth and butchered—and the barbarians, yelling aloud in the madness of their blood lust, surged to and fro, brandishing aloft their red and reeking swords, looking around for more to slay. But there were none.
Throughout the attack and massacre Tarleton had been too staggered to do anything at all. As for his wife, the sight of the butchery of the wretched servants, cut to pieces before her eyes, in spite of their heartrending yells for mercy, had been too much for her, and she saved all trouble on her account by incontinently fainting. He reckoned his only chance was to sit quiet, wherein perhaps he was wise, for, although many pressed, cursing and threatening, around them both, none offered them violence, and indeed it looked as if such abstention were part of their orders. But what was the whole bobbery about, he kept putting to himself, for there was no open war with any of the tribes? He was soon to know.
Chapter Sixteen.
How Tarleton Yielded.
“This is a land of surprises,” Haslam had said, and indeed if ever words had been vividly, literally and luridly borne out, here was an instance. Within one short half hour of their utterance this camp, then the very embodiment of peaceful repose and fancied security, had been overrun by savage massacre and turned into a reeking human shambles. Corpses, many of them horribly hacked, lay in every attitude of agonised contortion, and great smears of blood spattered the canvas of the tents, as also the dirty-white garments of the assailants. As for the hapless Europeans, though for the moment alive and uninjured, they were helpless captives in the power of the most notoriously cruel and unsparing brigand of the whole northern border. Of a truth this was a land of surprises.
The first idea that occupied Haslam and Tarleton was to attend to the unfortunate lady, and this they did, as carefully as though it was an ordinary fainting fit, and there were no barbarous enemies within a thousand miles of them.
“She’d better not come to again just yet,” Tarleton said. “We’d better get her into a tent, if they’ll let us.”
Permission to do this was granted gruffly, but two of their captors were ordered to enter with them lest they should possess themselves of weapons, nor was this precaution superfluous, for they had fixed upon Haslam’s tent as being the nearest, and Haslam’s revolver lay upon his charpoy. At the sight he stifled a deep and muttered curse, as the Gularzai pounced greedily upon it. He had reason to curse deeper still as they ordered him to at once deliver up any arms and ammunition he might have in his possession. Inwardly he groaned again as he saw his beautiful shot gun and Mannlicher rifle in the eager grip of the hooked claws of these copper-hued brigands. Then he was ordered outside again.
Murad Afzul had not dismounted from his fine camel, and from the altitude of his seat—for he had ridden into the centre of the camp—was directing operations. Several of his followers were ransacking the tents, trundling out their contents; and soon trunks and despatch boxes, bags and tins of provisions, articles of clothing and kitchen utensils were piled together in promiscuous heaps. But what delighted the warrior soul of the freebooter was the sight of four or five good, up-to-date rifles and a brace of revolvers. The shotguns, too, he contemplated with satisfaction, but the rifles appealed to him most, and these he caused to be handed up to him one after the other as he sat on his camel, and each he would bring to his shoulder, sighting it at some object far or near, away over the plain. The weapons of his followers were good, but they were only Martinis. But these—magazine and repeating guns, spick and span, and of first-rate workmanship! Ya, Mahomed, what a find!
Now he beckoned Haslam to him. The Forest Officer, standing there under this arch-brigand looking down upon him from the height of his towering camel, felt that humiliation was indeed his lot to-day.
“So, jungle wallah,” began Murad Afzul, speaking in Hindustani, and sneeringly withal, “so, jungle wallah, I told you I was not accustomed to ask the same question twice; yet this time I will give you yet another chance, and ask it the third time. Where is Raynier?”
“That I can’t tell, for I don’t know,” answered Haslam, with perfect truth.
The chief bent over, and whispered instructions to some of his followers on the off-side of his camel. These came round, and laying a hand on Haslam’s shoulder ordered him to go with them. Resistance was absolutely useless, and Haslam was marched away. They were taking him in the direction of the Levy Sowars’ camp, he noticed, of course to execute him there. His time had come, he concluded. Rapidly, as he walked to his doom, his past life flashed through his recollection. He had been a careless sort of chap, he supposed, like others, no better—he would have shrunk from the imputation of making any other claim—but, he hoped, no worse. He had not troubled his head much about what lay beyond the grave, nor had he ever shrunk from death when duty or dangerous sport had brought him within gazing distance of it. Perhaps, if all that was taught of what came after it were true, or even a portion, why, he was surrendering his life rather than give information which should place the lives of others in danger, and it might be taken into consideration. But of mercy at the hands of yon ruthless freebooter he had no hope. At any rate, he would meet a swift death—they would shoot or behead him, and they might have done him to death by slow torture. He thought of his wife and young family away in England. Would they miss him much, and, more important still, would the Government do anything for them over and above the rather moderate pension which they would draw from the fund to which he had subscribed throughout his term of service? It was not probable. Government was seldom liberal. Then his thoughts were broken in upon. They had reached the tents of the Levy Sowars, and into one of these he was ordered.
Wonderingly he obeyed. What did it mean? Were they not going to put him to death after all, for it occurred to him they would hardly have brought him into a tent for such a purpose? But he was ordered to seat himself, and remain perfectly still—and informed that any movement he might make, or sound that he should utter, would be his last. And then, immediately outside the canvas which screened him from the outer world, he heard the loud sharp, double report of a rifle.
One other heard it too, and that one was Tarleton. To his mind it suggested but one solution—possible rescue to wit—acting upon which idea he did what a man of his bull-headed temperament would be expected to do, but which, had his idea been correct, was the very worst possible thing he could have done. He came to the tent door, and looked eagerly and anxiously out.
Murad Afzul still sat there on his great camel, his countenance as cold and impassive as the graceful folds of his snowy turban, while upon his followers a strange hush had fallen. At sight of the Feringhi it was broken—broken by muttered curses and threats. But—where was Haslam?
The chief beckoned him forward, and he had to obey. Yes, obey. There was no mincing the word. He was in the power—absolutely in the power of this man, this “nigger,” as he would have described him about half an hour ago.
“You heard those shots,” said the Gularzai, haughtily, from the loftiness of his tall steed. “Yes? Look around. Where is the jungle wallah?”
Tarleton did look around—with some alacrity, moreover. But no sign of Haslam rewarded his glance. He began to see the grim drift of the injunction.
“You will see your friend no more,” went on the chief. “I asked him a question—for the third time. He would not answer—so he was shot—over there.”
He paused, with intent to let the full weight of his words sink deep in the other’s mind. Like most wild or semi-civilised people, the Gularzai freebooter was a character reader, and knew his man. But, before the other had time to answer, an interruption occurred, as startling as it was unforeseen.
All were watching the result of the dialogue between the chief and the prisoner. Fierce eyes glared beneath shaggy brows, claw-like fingers felt the edge of tulwars, foul and sticky with blood that had already been shed. Eagerly heads were bent forward, awaiting the word that should hand this Feringhi over to their scarcely-glutted blood lust and hate.
“Hear me, O great Sirdar,” cried a voice, pitched in loud, harsh tones. “Hear me, I can give the information thou requirest, O Sword of the Prophet.”
The Levy Sowars who had surrendered, to the number of about a dozen, were grouped on the outskirts of the freebooters. From one of these the voice proceeded.
“Let him come forward,” said Murad Afzul.
Way being made the speaker advanced. He was a youngish man, tall and well built, with aquiline features and a short curling beard.
“Who art thou?” said the chief, shortly.
“Mahomed Afa, Waziri,” answered the man.
“Well, what dost thou know?”
“This, O great Sirdar, Murad Afzul. This, this. That as thou didst slay my father Mahomed Jan, so now enter Jehanum by the hand of his son.”
Quick as thought, while uttering these words he had snatched a rifle from the loose, unguarded grasp of the man next to him, and without waiting to raise it to his shoulder discharged the piece well-nigh point blank at the chief. But the ball hummed viciously past, just ruffling the edge of Murad Afzul’s voluminous turban. For the camel, whether acting under the influence of the ineradicable cussedness which is inherent in its species, or irritated by the harsh vociferation right at its ear, had suddenly reached round its head with a resentful grunt, making a vicious snap at the would-be slayer, with the double effect of somewhat marring his aim and moving its rider by just the few inches requisite to the saving of his life. In a twinkling the man was seized.
“Ya, Allah!” he mouthed, struggling furiously in the grasp of those who held him. “Avenge me of this robber-dog, this vulture-bred coward who only strikes those who are too weak to oppose his numbers. Mahomed Prophet! strike him down into the burning pit of Hâwiyat, where his gnawing vitals shall consume for ever and ever.”
The declamatory voice had risen to a wild scream. Murad Afzul, seated on his camel, had not moved throughout the whole scene. Now he spoke.
“So thou art the son of Mahomed Jan, that Waziri thief and enemy of Allah?” he said, gazing down upon his would-be slayer. “Allah is great and His Prophet has rendered thee as unskilful in the use of weapons as others of thy kind. Well, ye twain, father and son, have been parted long enough, so now thou shalt join thine in Jehanum, yet not at once, for I think I will show thee some foretaste of its fires here.”
He signed to those who held the frantic man—then something in the aspect of the latter caused him to change his intention. For he recognised that the Waziri’s mind had given way, in short, that he had become a frenzied maniac, and to harm him as such would be clean contrary to all tribal tradition and sanction. Yet he had no intention of letting him off scot free.
“I will spare him the fire,” he said, “for of that he will have plenty. So—shorten him by the head.”
Willing feet sprang to do his bidding. Willing hands seized the mouthing, cursing maniac, who by dint of a camel halter was forced to stretch forth his neck. Then the flash of a keen tulwar in the air, and the deluging, headless corpse was writhing and squirming right at Tarleton’s feet.
Tarleton, surgeon though he was, turned sick at the horrid sight, the more so that in all probability it presaged his own fate. The voice of Murad Afzul recalled him to this.
“You have seen, Feringhi. Now, that is thy fate, if my question is unanswered. Where is Raynier?”
Tarleton looked at the gushing, headless corpse, then at the stern, uncompromising countenance of the chief. He noted, too, the eager, cruel visages of those around, who seemed to hang upon his answer. Life was as good to him as to anybody else, nor did he feel the least inclination to part with it at that moment. Besides, what would become of his wife, now lying unconscious in the tent behind him, if left alone and at the mercy of these ruthless barbarians? Haslam was dead, and thus no one need ever know, for no one was left to witness against him, and if ever there was a case of “every man for himself” this was surely it. So he replied,—
“He has gone to visit Sarbaland Khan.”
Chapter Seventeen.
“Better Than Nothing.”
“What has happened?” said Hilda, quickly, gazing from one to the other, and then at the dead man who lay a little way off.
“Our camp has been rushed by Ghazis, and they are in possession.”
“But—has there been a fight? Have they killed anybody?”
“They had killed some of the servants when that poor fellow broke away to warn us. He was one of Mehrab Khan’s tribesmen. But our people were alive, he says.”
“But we can’t leave them, Mr Raynier.”
“That is not spoken with your usual sense. Are we going to walk straight into the jaws of the enemy and say, ‘Here we are’? No. I am responsible for your safety, Miss Clive, and you may be sure I shall do the uttermost in my power to secure it.”
Even while he had been speaking his mind had rapidly reviewed the situation, and it was one that filled him with the gravest misgiving and concern. He knew that a jihad, or fanatical rising, was being fomented among the tribes further along the border, but that the Gularzai could by any possibility take part in it he had reckoned as clean out of the question. He had trusted Mushîm Khan thoroughly, had reckoned the Nawab as no more likely to take up arms against the Government than he himself. But that a bold outrage on a large scale could thus take place here right under the nose of the Nawab without the knowledge and therefore sanction of that potentate, he could not believe. What a fool he had been, and how utterly blind not to have seen some sign or warning of the dangerous unrest having spread. Well, this was no time for regrets, but for action—and to this end he would consult Mehrab Khan.
But what then? Would the Baluchi be true to his salt? All these border tribes were akin. Ties of friendship, of gratitude, of honour, of self-interest even, all were swept aside when they made common cause together against the Feringhi and the infidel—and the acquaintance between himself and Mehrab Khan was of the shortest.
But the latter, even at that moment, was giving some indication of what line he was going to take in the crisis. For the other Levy Sowar had been gradually edging away. These two Feringhis would soon be found and cut to pieces, Sirkar or not, argued this man, and he had no intention of identifying himself with them any further, and thus sharing their fate; wherefore he resolved, while there was yet time, to effect his own escape. But Mehrab Khan, who knew the workings of his mind, was equally resolved that he should not.
To this end Mehrab Khan dismounted, and levelling his rifle called upon him to stop. The result of this order was to cause the defaulter to ram his spurs into his horse’s flanks, and start off along the hillside at a gallop. Now Mehrab Khan was an old and practised stalker of markhôr and wild sheep, consequently now, when, without further warning, he pressed the trigger, the runaway toppled heavily from his saddle, and lay without a kick.
“He would have betrayed us, Huzoor,” said the Baluchi, laconically, as he slipped a fresh cartridge into his piece. “Now he will not.”
To Raynier’s plan of returning straight to Sarbaland Khan’s village, and not only placing themselves under the protection of that chief, but even ordering him, by virtue of his own office as representative of the Government, to collect a strong force and safeguard those in the camp, if any were left there, or pursue the aggressors if they were not, Mehrab Khan was strongly opposed. He was somewhat mysterious on the point; mysterious but emphatic. On no account must they go there, indeed, he had been glad to get out of the place when they were there before.
Was Sarbaland Khan disaffected then? That he could not say exactly. But the Huzoor must trust him. He had seen signs which might have meant much or little. By the light of what had happened he now knew they meant much. The Huzoor knew his people, and he, Mehrab Khan, knew his. The gist of all of which was that they must go at once into hiding, and the sooner the better.
All this, however, took far quicker to decide than it has taken to narrate, and now, Mehrab Khan taking the lead, they moved, under his guidance, down into the valley, turning their backs on the site of the camp altogether.
“I shall never forgive myself for getting you into this fix, Miss Clive,” said Raynier, with great concern, as he thought on the hardships the coming night would entail upon her, even if it were not the first of many such nights.
“There is no necessity for you to do anything of the sort,” she answered. “You could not help it. You could not have foreseen things.”
“But that is just what I ought to have done,” he answered bitterly. “I have simply acted like a fool, and have made an utter mess of the whole situation.”
“No—no. I am sure you have not. Things may not be so bad as you think—and if they are, you are not to blame.”
What was this? He looked at her strangely. There was not so much in the words—but the tone, the soothing sympathy of it, as if she realised, even as he did, that, apart from their imminent and common danger, the result for him would be something like official ruin. The colour had returned to her face—for she had gone rather white as she witnessed Mehrab Khan’s grimly successful shot—and there was a look in her eyes which, combined with the tone of her voice, went far to compensate for all. It struck him, too, that she showed no alarm, no anxiety whatever on her own account. Afterwards it was to occur to him how easily she was reassured as to the safety of those they had left in the camp.
Darker and darker it grew, as they threaded their way behind their guide through those lonely defiles, for now the sky was black and overcast, and a lurid flash or two lit their way—and the accompanying boom rolled, deep voiced, among the cliffs and chasms.
“Here we should halt, Mehrab Khan,” said Raynier, at last, as two or three great drops splashed down upon them. “The Miss Sahib will get wet through if we go further, and here under this rock is shelter.”
But the Baluchi shook his head.
“See there, Huzoor,” pointing upward.
“We are in a sort of tangi, only it is closed at one end. If it should rain here, and rain hard, the water would roll off the smooth rock slopes above, and sweep us out of this like wisps of dried grass. We cannot rest here. We must go on and upward.”
The horses were needing rest badly, yet on they struggled. It was quite dark now, but their way was lit by the red flashes. Rain had begun to fall, hard, heavy rain, as, stumbling over the slippery stones, they held on their wet and weary way. And through it all Raynier did not fail to notice that from the girl at his side there came no word of complaint, no sigh of weariness—whereat he marvelled.
He himself was feeling the strain: but with him the strain was as much a mental as a physical one. He felt weighed down with responsibility. If this rising took large and destructive proportions he it was who should have foreseen and coped with it, yet he had gone off, easily and carelessly, upon a pleasure trip, and that right into the heart of the very peril itself. And now the safety of this girl beside him was in his hands; and by way of a beginning to the adventure she would have to spend the livelong night, wet and cold and hungry, lying out among the rocks, for, of course, they had not taken a food supply when starting upon an afternoon ride. And what a contrast it was. The highest official of the district, with, but a few hours ago, servants and armed sowars at his beck and call, surrounded by every comfort and not a few luxuries, was now a fugitive in the heart of a hostile land, soaked by a drenching rain, with no prospect of either food or shelter at the end of it all. It was a contrast, but he was hard and could worry through it—but what of his companion in adversity? She was not inured to rude hardships of this kind. She was not even representative of the stalwart type of her sex, who could scull a boat or play golf all day. She was high couraged and cool of nerve; he had seen enough to convince him of that, yet, physically, she did not look altogether strong. But still no word of complaint escaped her as, stumbling onward and upward through the darkness and the rain, they held on their way.
“Here we will rest, Huzoor,” said Mehrab Khan at last.
They must be among the mountain tops now, Raynier reckoned. The air blew raw and piercing, and tall slimy rocks glistened around in the red glare of the now more distant lightning. Dismounting, with stiffened limbs, he aided Hilda Clive from her saddle. To his surprise she slid off as lightly as though returning from an ordinary ride.
“I believe you are more tired than I am,” she said, with something like a laugh, as she let her hand rest just a moment in his after he had assisted her down. “Tell me. Did you ever have fever?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Only you are very wet. Shall we be able to make a fire?”
“I’m afraid not. There’s nothing to make it with.”
“That’s a pity. You ought to get dry. Let me think it out.”
Raynier marvelled, and well he might. What sort of a woman was this? Any other woman who had ever come within his experience would not have behaved like this. She would probably have begun by abusing him roundly for ever bringing her into such a hobble at all. Once in it, she would have grumbled and whined, or hysterically howled. She would have been full of herself and her own miserable plight, and what she should do, and what would become of her, and so forth. But this one—her chief thought seemed to be for him. She didn’t seem to think of herself at all.
“Great Heavens, Miss Clive!” he burst forth, “what does it matter whether I am dry or wet. It is of you I am thinking—of you, who have to get through this abominable night somehow. Why, it is nothing to me—but what about you?”
“But I have never had fever.”
The answer came so equably, so matter-of-fact in tone, yet Raynier’s quick ear thought to detect something further. He turned straightway and began vehemently haranguing Mehrab Khan.
The place to which the latter had brought them afforded shelter from the rain, though little or none from the piercing wind. A great slab of rock overhung, yawning outward like an open mouth. Now Mehrab Khan astonished them still further, for, from a cleft at the back of the hole, he produced some billets of dry juniper wood. It would burn wretchedly, he explained apologetically, but was better than nothing. The place had been an old resort of mountain herdsmen, and the wood had been kept ready stored for emergencies. And then, still further amazement followed, for Mehrab Khan produced—this time from his own store—a little rice and corn meal tied up in a rag. Would the Huzoor deign to accept it for himself and the Miss Sahib? he said. It was poor fare, but it might be better than nothing.
This, then, was the man for whose good faith he had feared, thought Raynier, inwardly ashamed, and then again came the whimsical thought of contrast, and the highest official in the district becoming dependent on the Levy Sowar’s humble store, yet not for himself. But Hilda Clive looked at it, then beamed on the giver.
“What will he do?” she asked. “It is all he has.”
“What then? Let the Miss Sahib take what Allah provides through His slave and praise Him. More can be provided, and will be,” was the answer of the follower of the Prophet to the follower of the Redeemer. Said the latter,—
“The blessings of Allah be upon you, Mehrab Khan, and that of His Prophet.”
And Raynier again translating, the fine face of the Baluchi beamed in turn.