CHAPTER V.
ACROSS THE FRONTIER.
“When we come to the crest of this rise we shall be able to see Fort Rahmat-Ullah in the distance,” said Stratford to Georgia. He had quitted his place in the long cavalcade formed by the members of the Mission and their baggage-animals, as it made its way across the broken ground, alternately sandy and rocky, which characterises the districts lying near the frontier of Khemistan, and had joined the two doctors, who were riding somewhat in advance of the caravan in order to escape the dust. Dr Headlam turned back to the side of Lady Haigh, with whom Stratford had been riding, and Georgia looked round at her new cavalier with eyes of eager interest.
“It was Fort Rahmat-Ullah that Major North relieved, wasn’t it?” she asked, although she knew perfectly well what the answer would be.
“Yes, during our last little war but two or three. It is our farthest outpost on this frontier, and, when the tribes were up, they naturally set their hearts on getting hold of it. Of course the garrison has been strengthened since then, and the pax Britannica is quite effective in the neighbourhood. We are to spend a few days at the fort, you know, before we bid farewell to civilisation, and make our dash into the desert, so that it is a comfort to feel that we need not expect to find ourselves besieged there. The only drawback is that North will be away.”
“Away?” asked Georgia in astonishment.
“Yes, didn’t you hear that he had got leave from the chief to go and see a friend away at Alibad, to the west of us? They used to work together in the old days, but North had the chance of distinction and got his V.C. and his promotion, and the other man didn’t. I rather like to see North going off in this way to look him up—shows he doesn’t forget old friends, and that sort of thing—and perhaps he is just as glad not to be lionised at the fort. It’s a little hard on us, though.”
“Yes, it is a little suggestive of ‘Hamlet’ with Hamlet left out,” observed Georgia, meditatively, determined that Mr Stratford should not perceive the unreasoning disappointment with which the news had infected her.
“And yet I don’t quite see what he could do for us if he was there, beyond giving us the gratification of beholding him on his native heath, so to speak,” pursued Stratford.
“Oh, well,” said Georgia, carelessly, “I was reckoning on his being able to ride out with us along the way he went, and show us just where his different adventures happened. It would make it seem so much more real, you know.” She was speaking easily and naturally, bent on accounting to herself as well as to Mr Stratford for that absurd sense of disappointment, which was so keen that she feared it must before this have betrayed itself in face or voice. But were Dick’s adventures not real to her? Had she not scanned the papers day by day at the time of the siege as eagerly as Mabel herself? And when at last the full account reached England of the relief of the fort, and of the heroism of the man through whose enterprise it had been accomplished, had she not bowed her head upon the page of the ‘Thunderer’ and cried heartily, out of pure joy in the remembrance that this man had once loved her? Decidedly there was no need that the events attending the relief of Fort Rahmat-Ullah should be rendered more vivid for Georgia; but Stratford seemed struck by the justice of her remark.
“That is quite true, Miss Keeling. North is treating us all very shabbily. I hope you will put it to him at lunch. He leaves us after the mid-day halt, you know.”
But Miss Keeling did not choose to do anything of the kind, and when Sir Dugald appealed to her to join in condemning North’s desertion, she smiled pleasantly as she answered, that no doubt Major North feared lest the attraction of his presence at Fort Rahmat-Ullah should distract the attention of the visitors from the less interesting duties which ought to engross them. The remark was intended to make Dick uncomfortable; and when Georgia saw that he was raging inwardly over the construction she had put upon his motives, absurd though it was, she felt happier, as having in some degree repaid him for the disappointment he had inflicted upon her, although, when he had ridden away, still fuming, she was filled with compunction, and spent some time in solitude and self-reproach, which meant bemoaning her own touchiness and calling herself names.
Her sorrow was not allowed to sleep, for at Fort Rahmat-Ullah everything around seemed calculated to recall Dick to her memory. The scenes connected with his great exploit were held in universal reverence, and from the officers of the detachment quartered in the fort nothing was heard but lamentations over his absence. On the very first evening the new-comers were swept away by the general wave of enthusiasm, and allowed themselves to be personally conducted round the walls, in order to have the different localities rendered memorable by the siege pointed out to them. But this was merely an informal inspection, for the next morning an old European sergeant, who had taken part in the Relief of Lucknow, and was now employed as some kind of clerk in the fort, made his appearance, and expressed a readiness to act as cicerone during a second tour of the place.
“Evidently,” said Stratford, “the thing to do here is to make the circuit of the walls once a-day, each time with a different guide.”
“We shall get together a good collection of the different legends which are beginning to crystallise round North’s exploit,” said Dr Headlam, who was a student of folk-lore. “I suppose we must go, or we shall hurt this old chap’s feelings. He regards North as something like a demigod.”
“I think once round the walls is enough for me,” said Sir Dugald, “so I must hope that the tutelary deity of the place will not be very furious at my neglect when we meet him again. What do the ladies intend to do?”
“Oh, we are going, of course,” said Lady Haigh, promptly, unfurling a huge white umbrella. “I always make a point of seeing and hearing everything I can about everybody.”
Sir Dugald sighed almost imperceptibly, and buried himself once more in his Ethiopian grammar, while the rest started out under the guidance of the old soldier. Constant practice on every new-comer who came in his way had made the sergeant perfect in the tale he had to tell. He knew exactly the points at which his hearers would be thrilled with horror or touched with sympathy, and he enjoyed keeping them on the rack of suspense when he reached a crisis in his story. He had been in the fort himself at the time of the siege, and Georgia held her breath as he described the wearing terror of the night-attacks, and the uneasiness of the long days, troubled by fears of the enemy without and of famine within the walls. Then she saw, as clearly as if she had been present, the little group of officers gathered in a shadowy corner of the ramparts one morning before night had given place to day. Dick was among them, disguised as one of the fair-skinned hillmen often met with along the Khemistan frontier, and he was going out alone, taking his life in his hand, in the forlorn hope of getting through the enemy and bringing help to the fort. So slight was the prospect of success that none but those who happened to be on the ramparts when he started knew of his expedition; and the women in the place, who were not told about it for fear of raising baseless hopes only to be dashed again, thought that he had been killed in a night sortie and his body not recovered. One by one his fellows gripped his hand and bade God keep him in his enterprise; then he was let down swiftly to the ground outside by means of a rope suspended in the shadow of the turret, and before the rope could be drawn up his form had melted into the shadows around.
Almost immediately on setting out he was met by perhaps the gravest of the perils he was to encounter. Descending a rugged hill into a dry watercourse, which he hoped would afford him a measure of cover, the loose stones rolling under his feet betrayed him to the drowsy watchman of a party of the enemy, who were sleeping, wrapped in their mantles, round a smouldering fire. They were between him and the fort, and there was no hope of retreat; but as the sentry’s bullet came skipping over the rocks past him, and the sleepers, on the alert at once, sat up and grasped their weapons, Dick’s resolution was taken. With a cry of joy he rushed towards the fire and inquired eagerly and incoherently in Khemistani whether the fort had fallen and he was too late to take his part in the plundering. The party upon whom he had chanced were all good Moslems, and their rage was extreme on discovering by his dress that the intruder was a hillman, and that they had been awakened because a wretch of an idolater was trying to get a share of their booty. He was driven from their camp with blows and curses, and ordered to tell his people that any further attempt to participate in the expected spoils would be met with force of arms. The same ruse helped him again and again during the day. On sighting a part of the enemy, he had only to approach them humbly and detail what had happened to him, asking for redress, when the same fate would befall him immediately on his mentioning what his crime had been. Every chase took him farther from the fort and nearer to civilisation, and at last he fell in with a small party of hillmen, fleeing from the hated Moslems into territory which was still British, who allowed him to join himself to them.
But this meeting landed him in another danger, for although he could speak the hill dialect well enough to pass muster with the lowlanders, he could not deceive those whose native tongue it was. For some time he parried questions by declaring that he belonged to a different tribe; but the hillmen grew more and more suspicious, thinking that he must be a spy from the camp of their hereditary foes. They kept a close watch on him, and he gathered that they intended to deliver him up to the first British patrol they came across. This would have suited his purpose excellently but for the extremely slow rate at which his new friends travelled, and he seized the first opportunity that offered itself of eluding their vigilance and striking off across country to the nearest fort. His late entertainers pursued him; but he reached the fort first and delivered his message, so that when the hillmen arrived they were electrified to behold him in uniform assisting in the preparations for the relief expedition. Thence his course had been, as Fitz Anstruther remarked irreverently, “a triumphal procession,” an observation which the old soldier who was acting as guide took in very good part.
“Ay,” he said, “and we are all proud of him here. We don’t have many ladies come to the fort, especially since the rising; but to hear some of them talk that have been here this last year, you’d think the whole place wasn’t nothing but a memorial of him, though there! we’re just about as bad ourselves. When a new subaltern joins—though it ain’t often we get them raw enough—the officers take him round and show him everything. When they get to the north face they tell him, ‘This here was named after Major North. He started on his journey down the slope.’ There wasn’t more than one of them took it right in; but the rest are always puzzled, and don’t like to contradict. By the time they’ve got it worked out in their minds they’re as proud of the Major as any of us, and had rather follow North of the Khemistan Horse than the Commander-in-Chief. Ah! he’s a brave chap and a cool one, and we were downright mad when we knew we were not to have him back here; but he’ll want all his bravery and all his level-headedness where you’re going.”
“Come, sergeant, you mustn’t frighten the ladies,” said Stratford.
“Frighten the ladies!” repeated the old man, scornfully. “I could a deal sooner frighten any of you gentlemen, and no offence to you, sir, neither. I’ve seen a good many frontier ladies in my time, and I can tell that these two is just as full of spirit as an egg is full of meat. Looking out for adventures, ma’am, ain’t you?” to Georgia. “I thought so; and her ladyship there, she’s been through so much that she ain’t afraid of nothing.”
“This is reassuring,” said Lady Haigh. “I hope you young men are now convinced what desirable travelling companions we are?”
“I don’t so much know about that,” said the old sergeant, reflectively. “I suppose as you’ll bundle yourselves up in veils, like the women of the country, when you get to Ethiopia, my lady?”
“Yes, I hear that we must,” returned Lady Haigh.
“That’s all right, then, and I’ll make bold to give the young lady a bit of advice. Don’t you go playing no tricks with your veil, ma’am; you keep it down when there’s any Ethiopians about. I could tell you of times when a whole caravan has been cut up for the sake of one woman, and she made a slave of.”
“Miss Keeling, you must swallow the warning for the sake of the compliment contained in it,” said Dr Headlam, while Fitz glared speechlessly at the sergeant, who went on in a meditative voice—
“No, it don’t so much signify what the woman is like, so long as she’s different to theirs. Not but what I dare be bound as they’d find they’d caught a Tartar in this young lady. She would be queen instead of slave before they’d done with her.”
“This is really too flattering!” said Georgia, her face flushing. “Have you anything more to show us, sergeant?”
“I’m afraid as that’s all, ma’am. But don’t you go for to be offended at my plain speaking. I could tell you was a lady of spirit by your going to Kubbet-ul-Haj at all. And, bless you, you can do near everything with these fellows if you talk big a little, and don’t let ’em see as you are shaking in your shoes all the time.”
The old man’s face as he enunciated this doctrine was so comical that Georgia accepted the implied apology, and the affair ended in a laugh.
“It never struck me that we were to wear veils as a protection,” said Georgia to Lady Haigh as they returned to their quarters. “I thought it was only for fear of outraging the people’s feelings.”
“If it had been only that,” returned Lady Haigh, “I should certainly have refused on principle to wear a veil. You know that I have knocked about a good deal, my dear. When Sir Dugald asked me to marry him, he said he felt quite guilty in trying to allure me away from all my friends and my work, and I seized the opportunity of stipulating for the very thing I wanted. I said I shouldn’t mind leaving everything in the slightest if he would only promise to take me with him wherever he went. He did promise, and I have gone everywhere with him—to some very strange places indeed. I have often been where no English lady had ever been seen before; but I have always refused to cover my face. They used to tell me that the people were not accustomed to see a woman unveiled. ‘Well, then, they must become accustomed to it,’ I always said. Then they suggested that it might outrage their religious sentiments; but, as I pointed out, people must learn not to let their feelings be hurt so easily. But this time it was different. When it came to be a case of endangering the safety of the whole Mission, Sir Dugald told me that the choice lay between his breaking his promise and leaving me behind and my wearing a veil. I did not see it at all, because the Kubbet-ul-Haj people ought to accustom themselves to seeing new things, and I really yielded solely on account of you. Dugald”—they had reached their own verandah by this time—“didn’t I tell you that I only consented to wear a veil for Miss Keeling’s sake?”
“I believe you have mentioned the fact more than once, now that I come to think of it,” returned Sir Dugald, looking up from his book.
“But really, Lady Haigh, I am not afraid,” said Georgia. “If you think that the old man was only talking nonsense, I will join you in organising a protest against Ethiopian customs with the greatest pleasure, for I should much prefer not wearing a veil.”
“Oh, but it really is necessary for you, my dear. It is different in my case; I am old, and I never was anything much to look at, and I am indubitably married. But suppose the King should see you, and take it into his head to want to make you his fifteenth wife——”
“As a Mohammedan he is not allowed more than four,” interposed Sir Dugald, mildly.
“Oh, I am sure he doesn’t count the ones he has killed or divorced!” said Lady Haigh. “Well, in any case, Georgie, it would be very awkward. You might refuse to marry him, but he wouldn’t take a refusal. He would simply request Sir Dugald to settle the matter. If he was told that it was the custom in England to allow ladies their choice, he would say that at Kubbet-ul-Haj you must do as the Kubbet-ul-Hajis did. Then, if you still refused, he might do as the old man suggested, and murder us all to get hold of you. So you see that it is really necessary for you to cover your face, and I do it to keep you company.”
“But with the veil, you will, of course, adopt the other dictates of Eastern etiquette,” said Sir Dugald, “which forbid a lady to speak to any man not of her immediate family?”
“That would be dreadfully dull for me,” said Lady Haigh. “What should I do when you were busy?”
“Far worse for me,” cried Georgia. “I protest against such treatment, Sir Dugald! Do you mean to condemn me to perpetual silence? I have no relations of any kind here.”
“Ah, Eastern society makes no provision for the New Woman,” observed Sir Dugald.
Georgia groaned.
“I am so dreadfully tired of that name,” she said. “But I believe, Sir Dugald, that Eastern etiquette would oblige Lady Haigh and me to ride humbly behind with the servants while you gentlemen were cantering gaily in front—wouldn’t it? Is that to be the order of our going?”
“No, I think we must make up our minds to disregard Ethiopian opinion in that respect,” said Sir Dugald. “Don’t be afraid, Miss Keeling, you shall lay aside your veils in the tents and when we get to our own quarters at Kubbet-ul-Haj. It is only in the streets and on the march that you need wear them.”
“And really they are not so very bad,” said Lady Haigh, shaking out a heap of white drapery. “When I knew we must make up our minds to such garments I determined that they should be as little trouble as possible, so I got these burkas made. I remembered seeing the women wearing them in the Panjab long ago. You see, the burka is simply put on over everything, and covers you from head to foot without an opening—merely that embroidered lattice-work for the eyes. It gives you no trouble; whereas the isar, which the Baghdadi women wear, and which poor Cecil Egerton was obliged to adopt when she was governess at the Palace, is nothing but a sheet pure and simple. You have to hold it together in front with one hand and over your face with the other. No matter how bad the weather may be, you can never spare a hand to hold up your dress or your sheet drops; you must just trail through the mud. I could not stand that.”
Georgia acknowledged thankfully the wisdom of Lady Haigh’s remarks, and when the day arrived on which the actual journey to Kubbet-ul-Haj was to begin, she put on the burka without a murmur. The start was an imposing sight, for most of the officers in the fort accompanied the Mission as far as the Ethiopian frontier, and the rest of the garrison lined the walls and sped the parting guests with a rousing cheer. The servants and baggage had started earlier in the day, and when they had been caught up a halt was made for lunch, after which the travellers delivered themselves into the hands of the body of Ethiopian troops who had been sent to meet them on the frontier and escort them to the capital, and the British officers returned to Fort Rahmat-Ullah. Dick North came riding up just in time to fall into his place in the cavalcade, and the long array of riders and baggage-animals took their way across the frontier.
The cavalry escort, of which one portion headed the procession, while the remainder brought up the rear, was not calculated, so far as its outward aspect was concerned, to allay any apprehensions that might have been fluttering the breasts of the timid. Its members were wild, reckless-looking fellows, evidently ready to go anywhere and do anything, but apparently quite as well qualified to rob their convoy as to protect it. Uniformity of dress or accoutrements among them there was none; but they resembled one another in that they were all fierce of face, all unbridled of speech, all extremely dirty, and all armed to the teeth with a wonderfully miscellaneous collection of weapons. It seemed almost madness to take ladies into the heart of a country which, until very lately, had been actively hostile, under the guardianship of such men as these, and the younger members of the Mission felt their hearts sink suddenly with an unwonted feeling of apprehension as they took their last look at the fort—that isolated outpost of Britain and civilisation on the borders of barbarism. But Sir Dugald’s impassive face betrayed no emotion whatever as he halted beside the track to allow the caravan to file past him, and the younger men took comfort as they remembered that their leader was one who, although he had not hitherto had the opportunity of distinguishing himself in a wide field, was reputed never to have made a mistake in the many minor but still important duties with which he had been intrusted.
Nor had Sir Dugald himself started for Kubbet-ul-Haj with a heart so light as to induce him to neglect any precaution that lay in his power. When it had once been ascertained that the passage of an escort of British, or even of Indian, troops through Ethiopian territory was out of the question, Sir Dugald agreed at once to intrust the safety of the Mission to the King’s own soldiers. But he bestowed special care on the selection of the servants who were to accompany the expedition, down to the very camel-men, choosing, so far as was possible, old soldiers, and these from the frontier, where there was always a hearty feeling of dislike simmering against the Ethiopians. These men might be relied upon to hold together in the strange country, and to show a bold front in case of necessity; and they also despised the Ethiopians far too much to associate with them, which lessened the likelihood both of quarrels and plots. With the exception of the wives of a few of these men, there were only two women among the servants—Lady Haigh’s elderly Syrian attendant Marta, and Georgia’s maid. This was a Khemistani girl named Rahah, a waif from the frontier who had found her way in some mysterious manner to Bab-us-Sahel, and after being handed over to the missionary ladies to be taken care of, had been trained by Miss Guest—who suffered much in the process—as a lady’s-maid. Her name was supposed by the learned to mean “rest,” but her character was not in accordance with it, for there was no rest for any human being that had anything to do with Rahah. Her chief recommendations for the post she now held were her undeniable cleverness with her fingers and some knowledge of the Ethiopian language, which might prove useful to her mistress in communicating with female patients, while she had already learnt, during the past few weeks, to render considerable assistance to Georgia as anæsthetist and dresser.
The caravan which was composed of such incongruous elements found its journey more peaceful than might have been anticipated. The members of the escort, although somewhat addicted to the snapping up of unconsidered trifles, were capable of frightening away any other robbers, and on the march were content to keep at a respectful distance from their charges. In this foreign country there could be none of those digressions from the track which had proved so pleasant in Khemistan, but the members of the Mission were not altogether without subjects of interest to occupy them. Georgia and Dr Headlam were making a collection of all the birds, plants, and insects they met with, for in this respect Ethiopia was new ground. Sir Dugald was ruthless in his refusal to allow more than one collection to be carried with the expedition, and the rival collectors were thus deprived of the stimulus of competition. The only thing to be done was to allow the first finder of a new species to monopolise the glory of its possession until a finer specimen was discovered, and in this finding Dr Headlam complained that Georgia had an unfair advantage, since Fitz was always at her service and eager to help her. But in spite of little squabbles of this kind everything went pleasantly, chiefly owing, Fitz said, to the fact that North was generally so busily occupied with his duties of noting the configuration of the country and the windings of the track, with a view to map-making, that he had no time to ride with the others and enter into conversation. Since his return to the rest of the party he had scarcely spoken to Georgia, and she told herself that it was better so.
This was the state of affairs when the march came to an end; and the Mission, amid the thunder of very rickety cannon, the shouting of the populace, and the shrill welcoming cries of the women, entered the city of Kubbet-ul-Haj.