“Well, Georgie?”
“Well, Dick?”
Georgia’s eyes danced with merriment, for Dick was lying in wait for her on the verandah, with a bunch of roses in his hand. Kubbet-ul-Haj roses are not roses of Damascus, or of Kashmir, or of any other locality famous for the culture of the plant; but poor as they were, they were flowers, and of flowers the prisoners at the Mission had seen but few of late. He held them out to her with quite unusual timidity.
“Will you have them?” he asked, somewhat shyly.
“Of course I will, Dick. Thank you so much.” She took them from his hand, kissed them, and fastened them in her dress. “Are you satisfied now?” she asked, smiling.
“Satisfied!” he said, looking at her admiringly. “I feel now that what happened last night was a reality.”
“Why, had you begun to hope it was a dream?”
“It might have been merely imagination—too good to be true. Stratford has just been declaring that I was mad last evening. He says that I wanted to sit up all night and talk, and that he had to turn me out of his room by main force.”
“Poor fellow! Were you trying to drown the remembrance of what had happened?”
“Drown it, indeed! burn it in, more likely. I can’t imagine how you ever came to—Georgie, there’s one thing that puzzles me still. Why were you so angry because Stratford went to the Palace instead of me? I did all I could to go, of course, because I wanted to do something for you; but why did you mind so much?”
“Never mind,” said Georgia, growing rather red; “it was absurd and unreasonable of me. I know you must have thought that I wanted you to be killed.”
“But why was it?”
“I suppose you will give me no peace until I tell you. It was because I couldn’t bear to think you cared so little about me as to let him go instead.”
“I wish I had gone!” said Dick, enviously.
“Then you would probably have been killed, and the treaty would not have been signed, and we should never have known what we know now—about our caring for each other, I mean. I might have guessed the truth when I heard that you had gone, but I could never have been sure; it might only have been a way of taking a noble revenge on me, you know. And you would have sacrificed yourself and perhaps even died, believing all the time that I detested you. I know you deserved it, but still, I should have been sorry. No, things are much better as they are. It was very silly of me to think and say what I did.”
“I like you to be silly about me.”
“And you don’t like me under other circumstances? I hope I am not always silly.”
“I don’t care about circumstances, or wisdom, or foolishness, or anything. I love you because you are yourself.”
“Dick, you are incorrigible!” There was a slight soreness in Georgia’s tone. It was undeniable that Dick was lacking in tact.
“Now I have gone and hurt your feelings again! I wish I wasn’t such a blundering idiot.”
“Dick, listen to me. I want you to do me a favour.”
“If there is any single thing in the whole world I could do for you——”
“You would do it, I know, however great it was. But it is a number of little things, Dick. I know you don’t mean to hurt me, but you often do. Think a moment. I don’t love you any more because of your Victoria Cross, but it makes me glad and proud to think that you have it. I know I can’t expect you to be glad that I am a doctor, and proud of being one, because you dislike the very idea; but I want you to treat the subject tenderly, because it is connected with me. I daresay it seems very strange to you that I should be as sensitive about my profession as you are about yours, and I know you will never look at the two things in the same light, but I ask you to regard it as a concession to my weakness when you let an opportunity pass without a sneer. We must agree to differ on this question, I suppose, but I want you to do it gracefully, for my sake.” There were tears in her eyes as she looked at him, and Dick felt the enormity of his conduct more keenly than he had ever done in the days when he delighted to provoke her to arguments and the delivery of lectures.
“What a brute I must have been, that you should find it necessary to ask such a thing of me!” he burst out. “It makes me feel thoroughly ashamed to think what a cad I am. Do you think that it’s safe to have anything to do with me, Georgie?”
“I don’t know whether it’s safe or not, but I love you so much that I couldn’t do without you,” said Georgia, unsteadily.
“To hear you say that makes me feel that I could do anything you asked me. Help me to be more worthy of you, Georgie. If I hurt your feelings after this I deserve to be hung. Pull me up—simply slang me—if I say anything unkind. I never thought I was such a blackguard. No, only look at me, as you did just now, and if I don’t wilt, as Hicks puts it, that instant, then throw me over, for I shan’t be worth troubling about. I will get over that habit of letting out at the things you care for. I feel as though I could go anywhere and do anything to-day.”
“And I feel so ridiculously safe,” said Georgia, smiling at him with an April face.
“And yet nothing is really different from what it was yesterday.”
“Oh, Dick! everything is different. There is hope to-day, and there was none then. Think how dreadful it would have been to be killed when everything was wrong between us.”
“What a remark!” said Dick, lazily—“it’s almost worthy of young Anstruther; and how particularly cheerful the subjects of your thoughts are! Now that I am in a position to keep you from making rash expeditions to the Palace, I must say that I don’t see any present danger of your being killed.”
“The calmness with which you contemplate such a contingency does infinite credit to your strength of mind, sir. But it is rather strange that you should have mentioned the Palace, for I am going there this morning.”
“Not with my consent.”
“Then without it, I am afraid. Dick, you are not going to get up a quarrel over such a little thing, surely? You don’t imagine that I should think of going now without taking every possible precaution, and getting Mr Stratford’s leave?”
“What has Stratford got to do with it? It’s my affair.”
“Excuse me, I think it’s mine. Now, Dick, you don’t deserve to be reassured and made to feel comfortable about it, but I am going to be magnanimous. While you were out in the early morning there came a messenger from the King. He said that they had not yet taken the bandage from the Queen’s eyes, because they were afraid to touch it if I was not there. He was so anxious that I should be present and direct operations that he offered of his own accord to send Antar Khan here as a hostage for the whole time I am gone. Now are you satisfied?”
“Not unless I go with you.”
“But that’s impossible. Rahah and I make the passage in the litter, and we couldn’t manage to smuggle you in. Besides, what should we do with you when we got to the Palace?”
“That wasn’t what I meant. I will take five or six of the servants and ride beside you. Then I shall wait in the men’s part of the Palace while you go to see the Queen, and bring you back again. You won’t find me leaving the place without you.”
“I’m afraid you’ll find it rather dull. We shan’t be able to talk, you know. But of course I should like it much better if you were there. You will come, then?”
“Rather. If you will run into danger, you shall not go alone—now.”
“Your permission is slightly grudging,” said Georgia, laughing, but she was heartily glad to have his escort. The unpleasant circumstances of her last visit to the Palace had made her shrink from going there again, although she had a particular reason for desiring to do so. The thought that Dick would not be far off was a reassuring one, even though there was no reason for anticipating any unfriendliness from the royal household. And in this way it came to pass that when the Palace litter, closely guarded by soldiers, conveyed Georgia and her handmaid to visit her patient, Dick rode behind it with six of the servants of the Mission, who were divided between delight at being outside the walls of the house once more, and a certain degree of terror at the prospect of finding themselves inside the Palace.
Reclining luxuriously on the cushions, with Rahah crouching opposite to her, Georgia spent the time occupied by the transit in recapitulating to herself the points of the inquiry which she was anxious to make, and which had as its primary object the re-establishment of Sir Dugald’s health. The disagreeable interruption of her interview with Nur Jahan’s mother, by the entrance of the King’s younger wife, had prevented her from putting to the women present the questions which had been suggested to her by their mention of the witch whose poisons Fath-ud-Din was wont to employ to rid him of his enemies. The name and dwelling-place of this old woman had become matters of the deepest interest to Georgia, and she was also eager for any information that it might be possible to obtain as to her methods and the poisons she used. On what she could discover this morning, Sir Dugald’s life, or at any rate, his restoration to health, might depend, and this in itself was enough to determine Georgia to leave no stone unturned in the effort to ensure success. But it must be confessed that she had an additional motive—a sufficiently weighty one, although completely secondary—and this was the subjugation, or conviction, or conversion, whichever it might be called, of Dick. She did not give the process any of these names in her own mind, but she recognised that in the present state of affairs between them the old difference of opinion was only lying dormant, and that sooner or later it must revive. Shrinking with all her heart from the idea of paining, or even opposing him, she was none the less aware that any surrender on her part would only bring her grief and remorse later, and she longed to be able to do something that might justify her in Dick’s eyes, might bring him to acquiesce of his own free will in her continuing the practice of her profession, and thus avert the crisis she foresaw and feared. There was only one thing that could come between Dick and herself, and that was her work; but she knew that if she was true to her principles, she must uphold it against Dick. She had gained a temporary advantage that morning, but she was already ashamed of the weapons of which she had made use.
“Mine was a weak impulse,” she said to herself, “for it led me to appeal merely to Dick’s feelings, instead of to his reason and his sense of right. I made him ashamed of himself, but it was in an unfair way—almost as bad as it would have been if I had cried. I can’t think what led me to do it—I suppose it was simply a reversion to the tactics of the Old Woman. It was lowering myself, and it lowered Dick—he would never have stooped to try to coax me, but he yields when I coax him. Of course he liked it—he naturally would, but that doesn’t make it any better. I asked him to do as a favour to me what he ought, as a gentleman, to do as a mere matter of justice, and if he follows the thing out logically he will feel at liberty to sneer at any other medical woman he may meet, even though he makes an exception in my case. I have gone to work in the wrong way—no doubt it is the most comfortable, but that doesn’t signify if it isn’t right. It’s no use pretending that Dick is perfect—he isn’t, any more than I am; but I want to see him getting nearer to perfection the more I have to do with him, and it wouldn’t be the way to bring that about if I helped him to grow into a tyrant whose most unreasonable wish was law unless he could be wheedled out of it. No, I see that he has a great deal to learn yet: I am only afraid that I may not be the right person to teach it him. I am so much afraid of hurting his feelings—and I don’t know how I could ever do without him now.”
In short, Georgia was in a difficult position, between an exacting professional conscience and a sufficiently masterful lover, but it is possible that her very tenderness for Dick’s feelings afforded her a better guarantee of success than if she had cared for him less. He, on his part, was quite content to enjoy to the full his unexpected happiness, without troubling himself about the future, and he knew nothing of the heavy sigh with which Georgia at last put her own affairs from her, and dismounted from the litter in the harem courtyard at the Palace, prepared to throw herself wholly into the joys and sorrows of its inmates.
“O doctor lady!” cried Nur Jahan, rushing to meet her with much clashing of bangles and rustling of stiff satin, “it rejoices my eyes to behold thee again. We feared that after the evil words of Antar Khan’s mother thou wouldst never return to us. Truly the world has changed for us all since thou wert here, and were it not for my lord’s absence with the army I should have nothing to wish for.”
She led Georgia into the Queen’s room, where the patient was waiting in pitiable anxiety. The long delay, which she had been too nervous to terminate at the proper time, had tasked the poor lady’s patience to the utmost, and she was feverishly eager that the result of the operation should be known, and the final verdict uttered. The room was carefully darkened, and Georgia unfastened the bandages. For a moment the Queen’s weakened eyes could see nothing, and a low despairing wail broke from her, but almost as Georgia laid her hand upon her shoulder and exhorted her to be calm, the moan changed to a cry of joy.
“I can see!” she cried. “God is great, and great is the power He has given to the English and to the doctor lady. With these eyes of mine I shall behold my son’s son before I die.”
“Here is the child, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, laying her baby eagerly in the Queen’s arms. “Bless him now, and bless also the doctor lady, through whose skill thou beholdest him.”
“Almost I might believe myself young again, with my son Rustam Khan in my arms,” said the grandmother, looking fondly at the baby, “and yet this is Rustam Khan’s son that I hold. O doctor lady, if the blessing of one who has suffered much, and whom thou hast by thine art brought back from the gates of despair, can benefit thee, thou hast it now, and may it follow thee and thy children and thy children’s children for ever!”
Georgia’s own eyes were dim with tears as she turned away to put together the things she had brought with her, and the slaves crowded round her in grateful reverence, kissing the hem of her dress and laying her hand on their heads, while Nur Jahan despatched a messenger to inform the King that the operation had been successful. The slave returned in a short time, accompanied by the chamberlain who presided over the treasury, bearing a mass of jewellery tied up in a thick silk handkerchief as a gift to the doctor lady, together with the King’s grateful thanks. Georgia knew her duty with respect to presents of this kind, and having raised the handkerchief to her forehead, she placed it again on the tray on which it had arrived, and choosing out of the heap a necklace of curious workmanship, but of comparatively small intrinsic value, she returned the remainder to the bearer, desiring him to convey her thanks to the King. Rahah was made happy by the gift of a massive pair of anklets, in which she clanked about as though in fetters; and the negro, as he withdrew, intimated that the King intended to mark the occasion by gifts of jewellery to his wife and daughter-in-law and their respective attendants. Hence it was a very merry party which partook presently of coffee and sweetmeats in the Queen’s room, and Georgia observed with some amusement that now it was the Queen’s servants who shrieked shrill defiances across the courtyard at the attendants of Antar Khan’s mother, and that they were powerless to retaliate. They sat in a scowling and disconsolate row on the verandah, and, as Mr Hicks would have put it, “squirmed” under the infliction.
“Must thou leave us when thy friends depart, O doctor lady?” asked the Queen. “There are many women blind and sick and lame in Kubbet-ul-Haj, much more in all Ethiopia. Wilt thou not stay and cure them?”
“I am afraid I must go back when the Mission does,” said Georgia, “though I shall be very sorry to have to leave you all, and I wish I might hope to come back. But I shall not be my own mistress for very long now.”
“Has the wife of the Queen of England’s Envoy found a husband for thee, then, O doctor lady?” asked Nur Jahan with deep commiseration, forgetting the unfavourable impression of her own married life which the words would convey; “I thought thou wert free and happy.”
“Peace, Nur Jahan!” said the Queen, quickly. “Knowest thou not that the caged birds should entice the wild ones into the trap, and not warn them away? Hath the lot of all women overtaken thee at last, O doctor lady? I would have thee give God thanks that it comes so late.”
“O my ladies,” said Rahah, indignantly, “surely ye know not the ways of the English. The great lord that is to marry my lady is a mighty captain, and his name is known throughout all Khemistan. He is rich also, and his hand is bountiful,” and Rahah surveyed complacently a new bracelet she had made for herself that very morning by stringing together certain silver coins, “and to please my lady he would give all that he has. In his own eyes he is but the dust under her feet.”
“Art thou so young as to be thus deceived, girl?” asked the Queen, compassionately. “Surely it is ill with thy mistress if thou art led away and withheld from warning her by a few pieces of silver. These that thou hast mentioned are the ways of all men at the first, but sooner or later the change comes. I warn thee, O doctor lady, when thy lord brings another wife into the house, however solemnly he may have assured thee that thou shalt always reign there alone, reproach him not, but be friendly with her, if she will have it so, for otherwise she will prevail upon him to cast thee out.”
To the astonishment of the whole circle, Georgia was laughing so heartily over the idea thus presented to her that she could scarcely speak, but Rahah explained with haughty superiority the difference between English and Ethiopian marriage customs, although her explanation was received with manifest incredulity. It was not until Georgia had declared solemnly that if her husband brought a second wife into the house she would instantly leave it, and that the law of England and public opinion would support her in doing so, that the ladies began to perceive that there might be advantages attaching to matrimony in Europe which were lacking to it in Kubbet-ul-Haj. Nur Jahan possessed the moral support of Rustam Khan’s promise to her father that he would not take a second wife; but it was evident that the Queen and her women regarded this as a temporary concession which might or might not continue to be observed, and that public opinion would think no worse of Rustam Khan if he withdrew it.
“It is right, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “that thou shouldest have a prospect of happiness in marriage, for thou hast dealt well indeed with me and with my house.”
“Nay, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan, “is it not rather that the doctor lady has brought us good luck, from her first coming until now? Since she came, the wicked Fath-ud-Din has been cast down and punished, and my father is put into his place. Thine adversary has been made to eat dirt, and the faces of all our enemies are humbled before us. My lord is restored to his honours and to his command, and my mother has returned to her house in peace with many gifts, sent her by our lord the King. And thine eyes are opened also. Is not the doctor lady truly a bringer of good luck?”
“And yet our coming to Kubbet-ul-Haj has not brought good fortune to ourselves,” said Georgia, sadly. “One of our party has been murdered, and the Envoy himself lies like one dead——”
“And a husband has been found for thee,” murmured the irrepressible Nur Jahan.
“I see you won’t believe me when I tell you that I don’t count that a misfortune,” said Georgia. “I am not joking, Nur Jahan. I need help very much, and I think that some of you can give it me, but it is in quite a different matter.”
“Speak, O doctor lady,” said the Queen, “and may the blindness thou hast taken from me rest on any that refuse to help thee.”
“You were speaking the other day,” said Georgia, “of some old woman who was supposed to help Fath-ud-Din by poisoning his enemies. Is this known to be true, or is it merely common talk?”
“It is quite true,” replied the Queen, “that several of Fath-ud-Din’s enemies have died in agonising torments which no physician could alleviate. One expired in torturing thirst, with such pains as those experience who have lost their way in the desert and can find no water.” Georgia nodded quickly. “Another died of hunger, which tormented him with its pangs, while he could swallow nothing to alleviate them. Yet another went mad, and rushing through the city, cast himself headlong from the walls; and of one the wives and children died one after the other, until, broken down by misery, he died also.”
“Tell me,” said Georgia, eagerly, “has any one whom Fath-ud-Din hated ever fallen into a sleep so heavy that he could not be awakened, in which he remained for weeks and yet lived?”
The ladies turned and looked at one another. “It is the Father of sleep!” were the words that passed between them.
“You know something about it?” cried Georgia.
“We know nothing, O doctor lady,” said Nur Jahan; “but we have heard much concerning a certain drug of this wicked woman’s. Others of her poisons are drawn, men say, from strange plants of distant lands; but this is taken from a fish which is found upon a certain island of the southern seas, and whose scales and bones and flesh, so they say, have been all filled with poison by wicked enchantments, and they call it the Father of sleep.”
“Then have you ever known an instance when it was used?” asked Georgia, filled with eager anticipation.
“I have, O doctor lady,” said one of the Queen’s confidential slaves, “and I will tell thee of it if my mistress will suffer me to speak freely.”
“Speak,” said the Queen. “Have not I commanded all my household to assist the doctor lady in every way?”
“It was many years ago, when our lord the King married the Vizier’s sister, who is now the mother of Antar Khan,” said the slave, rather reluctantly, “and our lord the King’s sister, the Lady Fatma, in whose service I was at that time, was very angry about the match. It was even said that she had almost succeeded in breaking it off. That wicked woman, the sorceress, the accursed Khadija, was sent by Fath-ud-Din to warn the Lady Fatma to withdraw her opposition, if her life was dear to her; but the Princess mocked at Khadija, and derided her powers. Then Khadija made an evil sign, and foretold that before the next morning light the Lady Fatma should know her power; and surely enough, when her slaves sought to awaken her at dawn, she did not hear them, but lay as one still asleep. Then, when they had failed again and again to arouse her, they ran to tell the King of the matter, and of the words of Khadija. He sent for the woman, and threatened her with death, but he could in no way wring from her a promise to remove the spell, except on condition that no punishment whatever should be inflicted on her. Now the King had an enemy, a rebel chief, and it seemed to him that he might well be rid of him by this woman’s means, and he covenanted with her that, as the price of her life, she should not only remove the spell from the Lady Fatma, but also bring about the death of Zohrab Khan. And this was done.”
“And it was well done,” said the Queen, decisively, as the slave looked towards her with some anxiety. “The man was a traitor, and false to his salt.”
“But was it poison that Khadija had administered to the Lady Fatma?” asked Georgia, too eager for information to turn aside to the moral question involved in the death of Zohrab Khan. “And how did she counteract it?”
“She had put the poison (very little is needed) into the Lady Fatma’s coffee, and in order to awaken her from the magic sleep she gave her a potion that she mixed. It was whispered among the slaves that it was made of the shavings of a porcupine’s teeth, mixed with the juice of a plant that is brought from the land of the poison-fish; but the secret of it is known only to Khadija herself, and the antidote is useless unless it is administered in one particular way, but none of us who belonged to the Princess’s household were allowed to see what was done.”
“This must be the very thing I want to know!” said Georgia. “And now, where is Khadija to be found?”
“In Fath-ud-Din’s fortress of Bir-ul-Malikat, where she watches over his daughter Zeynab,” said Nur Jahan, with lively contempt. “The Rose of the World, they call the girl, and she is to marry Antar Khan, if Fath-ud-Din and the witch together can bring it about.”
“But where is this fortress?” asked Georgia.
“In the desert, on the way to Khemistan. There are two forts on two hills, Bir-ul-Malik and Bir-ul-Malikat. Bir-ul-Malik used to belong to my father, but Khadija dried up the water in the well by her arts, and the garrison almost died of thirst. My father complained to our lord the King, and he, thinking that the place was now useless, commanded Fath-ud-Din to give my father another town in exchange, and this he did, in another part of the kingdom. But as soon as my father’s men were gone from Bir-ul-Malik, Fath-ud-Din took possession of the place, and Khadija brought back the water into the well, and now he holds the only two forts and wells in all that region.”
This was all the information that could be gained from the household at the Palace, and Georgia’s desire not to alarm her friends kept her from uttering aloud the thought that was in her mind, so that she allowed the subject to drop. During the remainder of the visit, however, and while she was being carried home in the litter, the determination rose strong within her to find Khadija and get hold of the secret of that antidote, if she had to make an expedition into Ethiopia all by herself, after the Mission had returned to Khemistan, for the sake of doing so.
After the farewell visit to the Palace, there was still another visit to be paid, and this was to Nur Jahan’s mother, who had returned with her husband to her own house, which might now be considered a place of comparative safety. The Princess sent her litter to the Mission, and Georgia made the transit in the usual seclusion, escorted by Dick and a number of armed servants. Arrived at the Grand Vizier’s house, Dick whiled away the time by a chat with Jahan Beg, and Georgia and Rahah were conducted to the harem, where the Princess received them with great kindness. There was even a touch of compassion in her manner, for which Georgia was at a loss to account until she learnt that Nur Jahan had told her mother of the doctor lady’s intended marriage.
“Art thou well advised in this that thou art intending, O doctor lady?” asked the Princess. “If it is true that thou art free to act in the matter according to thine own will, consider what thou doest before it is too late. My daughter tells me that thou hast no fear, since thy betrothed husband is an Englishman; but I know too well that all husbands are alike, for I also am married to an Englishman, although I was not aware of the truth until Fath-ud-Din’s servants shouted it at me as they drove me from my own house a month ago.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Georgia, diffidently, “the Amir Jahan Beg was not then acquainted with the customs of Ethiopia, which differ from ours, and he may have appeared unkind through ignorance.”
“Not so,” said the Princess, decisively, “for had that been all, my love would have won him to honour our customs for my sake,” and her hard eyes softened at the touch of some early memory. “Listen to me, O doctor lady, and judge between my lord and me. My first husband was very old, and when he died I mourned for him almost as for a father. To him I was a child and a plaything—he was not unkind, but I was nothing to him, and I knew it. Then for some time I dwelt at the Palace, under the protection of my cousin the Queen. In those days every one was talking of the valour and wisdom of a new favourite of our lord the King, a captive from among the hillmen of the south, but a convert to the faith of Islam. He had repelled the hostile tribes on our northern border, and extended the kingdom beyond the utmost limits it had hitherto attained, and he was coming in triumph to Kubbet-ul-Haj to lay his spoils at the King’s feet. When that day came, the Queen and I, with our women, were watching the ceremony from our balcony above the throne. The slave-girls exclaimed at the vastness of the spoil, but I saw only the victor. Surely, I thought, he is as an angel of God! While I watched him, the Queen came close to me and whispered in my ear, ‘That is the bridegroom our lord intends for thee, my Nafiza. Doth he please thee?’ O doctor lady, I thought that I should die of joy! On all sides I heard congratulations, but I congratulated myself most of all. Surely never did woman gain her heart’s desire more speedily, nor more speedily see it turn to dust and ashes when gained! My nurse told me afterwards that on our wedding-night she had seen how things would fall out. I was waiting for my bridegroom, she with me, that she might remove my veil and leave him to behold my face. He came in without a salutation to either of us, and sat down beside me upon the divan. My nurse was angry, and said sharply, ‘It is not the custom in Ethiopia to sit uninvited in the presence of the daughter of the King’s uncle.’ ‘O mother,’ he replied, ‘I stand before no woman in Ethiopia, least of all my own wife.’ My nurse was much disturbed. ‘Wilt thou still marry him, Nafiza, my dove?’ she whispered, so that only I could hear; ‘the King will not suffer thee to be insulted.’ But I, thinking, ‘He must surely be a great prince in his own country, to speak thus to a king’s granddaughter!’ motioned to her to lift my veil, saying, ‘It is well, O my nurse; go on.’ And thus was I married, and evil was my marriage. For in the night I would hear my lord speaking in his own tongue in his sleep, and I knew that he sp