CHAPTER XIX.
A WOUNDED SPIRIT.
INSTEAD of appearing in the gardens that evening, Major Keeling rode out, accompanied only by an orderly, to Sheikhgarh. He had never met the Sheikh-ul-Jabal face to face since the day of the eclipse and of his triumphant vindication, but important pieces of information had come to him several times by strange messengers, testifying to the friendliness of the recluse. Curious to relate, the destruction of the marvellous legend which had grown up about the supposed identity of the two men seemed to have had little or no effect. The dwellers on the border and the tribesmen alike possessed a strong love of the miraculous, and resented the attempt to deprive them of a wonder. Taking refuge in the fact that only a very few people, and most of those Europeans, had seen Major Keeling and the Sheikh side by side, they maintained with obstinate pertinacity their original theory that the one man led a double existence—as British commandant by day and head of the Brotherhood of the Mountains by night. From this belief nothing could move them, and as the result tended to the peace of the border, their rulers had left off trying to convince them against their will. It is to be feared that Ismail Bakhsh, the orderly, foresaw a large increase of credit to himself from this journey, by the unconcealed joy with which he entered upon it; and yet, marvellous as were the tales he told on his return, his experiences were confined to remaining with his horse at the point where visitors to the fortress were first challenged. To Major Keeling’s astonishment, no attempt was made to blindfold him on this occasion, the guards saying that they had orders from the Sheikh to admit Kīlin Sahib freely whenever he might come, and he rode with them to the gate of the fortress, noticing the care with which the place was defended. This time the Sheikh came to meet him at the entrance, and taking him up to the room over the gateway, possibly from fear of eavesdroppers in the great hall, sent away all his attendants as soon as the proper salutations had passed. He seemed anxious, and was evidently expecting news of importance.
“There is no message from Nalapur—no outbreak?” he asked eagerly, as soon as they were alone.
“I have heard nothing,” answered Major Keeling in surprise. “What news should there be?”
“It is well. Yet there must be news soon. The Amir and Gobind Chand are, as it were, crossing a gulf by a rope-bridge—one false step means destruction. But they will not return to firm ground.”
“But you sent me word that the Sardars refused to stand their exactions and oppression any longer, and that they had been obliged to promise to meet them, and inquire into their grievances.”
“True, and the assembly is to meet this week; but what will follow? Are Wilayat Ali and the Vizier men who will render back the gains they have extorted? Not so; they will divert the minds of the Sardars by making war upon one of their neighbours. And which neighbour will that be?”
“All right. Let them come!” laughed Major Keeling. “If they are fools enough to hurl themselves on our guns they must. I have done all I could to keep the peace. When is it to be—at the end of the week?”
“Nay, not so soon. They will but inflame the minds of the Sardars, and send them home to prepare for war. It cannot begin yet.”
“Then what were you afraid of? You seemed to expect danger of some sort.”
“I feared one of those false steps of which I spoke. The Amir and Gobind Chand might have acted foolishly in trying to seize or murder some of the Sardars, or the Sardars might have sought to avenge their wrongs by killing them. Then the country would have fallen into such confusion that I must needs act, and the time is not come.”
“Then you have an axe of your own to grind!” cried Major Keeling. “It can’t be allowed, Sheikh. You must not plot against a neighbouring power while you are on British territory.”
The Sheikh looked at him with something like contempt. “Why does Kīlin Sahib thus allow his wrath to bubble up? To what purpose should I plot against the Nalapur usurper? For myself I need no more than I have here.”
“But what do you mean? Why should you take action?”
“Does not Kīlin Sahib see that it might fall to me to use all possible efforts to restore peace if there should be civil war in Nalapur? I am known to all parties, but attached to none of them, and I am near of kin to the royal house.”
“I don’t believe that was what you meant, but you look honest enough,” muttered Major Keeling in English. Aloud he said, “Well, Sheikh, understand that you must not undertake anything of the kind on your own account. I am responsible for this frontier, and I may be very glad to make use of your good offices, but I can’t have you forcing my hand.”
“Fear not,” said the Sheikh. “For another month I can do nothing, and it is my strongest hope that Nalapur will remain peaceful at least as long. If there is opportunity, I will send word to Alibad before taking any step, but if Wilayat Ali and Gobind Chand move first, do not blame me.”
“I don’t like all these mysteries, Sheikh. What is it that holds you back for a month, and also keeps Nalapur quiet?”
“They are two different things, sahib. The lapse of time will set me free to act, but the Amir and Gobind Chand will not go to war until their embassy has returned from Gamara.”
“From Gamara? Why, that was the very—— What are they doing there?”
“Their embassy to the Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq,” said the Sheikh, evidently enjoying his visitor’s astonishment.
“But I came to speak to you about that very man. What in the world have they got to do with him at Nalapur?”
“Has Kīlin Sahib forgotten that the man was employed by Gobind Chand and his master as a spy upon me, and that after attempting to slay me he escaped? Disowned by Firoz Sahib, in whose service he had been, he durst not remain in Khemistan, and he feared to return to Nalapur, having failed in his mission. But both at Bab-us-Sahel and at Shah Nawaz he had gained much information as to the plans and methods of the English, and he knew that the Khan of Gamara would rejoice to obtain this. Therefore he fled thither, and by reason of the news he brought, and his own art and cleverness in making himself useful to the Khan, was speedily raised to be one of his councillors and keeper of the prison.” Major Keeling nodded assent. “But now the Amir and Gobind Chand need his services again, for he knows many things about the Brotherhood—of which he is a perjured member—and this stronghold of mine, and some months ago it came to my knowledge that they had sent messengers with rich gifts and great promises, to desire him to return to Nalapur. That he dares not do, for if he sought to leave Gamara after the favours he has received, the Khan would kill him; but if the gifts were large enough, doubtless he would tell the messengers all, or nearly all, that he knows. Therefore I say that Wilayat Ali and the Vizier will not make war until the messengers return.”
“But you may not hear of their return. They may come back secretly. They may have returned now.”
Again the Sheikh smiled pityingly. “Nay, sahib; was the Sheikh-ul-Jabal born in the town of fools? Following close upon the Nalapuri embassy went a messenger of mine in the garb of a holy dervish, who entered Gamara only very shortly after them, and was bound to remain in the city, performing the proper rites at each mosque and holy place in turn, as long as they were there, and then to attach himself to their caravan for the return journey. Having gone with them as far as Nalapur, he will change his disguise and return hither.”
“Then he has not returned yet?” asked Major Keeling meditatively.
“Have I not said it? Moreover, a secret word was brought me from him by one in Saadullah Kermani’s caravan to the effect that he thought the messengers would not leave Gamara for three or four weeks.”
“Three or four weeks after Saadullah? Then he may bring later news. This is the very matter on which I came to speak to you, Sheikh. You know that two of my officers have gone to Gamara and disappeared?”
“Firoz Sahib, who has adopted the faith of Islam, and Rāss Sahib, whom the people call the Father of a Book,” said the Sheikh calmly.
“Those two; and we—I—want to know the truth about them, not simply bazar gossip. When your man comes back, ask him if he has learnt anything. If he has been keeping watch on Fazl-ul-Hacq, he ought to have found out something, surely. If there is no news, it may mean that they are both in prison still, and you might be able to suggest some way of getting them liberated.”
The Sheikh stroked his beard slowly. “It may be so,” he said. “Nevertheless, you may be well assured, sahib, that the bazar talk is true so far as relates to Firoz Sahib. As to Rāss Sahib, they say he is dead, and I am ready to believe it. But when my messenger returns I will send him to you, and you shall ask him any questions you will. But when he returns, then will be the time to keep good watch along the Nalapur border.”
Quite agreeing with this opinion, Major Keeling took his leave, and as he rode home, thought over what he had heard. The still unexplained reason which kept the Sheikh from taking any active part in the affairs of Nalapur must be in some way connected with his vow of seclusion, he thought. Perhaps it had been taken for a term of years, which would end in a month. He was more disappointed than surprised by the Sheikh’s evident reluctance to help in taking any steps for Colin’s rescue, but he could not help feeling that there was a change in the man. Had he worn a mask hitherto, and was he now letting it fall; or were his feelings towards the English altering, and his friendship turning to hostility? Major Keeling had hoped that by means of the host of agents who kept the Sheikh in touch with all parts of Central Asia he would have been able to arrange at least that Colin should be ransomed; but he could realise the risk involved in any step that might reveal to the orthodox supporters of tyranny the presence in their midst of members of the heretical brotherhood. However, if the dervish brought no news, it might be possible to engage him to undertake another journey to Gamara for the express purpose of inquiring into Colin’s fate, and this was all that could be hoped for at present.
To this conclusion Major Keeling came reluctantly just as he reached the point from which Alibad could first be seen as he emerged from the hills. The sun had already set, but the desert was lighted up by a gorgeous after-glow, which was equally kind in bringing out the best points of the view and in hiding its defects. Alibad was no longer the cluster of mud huts which its ruler had found it. The white and buff and pink walls of the new houses shone out brilliantly over their screen of young trees, and the dun mass of the fort, with its squat turrets, seemed to brood protectingly above the lower buildings. The native town was a formless blur in the gathering darkness to the left, and on the right, along the line of the temporary canal which supplied the place until the great works already in progress should be completed, were blots and splashes of green, marking the patches of irrigated land where cultivation was in full swing. The programme which Major Keeling had drawn up when he came to Khemistan was in process of realisation, and that very fact chained him to the soil. He had not allowed Penelope to see how much he was tempted to undertake the mission she had proposed to him. It was the kind of thing that appealed to him most strongly—to throw off the burden of routine, have done with office-work, and plunge into the desert, where his hand would be against every man’s, and his life would depend alternately on his sword and his tongue. The proposal fascinated him even now; but before him lay the town which was at once the sign and the result of his labours. He shook the reins, roused Miani from a blissful contemplation of nothing, and trotted briskly home across the plain, followed by Ismail Bakhsh.
After this visit to Sheikhgarh there was another month of waiting. Major Keeling warned all his officers to be on the look-out for a fakir or dervish who might come with a message; but although several members of the fraternity presented themselves as usual in search of alms, and were given every opportunity to speak if they would, none of them had anything particular to say. The month had more than elapsed when one day a respectable elderly man, dressed like an attendant of some great family, and with a scribe’s inkhorn at his girdle, asked leave to present a petition to Kīlin Sahib. Applicants of this sort were always plentiful, owing to the breaking-up of the huge households maintained by all the native princes before the annexation; and it was Major Keeling’s policy to find employment for as many of them as possible, lest they should seek to obtain a precarious livelihood by going up and down among the ignorant peasantry and agitating against British rule. The man was admitted into the office, and Sir Dugald, who was sitting at a little distance, saw him put his hands together in a submissive attitude, and heard him begin to pour out a long rigmarole in low tones. But almost as Sir Dugald distinguished the words “dervish” and “Gamara,” Major Keeling rose from his chair.
“Come in here,” he said, opening the door of his private office. “Haigh, you come too. Now, Kutb-ud-Din, let us have your story.”
“The servant of my lord has little to tell him, but it is that which he is anxious to know. For when my lord’s servant was at Gamara disguised as a most holy dervish, so that he wore no clothes but a rough mantle, and painted his body blue, and left his hair and beard wild and long, he heard one day of a great sight that was to be seen in the square before the palace. And forasmuch as his religious meditation was interrupted by the passing to and fro and the loud speaking of those that hurried to see this sight, he asked them what it might be. And one told him one thing and one another, but all agreed that it was such a sight as would rejoice the heart of a holy man, and therefore my lord’s servant determined to go thither. And coming to the square, the people made way for him, so that he stood at last in a good place, and saw the Khan and a great company of soldiers and counsellors come out of the palace. And at the head of the Khan’s bodyguard he saw the Farangi, Firoz Sahib, of whose conversion all the city had been talking, so great were the festivities at his initiation——”
“Stop!” said Major Keeling hoarsely. “Are you certain it was Ferrers Sahib?”
“My lord’s servant will swear it, if my lord so wills. Has he not often beheld Firoz Sahib, both here and at Shah Nawaz? Moreover, his history was known to all in Gamara. It seemed to my lord’s servant that Firoz Sahib had been drinking bang, for his eyes were bright and his face flushed, and Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq, the renegade, rode at his bridle-rein, as though to restrain him. And afterwards, when the people were slow to disperse, he ordered the soldiers to charge the crowd, and escaping from his friend the Mirza, rode down a Jew who stood in his way, so that all who saw him fled. But that was not until after——”
“After what? Go on,” said Major Keeling impatiently, as the man hesitated.
“Let my lord pardon his servant, if that which he has to say is not pleasing to his ears, for the dust under my lord’s feet can but tell what he saw. There was led out into the square, before the Khan and his court and army, another Farangi, wearing chains that would not suffer him to walk upright, and clothed in shameful rags; and a whisper went about among the people that it was the young sahib whom they called the Father of a Book.”
“And was it?” demanded Major Keeling.
“How can the servant of my lord say? It so chances that his eyes never rested upon the young sahib while he was among his own people. But this sahib was young and tall and lean, and white like a wall—yea, even his hair was white, yet reddish-white like that of the sahibs, not pure white like that of the people of this land——”
“White—in those few weeks!” breathed Sir Dugald.
“Yes, yes, go on,” said Major Keeling to the narrator.
“And when the Farangi was brought out, proclamation was made by a herald that his Highness, in his clemency, would offer the Kafir his life on certain conditions, and that questions should be put to him in Persian, and translated into Turki, so that the people might hear. Then came forward Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq, the accursed, and by command of his Highness, asked the Farangi, ‘Wilt thou adopt the creed of Islam and enter my army, like thy countryman yonder?’ But the Farangi, drawing himself up in spite of his chains, made answer, ‘I am an Englishman and a Christian, and I will neither enter thine army nor become a Mohammedan. I choose rather to die.’ Then his Highness, in great wrath, cried, ‘And die thou shalt!’ and the Farangi’s head was struck off by an executioner with a great sword.”
“And did he never look at Ferrers Sahib, or speak to him?” asked Major Keeling.
“Nay, sahib; he kept his eyes turned away from him.”
“That was not like Ross,” said Major Keeling to Sir Dugald.
“But suppose Ferrers had visited poor Ross in prison, sir—tried to get him to abjure Christianity?” suggested Sir Dugald. “He could not have much to say to him after that.”
“I don’t know. I should have expected Ross to think of him to the end. And that was all?” asked Major Keeling of the messenger.
“That was all, sahib; except that the Farangi’s body was exposed at the place of execution, with the insults customary when a Kafir has been executed, and that among the crowd there were some who said, in the hearing of my lord’s servant, that in slaying the young Sahib the Khan had certainly invited judgments, for there was a spirit in him.”
“And that is all!” said Major Keeling heavily. “You have done well, O Kutb-ud-Din, in bringing us this news. Here!” he scribbled an order hastily, “take this to the pay-clerk without, and receive the rupees he will give you. You may go. Now, Haigh,” he turned to Sir Dugald as the old man bowed himself out with profuse thanks, “you must go home and get your wife to break this to Miss Ross—and God help them both!”
Once more there had come to Penelope, who thought she had given up all hope, a blow which showed her that she had been unconsciously cherishing a belief in Colin’s safety. He might escape from prison, might be ransomed, his captors might even relent and release him—there was always the chance of one of these; but now hope was definitely taken away. And one terrible thought was in Penelope’s mind day and night—it was her fault that he had gone to Gamara. At present she could not even remember for her comfort the happier days which had preceded his departure; she could only look back upon the past and judge herself more harshly than Colin had ever judged her. Day after day and night after night she tormented herself with that most unprofitable of mental exercises—unprofitable, because the same circumstances are never likely to recur in the experience of the same person—of going over the events of the last two or three years, and noting where she might have acted differently, with how much happier results! If she had only been altogether different! If she had never allowed herself to lose faith in Ferrers, if she had refused to believe in the revelations which met her at Bab-us-Sahel, if she had been willing to marry him before coming to Alibad, instead of putting him on probation! If she had only loved him better—so that he would not have had the heart to leave her to go to Gamara, or, having gone there, would have found her love such a shield to him that he could not have denied his faith! Her reason told her that it was impossible, that Ferrers and she had grown so far apart that the woman could not have given him the enthusiastic devotion which had been showered upon him by the romantic little girl; but she blamed herself for the change. Colin had never altered—why should she? It must have been something wrong in herself that had made her first fail Ferrers when he needed her, and at last draw upon herself Colin’s stern rebuke by declaring that she could not keep her promise. If it had not been for her Ferrers would not have gone to Gamara, and, but for him, Colin would not have gone either. She was morally guilty of Colin’s death and Ferrers’ abjuration of Christianity. And thus the awful round went on, every variation in argument or recollection bringing her to the same terrible conclusion, until Penelope almost persuaded herself that she was as guilty in the sight of others as in her own. Every one must know that she had those two lost lives on her conscience. They were sorry for her, but how could they help blaming her? and she withdrew herself from their pitying eyes. Lady Haigh humoured her at first, when she insisted on taking her rides at a time when no one else was about; but when Penelope refused to go out at all, and sat all day in a sheltered corner of the house-top, looking northward to the mountains, she became seriously alarmed.
“Miss Ross not coming again?” asked Sir Dugald when the horses were brought round one evening, and he had helped his wife to mount.
“No, I can’t get her to come. The very thought seems to frighten her.”
“Must be frightfully bad for her to mope indoors like this,” was Sir Dugald’s prosaic comment. “Can’t you get her to exert herself a little?”
“Really, Dugald, one would think I was Mrs Chick. Why don’t you tell me to get her to make an effort? She and I are so different, you see. If I was in dreadful trouble I should work as hard as I could—at anything, and entreat my friends, if they loved me, to find me something to do. But Pen has left off even the things she usually does, and simply sits and cries all day. I can’t very well suggest to her that it’s rather selfish, can I?—though I know it must make the house dreadfully dull for you.”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said Sir Dugald kindly. “I have my consolations. You are not a pale image of despair, at any rate.”
“And the way she refuses to see people! Of course, no one would dream of expecting her even to appear at a dinner-party, but to rush away if poor little Mr Harris comes in, or any of them! Dugald”—her voice was lowered—“do you remember that poor Mrs Wyndham at Bab-us-Sahel, whose husband died of cholera on their honeymoon? She went mad, you know.”
“My dear Elma, pray don’t suggest such horrors. Why not get Tarleton to come up and see Miss Ross?”
“She won’t see him; that’s just it. But I have asked him to seize the first opportunity he can of dropping in and taking her by surprise. Then we shall know better what to do. Dugald!—I have an idea. Are you ready to make a sacrifice?”
“When I know what it is, I’ll tell you.”
“Oh, but it would be better for you not to know, you see.”
“Thanks. I would rather not find myself pledged to throw up the service, or get leave home, if it’s all the same to you.”
“It’s nothing of that sort—merely a way of spending the next two or three months. No, it’s not expensive—not like going down to the coast or to the Hills. But it will be very quiet and dull, and no chance of fighting. Oh, don’t guess. I want to be able to tell the Chief that you know nothing about it, so that if he is angry he mayn’t scold you. You would sacrifice yourself to help Penelope, wouldn’t you?”
“H’m, well—within limits,” said Sir Dugald.