“WHY, Dugald, where are you off to so early?” cried Lady Haigh, coming out of her tent at breakfast-time, and finding her husband and his boy busy selecting guns, filling powder-flasks, and laying in a store of bullets, flints, percussion-caps, and other necessaries unknown to the sportsman of to-day.
“After the man-eater. They’ve sent me khubber of him at last. It’s right out at Rajkot, so I shall be gone all day, even if I don’t have to wait over to-night. You needn’t get nervous if I do.”
“You might just as well let us come,” she sighed argumentatively.
“I have far too much respect for your life—and mine. If you came you wouldn’t be satisfied without a gun, which would go off of its own accord, like poor Mr Winkle’s, and then—well, I would rather be the tiger than any human being in your neighbourhood.”
“Isn’t he horribly rude, Pen? We don’t want to go pushing through jungle-grass after an old mangy tiger, do we? We are going to engage in light and elegant employments suited to our sex. He knows quite well that if I can’t shoot straight it’s his fault for not having taught me. If only I had had the sense to learn before I came out, I would slip away and get to Rajkot before him, and the first thing he saw when he got there would be a dead tiger.”
“More likely that I should find myself a sorrowing widower,” said Sir Dugald, who was in high good humour at the prospect of getting a sixth tiger. “No, no, stick to your weeds and straws, ladies, and don’t get into mischief while I’m gone. You talked of going out to that dry jheel to the eastward, and you can’t do much harm there. Take Murtiza Khan with you, of course.”
“He’s insufferably proud because he thinks he’s going to bag the man-eater,” said Lady Haigh. “What he will be when he comes back I really can’t imagine. I wish I could bewitch tigers, as that old man in the village says he can. Then I would give this one something that would keep it miles away from Dugald, however far he went.”
Sir Dugald laughed pleasantly over this uncharitable wish as he handed his second gun to the shikari who was to accompany him. The ponies were already saddled, and he had only time for a mouthful of food before starting, his last counsel to his wife being not to venture farther from the camp than the jheel he had mentioned, as the sky was curiously hazy, and he thought the weather was going to break up. The winter rains had been unusually slight this year, so that the country was already beginning to look parched, and the forest foliage, which should still have been soft and fresh, was becoming quite stiff, and what Lady Haigh called “rattly,” though the heat was not yet too great for camping. The climate of Khemistan is so uncertain that a thunderstorm was at least possible; but after Sir Dugald had ridden away to the southward, his wife decided that the haze portended heat rather than thunder, and that it would be perfectly safe to undertake the expedition to the jheel. She and Penelope started soon after breakfast, attended only by their two grooms and Murtiza Khan, a stalwart trooper who was Sir Dugald’s orderly on occasions like the present, when he was in separate command. The jheel proved a disappointment, for it was so dry that the delicate bog-plants Lady Haigh had hoped to secure were all dead, and the grasses were the ordinary coarse varieties to be found all over the country. Lady Haigh and Penelope soon tired of the fruitless search, and sat down to rest on a bank pleasantly scented with sweet basil before taking to the saddle again. They were conscious of a strong disinclination for the ride back, the air was so hot, the track so dusty, and the forest so shadeless.
“It really is more like smoke than cloud,” said Lady Haigh, looking up at the lowering sky, “and whenever there is the least breeze one almost seems to smell smoke. I wish it wasn’t coming from the direction of the camp. It’s horrid to leave the clear sky behind, and ride straight into twilight. I wonder how far Dugald has got—whether he will be out of the storm. He is sure to have fever if he gets wet. I think I will send one of the servants after him with fresh clothes. They would keep dry if I packed them in a tin box——”
“What can that boy be saying?” interrupted Penelope, pointing across the swamp to the belt of forest on the opposite side. A native boy, unkempt and lightly clad, had appeared from among the trees, and paused in apparent astonishment on catching sight of the two ladies sitting in the shade, and the horses feeding quietly close at hand under the charge of their grooms. Now he was shouting and gesticulating wildly, and Murtiza Khan had hurried to the brink of the reed-beds to hear what he was saying.
“He must be warning us that the storm is coming on,” said Lady Haigh, as the boy pointed first at the darkening sky, and then back in the direction of the camp. “Pen! I am sure I smelt smoke at that moment. Did you notice it?”
Murtiza Khan turned his head for a second and shouted a sharp order to the grooms, which made them bestir themselves to get the horses ready, then asked some other question of the boy, who answered with more frenzied gesticulations than ever. When the trooper seemed to persist, he ran to a convenient tree and climbed up it like a monkey, and from a lofty branch shouted and pointed wildly, then slid down, and abandoning any further attempt at conversation, took to his heels and ran at his utmost speed along the edge of the swamp towards the east, where the sky was still clear.
“What is it, Murtiza Khan?” asked Lady Haigh breathlessly, as the trooper hurried up the bank towards her.
“Highness, the forest is on fire. Will the Presences be graciously pleased to mount at once? We must ride eastwards.”
“But the camp? the servants? We must warn them!” cried Lady Haigh.
“They will have seen the fire coming, Highness, for they are nearer it than we. They will stand in the lake, and let the flames sweep over them, and so save themselves. But we cannot go back, for we should meet the fire before we reached the lake.”
“But the Sahib!” cried Lady Haigh frantically. “He will be cut off. I will not go on and leave him. We must go back.”
“Highness, the Sahib is wise, and has with him the shikari Baha-ud-Din, who knows the forest well. He will protect himself, but the care of the Presences falls to me.”
“I tell you I won’t go,” cried Lady Haigh. “Take the Miss Sahib on, and I will go back alone.”
“It must not be, Highness. The Sahib gave me a charge, and I swore to carry it out at the risk of my own life. ‘Guard the Mem Sahib and the Miss Sahib,’ he said; and I will do it. Be pleased to mount, Highness,” as she still hesitated.
“Sir Dugald would tell you to come, Elma,” urged Penelope. “If we could do anything, I would say go back at once; but we don’t even know exactly where he is, and delay now will sacrifice the men’s lives as well as ours.”
Lady Haigh looked round desperately, but found no remedy. Reluctantly she allowed herself to be helped into the saddle, and the ponies started off at once. For some time the grooms had found it difficult to hold them, for they were turning their heads uneasily towards the west, snuffing the air, and pricking their ears as though to listen for sounds. Now they needed no urging to fly along the strip of sward between the forest and the jheel; and it was with difficulty that their riders pulled up sufficiently to allow Murtiza Khan to get in front when the end of the swamp was reached, and a way had to be found through the jungle. The trooper, on his heavier horse, rode first, crashing through the underwood which had overgrown the almost invisible track, then came the two ladies, and the grooms panted behind, holding on to the ponies’ tails when the forest was sufficiently open to allow of a canter. From time to time Murtiza Khan looked back to urge his charges to greater speed, and on all sides the voices of the forest proclaimed the imminence of the danger. Flights of birds hovered distressfully over the riders’ heads, unwilling to leave their homes, but taking the eastward course at last; and through the undergrowth could be seen the timid heads of deer, all seeking safety in the same direction. When a more open space was reached the scene was very curious, for antelopes, wild pig, and jungle-rats, regardless alike of the presence of human beings and of each other, were all rushing eastwards, driven by the same panic. One of the grooms even shrieked to Murtiza Khan that he saw a tiger, but the trooper dismissed the information contemptuously. The tiger would have enough to do to save himself, and would not pause in his flight to attack his companions in misfortune.
By this time there was no mistaking the smoke-clouds which travelled in advance of the fire, and brought with them the smell of burning wood and a confusion of sounds. The roar of the advancing flames, the crackling of branches, with an occasional crash when a large tree fell, filled the air with noise. The dry jungle burned like tinder, so that a solid wall of fire seemed to be sweeping over it. Underfoot were the dry weeds and sedges and jungle-grass, then a tangled mass of brushwood, above which reared themselves the taller trees, poplar or mimosa or acacia, all of them parched from root to topmost twig, an easy prey. Presently one of the grooms jerked out an inquiry whether it would not be better to abandon the ponies and climb trees, but the trooper flung back a contemptuous negative.
“There were three Sahibs did that,” he said, “and when the trees were burnt through at the root, they fell down into the fire. Stay and be roasted if ye will, sons of swine. The Memsahibs and I will go on.”
They went on, the roar of the flames coming nearer and nearer, the hot breath of the fire on their necks, the crash of falling trees sounding so close at hand that they bent forward involuntarily to escape being crushed, the frenzied pack of wild creatures running beside and among the horses, forgetting the lesser fear in the greater. Suddenly in front of them loomed up a bare hillside, steep like a wall. Murtiza Khan gave a shout.
“To the left! to the left!” he cried. “We cannot climb up here.”
They turned the horses, noticing now that the stream of wild animals had already divided, part going to the left and part to the right. One side of their faces was scorched by the hot air; a sudden leap, as it seemed, of the flames seized a tamarisk standing in their very path. Murtiza Khan caught the ladies’ bridles and dragged the ponies past it, then lashed them on furiously. The fire was running along the ground, licking up the parched grasses. He forced the ponies through it, then pulled them sharply to the right. A barren nullah faced them, with roughly sloping sides, bleak and dry, but it was salvation. On those naked rocks there was no food for the flames. Murtiza Khan was off his horse in a moment, and seizing Lady Haigh’s bridle, led her pony up the steep slope to a bare ledge. His own horse followed him like a dog, and one of the grooms summoned up sufficient presence of mind, under the influence of the trooper’s angry shout, to lead up Penelope’s pony. They spread a horsecloth on the ground, and Lady Haigh and Penelope dropped thankfully out of their saddles. They were trembling from head to foot, their hair and habits singed, but they were safe. On a barren hillside, without food or water, in a desolate region, but safe.
For some time they could do nothing but sit helplessly where they were, watching with dull eyes what seemed the persistent efforts of the fire to reach them. Tongues of flame shot out of the burning mass and licked the bare hillside, then sank back thwarted, only to make a further attempt to pursue the fugitives and drive them from their refuge. The fire was no longer inanimate; it was a sentient and malign creature, determined that its prey should not escape. Its efforts ceased at last for lack of fuel, and the castaways on the ledge were able to think of other things. Murtiza Khan began to improvise a sling with a strip torn from his turban, and Lady Haigh, wondering what he could intend to aim at, saw that a little higher up the nullah one of the forest antelopes had taken refuge on a ledge similar to their own. She turned on the trooper angrily—
“What, Murtiza Khan! so lately saved and so soon anxious to destroy? Let the creature escape, as God has allowed us.”
“As the Presence wills,” said Murtiza Khan, with resignation, while the antelope, catching the sound of human voices, took alarm and bounded away. “I was but desirous of providing food, for we have here only some broken chapatis. Is it the will of the Presence that we should leave this place, and seek to find some dwelling of men in these mountains?”
“No,” said Lady Haigh shortly, “we wait here for the Sahib. If he is alive he will seek us; if not, we will seek him.”
The trooper did not venture to offer any opposition, and Lady Haigh returned to her former attitude, gazing over the smoky waste, from which the blackened trunk of a tall tree protruded here and there. She had some biscuits in her plant-case, which she shared with Penelope, and Murtiza Khan and the grooms made a meal of the fragments discovered in the trooper’s saddle-bags, after which the three men went to sleep, having duly asked and received permission. Lady Haigh and Penelope scarcely spoke at all through the long hot thirsty hours that followed. The sun beat down on them, reflected from the steep walls of the nullah; but if they moved into the shade lower down, they would lose the view. The fire had long burned itself out, and the smoke-clouds lifted gradually, disclosing a gloomy expanse of black ashes. The ground had been cleared so thoroughly that it seemed as if it ought to be possible to see as far as the spot where the camp had been, but the air was still too hazy, a dull grey taking the place of the ordinary intense blue of the sky. There was no sign of life anywhere on the plain which had been forest, but as the afternoon wore on Penelope started suddenly.
“Did you see, Elma?” she cried. “I am sure I saw a man’s face. He was looking at us over those rocks,” and she pointed to the crest of the cliff on the opposite side of the nullah.
“It can’t be one of our men, for why should they want to hide?” said Lady Haigh gloomily, returning to her watch. “I don’t see anything.”
“But it must be one of the tribesmen, then, and they will attack us. Do wake up Murtiza Khan, and let him go and look. Elma! you don’t want to be taken prisoner, do you?”
Thus adjured, Lady Haigh aroused the trooper, who descended into the dry bed of the nullah and scaled the opposite height with due precaution, but found no one, and reported that he could see nothing but more rocks and barren hills. In returning, he ventured out on the plain, at Lady Haigh’s order, that he might see whether it was yet possible to traverse it. But when he turned up the black ashes with the toe of his boot, they showed red and fiery underneath.
“It may not be, Highness,” he said. “Neither man nor horse can cross the forest to-day. Is it permitted to us to leave this spot?” Lady Haigh’s gesture of dissent was sufficient answer. “Then have I the Presence’s leave to send the grooms, one each way, along the edge of these cliffs? It may be that the Sahib is looking for us round about the place of the fire, and one of them may meet him.”
To this Lady Haigh consented, and the two men started, rather unwillingly, since both were afraid of going alone. The one who had gone to the right returned very quickly, saying that he had seen a man’s face in a bush, which turned out, however, to be perfectly normal when he reconnoitred cautiously behind it, and that he was going no farther, since the place was evidently the haunt of afrit. The other was longer absent, and when he appeared he was accompanied by another man, who was rapturously recognised by the fugitives as one of the grass-cutters from the camp, who had gone with Sir Dugald to Rajkot. Carefully hidden in his turban he bore a note, very dirty and much crumpled, and evidently written on the upper margin of a piece of newspaper which Sir Dugald had taken with him to provide wadding for his guns. Lady Haigh read it eagerly, but as she did so her face changed.
“What happened when the Sahib had given you this chit?” she asked imperiously of the grass-cutter.
“The Sahib started with the shikari Baha-ud-Din in the direction of Alibad, Highness, leaving his groom behind to tell any of the servants that might have escaped from the camp to follow him.”
“Bid them make ready the horses,” said Lady Haigh shortly to Murtiza Khan, then read the note again with renewed disapproval.
“Elma, what is it?” asked Penelope anxiously.
“It’s nothing. I am a fool,” was the laconic answer. “Only—well, I suppose one doesn’t care to have one’s heroism taken for granted, however much one has tried to be heroic.”
“But Sir Dugald is safe? He must be, from what Jagro said.”
“Yes, I’m thankful for that. But this is what he says: ‘News just brought by a villager that a Nullahpooree army under Govind Chund has crossed the frontier through the mountains behind Sheykhgur, intending to surprise Ulleebad from the south-west. They were guided by some one who knows the country well, but must have fired the shikargah accidentally in their march. I am sending this by Juggro, in the earnest hope that he may fall in with you. I dare not delay; Ulleebad must be warned. I join Keeling immediately; do you take refuge at Sheykhgur. Moorteza Khaun knows where it is; he went there with the Chief and me when Crayne was here. Tell the Sheykh of the invasion, and ask him to give you shelter till I can come for you.’ Really Dugald might be issuing general orders! The rest is to me—that he feels it a mockery to write when he doesn’t know whether I am alive or dead, and so on.”
“But if he durst not lose any time——?” hesitated Penelope.
“My dear, I know that perfectly well. If we were dead he could do nothing more for us; if we were alive we could look after ourselves. His attitude is absolutely common-sensible. But he might have asked me whether I minded before levanting in this way. No, he couldn’t very well have done that. It’s a fine thing to have a Roman husband, Pen.”
“Of course it is, and you are proud of him for doing it.”
“Well, perhaps I am; but all the same, I wish he hadn’t! There’s consistency for you. And now to try and make Murtiza Khan understand what is required of him.”
The task set before the trooper was not a light one. He could have found his way to Sheikhgarh with tolerable ease from the direction of Alibad, but from this side of the hills he had only the vaguest idea of its position. It must lie somewhere in the maze of rocks and ravines to the north-east, that was all he knew, and he led his party up the nullah, which appeared to lead roughly in the desired direction. It turned and twisted and wound in the most perplexing manner, however, and it seemed a godsend when the figure of a man was discernible for an instant on the summit of the cliff. He disappeared as soon as he caught sight of the travellers; but the stentorian shouts of Murtiza Khan, promising safety and reward, brought him out of his hiding-place again, to peer timidly over the rocks. He belonged to a distant village, he said, and was seeking among the hills for three sheep that had been lost, and he could guide the party as far as the Sheikh-ul-Jabal’s outposts, beyond which he durst not go. Even with reward in view, he would not come down into the nullah, but took his way along the top of the cliff, often lost to view, and guiding the trooper by shouts. When at length he stopped short, demanding the promised coin, evening was coming on, and still there was no sign of human habitation to be seen, but only dry torrent-beds and frowning rocks. It chanced that Lady Haigh had a rupee about her—a most unusual thing in camp-life—and this was duly laid upon a rock indicated by the guide, who would not come down to secure it while the travellers were in sight.
It was not without some trepidation that Lady Haigh and Penelope saw that their path now dipped down into a deep ravine, bordered by dark overhanging cliffs; but they would not betray their fears before the natives, and went on boldly. As soon as they had set foot in the ravine, however, their ears were suddenly assailed by a tumult of sound. Shouts ran from cliff to cliff, and were taken up and returned and multiplied by the echoes until the air was filled with noise. Even Murtiza Khan was startled, and the grooms seized the ponies’ bridles and tried to turn them round. The ponies kicked and plunged, the trooper stormed, and his subordinates jabbered, while Lady Haigh tried in vain to make herself heard above the din. In vain did Murtiza Khan assure the grooms that what they heard was only the voices of the Sheikh’s sentinels, posted on the rocks above them; they swore that the place was bewitched, and that legions of evil spirits were holding revel there. Murtiza Khan was obliged to lay about him with the flat of his tulwar before they would let go the reins, and allow the ladies, whose position on the steep hillside had been precarious in the extreme, to follow him farther into the darkness. They yielded with the worst possible grace; and when the trooper, a few steps farther on, shouted back some question to them, only the dispirited voice of the grass-cutter answered him. The other two had fled. A little later, and even the grass-cutter’s heart failed him, as the twilight became more and more gloomy, and he slipped behind a projecting rock until the cavalcade had passed on, then ran back to the entrance of the ravine as fast as his legs could carry him. Lady Haigh suggested going back to find the deserters, but the trooper scouted the idea. The light was going fast, and to spend the night in this wilderness of rocks was not to be thought of. They must press on into the resounding gloom.