LADY HAIGH sat up, and listened attentively. “It may be only the sentries moving about,” she whispered at last.
“No, there are none. I peeped out to see. They are sleeping all round the tent, so that we could not pass, but they have no one on the watch. There it is again! Listen!”
But this time there was no difficulty in distinguishing the sounds, for a tremendous voice, so close at hand that Lady Haigh stopped her ears involuntarily, shouted, “At them, boys! Cold steel! Don’t let one of them escape!” and immediately the wildest tumult arose outside the tent. It aroused even Hafiza, who sat up and with great presence of mind opened her mouth to scream, but was forestalled by Lady Haigh, who flew at her like a wild cat, and gagged her with a corner of the resai.
“Do you want us all to be killed?” she demanded fiercely. “Our only chance is that they may not remember us.”
“Elma, are you there?” said a voice outside the tent at the back, and Lady Haigh released Hafiza and turned in the direction of the sound.
“Is it you, Dugald?” she cried joyfully, trying to tear up the edge of the tent-cloth from the ground, but it was well pegged down.
“Stand aside!” said the voice, and there was a rending sound as a sword cut a long slit in the cloth, revealing Sir Dugald dimly against the starry sky. “Out with you!” he said, “and stoop till I tell you to stand up.”
Determined to obey to the very letter, Lady Haigh and Penelope crawled out through the slit on their hands and knees, followed by Hafiza, who was so anxious not to be left behind that she kept a firm hold on Penelope’s riding-habit. Sir Dugald led the way through the brushwood, away from the clash of swords and the wild confusion of shouts and yells in front of the tent, and when they had passed the brow of the hill, he gave them leave to stand up.
“We are to make for the horses,” he said. “I only hope they won’t have run away, or we shall find ourselves in a hole. But Miani has the sense of a dozen, and wouldn’t go without his master.”
They ran and stumbled down the hill, Sir Dugald assisting any one of the three who happened to be nearest, and a little way back on the road they had come, found Miani and four other horses waiting in a hollow, secured to a lance driven into the ground.
“But where are the rest?” cried Lady Haigh. “The men can’t have walked from Alibad here.”
“There’s a horse for each man,” was the grim reply. “Keeling and I, his two orderlies, and Murtiza Khan—there’s our rescue party.”
“It’s perfect madness!” she cried piteously, collapsing on a heap of stones. “There was no need to risk your lives in this way.”
“All that could be spared. This is a little jaunt undertaken when we are supposed to be asleep. No one knows about it.”
“It’s just the sort of mad thing Major Keeling would do, but you—oh, Dugald! if anything happens to you I shall never forgive myself,” and Lady Haigh sat on her stone-heap and wept ignominiously.
“Good heavens, Elma! you’ll call together all the enemies in the neighbourhood if you make that noise. I’m all right at present. Why don’t you weep over the Chief? He’s in danger, if you like.”
“Yes, and why aren’t you with him?” she demanded, with what might have appeared a certain measure of inconsistency.
“Orders,” he replied tersely. “I have to see you home. Hope we shall be able to collar your ponies. Where did you manage to pick up an ayah? Not one of your captors’ people, is she?”
“No, she must go back with us. She belongs to Sheikhgarh. Oh, Dugald——”
“Hush! I believe I hear the Chief coming. Here, Major! we’ve got them all right.”
“Good!” returned Major Keeling, hurling himself into the group after a run down the hillside. “How are you, Lady Haigh? Pretty fit, Miss Ross? Got a good ride before us still. We must have an outpost here some day—splendid place for stopping the smuggling of arms into Ethiopia.”
“And call it after you,” suggested Lady Haigh, now quite herself again. “What shall we say—Kīlinabad? or Kīlingarh? or Kīlinkôt?”
“Has this hill any name, Kasim?” asked Major Keeling, turning abruptly to one of the orderlies who had come up.
“It is called Rahmat-Ullah, sahib, from one who was saved from death by a pool of water that he found here.”
“Then there is its name still. Rahmat-Ullah, the Compassion of God—what could be more appropriate? But now to think of present needs. Surviving enemy has escaped with the horses, unfortunately. We didn’t venture to fire after him for fear of rousing the neighbourhood, so we must ride double.” As he spoke, he was unstrapping and rearranging the greatcoat which was rolled in front of Miani’s saddle. “Haigh, take your wife.” He unfastened the black’s bridle from the lance, and was in the saddle in a moment. “Miss Ross, give me your hands. Put your foot on mine. Now, jump!” and as Penelope obeyed, she found herself seated before him on the horse, the greatcoat serving as a cushion. “Don’t be afraid of falling. I shall hold you,” he said. “Besides, Miani is too much of a gentleman to try any tricks with a lady on his back. You all right, Lady Haigh? Ismail Bakhsh, you are the lightest weight; pick up the old woman, and fall in behind. Murtiza Khan may lead; he has deserved well for this three days’ work. Kasim-ud-Daulat, bring up the rear, and keep your ears open for any sounds of pursuit. Now, forward!”
They were in motion at once, Miani making no objection to his double burden. Penelope smiled to herself, realising the strangeness of her position, and also Major Keeling’s anxiety that she should not realise it. His left arm was round her, the sword which must have dripped with blood only a few minutes ago hung almost within reach of her hand; but he was careful not to say a word that could make her feel that there was anything odd in the situation.
“He is determined to behave as if he was a stranger,” she said to herself. “No, not quite. A stranger would have asked me if I was quite comfortable before starting. But why doesn’t he let me ride behind him, so as to leave his arms free? I know! it is from behind that he expects to be attacked. Oh, I hope, I hope, if there is an attack, it will be in front. Then the bullets must reach me first, and he might escape.”
As if in answer to her thought, Major Keeling’s deep voice remarked casually at this moment, “If we are attacked in front, Miss Ross, I shall drop you on the ground. It sounds rude, but you will be safer there than in the way of bullets. Keep out of the way of the horses as best you can, and we will pick you up again when we have driven the rascals off.”
“Ye-es,” said Penelope faintly, with the feeling very strong upon her that there were some seasons at which women had no business to exist. Again, as if to comfort her, Major Keeling laughed happily.
“Never felt so jolly in my life!” he cried. “This is the sort of adventure that’s worth five years of office and drill.”
The assurance was so cheering, though entirely impersonal, that Penelope accepted the comfort perforce. They rode on steadily, and the regular beat of the horses’ hoofs was pleasant in its monotony. A continuous low murmur from Lady Haigh, punctuated by an occasional word or two from Sir Dugald, showed that she, at any rate, had no doubt of her right to exist and to demand a welcome. Penelope’s thoughts became somewhat confused. Scenes and images from the exciting panorama of the last three days danced before her eyes. She knew that they were unreal, but could not remember where she actually was. Suddenly they ceased, and she knew nothing more until a deep voice broke upon her slumbers—
“You would make a good cavalryman, Miss Ross. You can sleep in the saddle!”
Bewildered, she gazed round her. The silvery light of the false dawn was spreading itself over the sky, and the familiar front of the Haighs’ house at Alibad looked weird and cold. They were actually inside the compound, riding up to the door, and startled servants were running out from their quarters to receive them. Lady Haigh dismounted with much agility, and came running to assist Penelope, who was still too much confused to allow herself to drop to the ground, but Major Keeling and Sir Dugald both remained in the saddle.
“Don’t expect me till you see me,” said Sir Dugald to his wife. “I’ll send you a message when I can.”
“And he shall have an hour’s leave when it can be managed,” said Major Keeling, turning his horse’s head. Then he looked back at the two ladies standing forlorn on the steps. “Now my advice to you is, go to bed and get a thorough rest. You needn’t be afraid. Tarleton and the Fencibles have the town in charge, though we are out on the plains.”
“Oh, Elma, and we never thanked them!” cried Penelope, horror-struck, as the two officers and their escort disappeared.
“Thanked them! My dear Penelope, what good would thanks be? If we thanked those two men on our bended knees for ever, it wouldn’t come anywhere near proper gratitude for what they have done for us to-night. But come indoors, and let us hunt up some bedding. It’s all very well to advise us to go to bed; but every single thing we took into camp is burnt, so we must do the best we can.”
“But the servants?” cried Penelope.
“Oh, they stood in the water and escaped, and made the best of their way back to Alibad when the fire was over, but they didn’t save anything. Now I must give Hafiza into the charge of the malli’s wife, and then we will go indoors.”
The gardener’s wife was a Nalapuri woman, and quite willing to give shelter to her compatriot, who had been eyeing the European house with much disfavour; and Lady Haigh called up the two ayahs, and set them to work at making up some sort of beds, while she and Penelope had some tea. The moment they were alone she turned to Penelope and said, “Well?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Penelope.
“Oh, nonsense! Did he say anything?”
“He said he should drop me on the sand if we were attacked in front.”
“Of course, Dugald said that to me. But what else?”
“Nothing, really. I—I went to sleep, Elma.”
“Penelope, you are perfectly hopeless! I should dearly like to beat you. You haven’t one scrap of romance in your whole composition. You went to sleep!”
“I was so dreadfully tired—and I felt so safe, so wonderfully safe.”
“I suppose you expect him to take that as a compliment. But I am disgusted. Oh, Pen, I didn’t think it of you!”
“I couldn’t help it,” pleaded Penelope, “and he didn’t mean to say anything then, I’m sure.” But Lady Haigh refused to be mollified.
“You gave him no chance. And, as you say, you never even thanked him. My dear, it was touch and go, as Dugald says. By the greatest mercy, one of the Sheikh-ul-Jabal’s men caught sight of our party just before the guards made us hide behind that sandhill. They thought it was an ambush, and were all prepared, so that it was rather a surprise when they were allowed to pass. When they were crossing the plain towards Sheikhgarh, they were met by a patrol which Major Keeling had sent out to try and intercept the Sheikh as soon as ever he had heard Murtiza Khan’s news——”
“But that must have been in broad daylight.”
“So it was. The Sheikh’s vow expired, it seems, as soon as his nephew Ashraf Ali was fourteen. He couldn’t afford to be handicapped when it was a question of putting the boy on the throne, you see. Well, Major Keeling had guessed that the enemy would probably send us away somewhere, lest Sheikhgarh should be retaken; but the only thing he could do when he heard what the Sheikh had seen was to send out the shikari Baha-ud-Din, who most happily went back to Alibad with Dugald, you know, to examine the trail, and he found the marks of our ponies’ shoes, quite distinct among the native ones. And as soon as it was dark, he and Dugald and the orderlies started after us. But it was a near thing.”
“Very,” agreed Penelope, with a shudder. “If they had taken us just that one hour’s journey farther, Elma—into Ethiopia!”
“Well, if you ask me, I am not sure that it would have made very much difference. A frontier has no peculiar sacredness for Major Keeling, unless it’s his own. But of course there might have been an Ethiopian fort, and five men could scarcely have attacked that. Yes, Pen, we ought to be very thankful. And now here is Dulya to say that our rooms are ready. I needn’t tell you to sleep well. You seem to have quite a talent for it!”
After behaving with sufficient heroism during their three days’ trial, Lady Haigh and Penelope collapsed most unheroically after it. Two whole days in bed was the smallest allowance they could accept, and they slept away, peacefully enough, hours in which the fate of the province might have been hanging in jeopardy, with a culpable indifference to the interests of civilisation and their race. The military situation was curious enough, and to the eyes of any one not trained in the topsy-turvy school of the Khemistan frontier, eminently disquieting. Gobind Chand’s army still remained in occupation of the whole hill-district on the west, a potential menace, if not an active one. The Sheikh-ul-Jabal and his troop of horsemen had left Alibad by night, intending to make an attempt to regain possession of Sheikhgarh by means of the secret door to which Wazira Begum had alluded; but as this necessitated a very wide flanking movement, in order to approach the place from behind, it was not surprising that nothing had been heard as yet as to their success. Just across the frontier was Wilayat Ali’s army, which had let slip its opportunity of combining with Gobind Chand by attacking Alibad from the desert while he moved out from the mountains, but still remained willing to wound, if afraid to strike. Between the two was Major Keeling, with the whole of his small force mobilised, so to speak, and holding the positions he had devised to cover the town, while the town itself was inadequately garrisoned by Dr Tarleton and his volunteers. The dangers of the position were perceptible to the least skilled eye. In the possession of artillery alone lay Major Keeling’s advantage; for the fact that the rest of his force consisted wholly of cavalry, though advantageous in ordinary cases of frontier warfare, was a drawback when the operations were of necessity altogether defensive. It was not until four days after their return to Alibad that the ladies obtained a coherent idea of Major Keeling’s plan of action, and this was due to a visit from Sir Dugald, who had come in with orders for Dr Tarleton.
“I suppose you’re able to take an intelligent interest in all that goes on, with the help of that telescope of yours?” he asked lazily, while Lady Haigh and Penelope plied him assiduously with tea and cake in the few minutes he had to spare.
“Oh, we see the guns plodding about from place to place, and firing one or two shots and then stopping, but we can’t make out what you are doing,” said his wife.
“We are shepherding Gobind Chand’s men back into the hills whenever they try to break out. In a day or two more we ought to have them fairly cornered, unless some utterly unexpected gleam of common-sense on Wilayat Ali’s part throws us out; but just at present we can do nothing but ‘wait for something to turn up.’”
“But how will things be better in a day or two?” asked Penelope.
“Because the enemy’s supplies must be exhausted by then. These border armies never carry much food with them, expecting to live on the country. We are preventing that. There is no food to be got in the hills, and when they burned the forest they destroyed any chances in that direction. We have sent Harris with one of the guns to make a flank march to the south and take up a strong position with Vidal and his police across the road by which the enemy came, and the Sheikh will take good care that no stragglers get past him. So far as we can see, they must either fight or surrender.”
“But isn’t it rather cruel—starving them out in this way?”
“Cruel! If you talk of cruelty, wasn’t it cruel of them to fire the best shikargah in Khemistan? Isn’t it cruel of them now to be keeping us grilling out on the plains, without time even for a change of clothes? Why, until I managed to get a bath just now, I hadn’t taken off my things since the night we rode out to find you!”
“You looked it, when you rode in two hours ago,” said Lady Haigh, with such fervent sympathy that her husband requested her indignantly not to be personal.
“And if we’re not to starve them out, what are we to do?” he demanded, still smarting under the accusation of cruelty. “Of course, when an enemy takes up his quarters in broken country inside your borders, any fool will tell you you ought to clear him out; but what are you to do with one weak regiment against an army? Perhaps they will let the Chief raise another regiment after this—if we come through it—and give him the two more European officers he’s been asking for so long. Wilayat Ali might have swept us from the face of the earth if he had a grain of generalship about him, and Gobind Chand’s army might have rushed the guns a dozen times over if he could have got them to stand fire.”
“But what is it that paralyses them?” asked Lady Haigh.
“Mutual antipathy, so far as we can make out. It seems that Wilayat Ali carefully picked out the most disloyal Sardars to serve under Gobind Chand, evidently in the hope that either we or they would remove him from his path, and that the Sardars would also get their ranks thinned. He hasn’t forgotten Gobind Chand’s attempt to get the Chief’s help in deposing him, after all. But Gobind Chand is not eager to take the chances of war, and the Sardars don’t quite see hurling themselves against our guns that Wilayat Ali may have a walk-over; and, moreover, they see through his scheme now. It’s really as good as a play, the way the two chief villains are trying to betray one another to us.”
“But have they actually tried to open negotiations?”
“Not formally, of course; but venerable Mullahs and frowsy fakirs toddle casually into our lines, or try to, and unfold their respective employers’ latest ideas. Wilayat Ali offers us the contents of his treasury if we will allow him to join us and help to wipe out Gobind Chand and the disaffected Sardars. Gobind Chand is rather more liberal, and offers us the help of his army to annihilate Wilayat Ali and his supporters, after which he will take the contents of the treasury and retire into private life, and we may keep Nalapur. No doubt he wishes us joy of it.”
“But surely they can’t have started the war with these schemes in their minds?”
“Wilayat Ali did, I think; but Gobind Chand seems to have been overreached for once. His eyes must have been opened when Wilayat Ali failed to support him in his attack on the town; and he didn’t need a second warning. The assiduity with which the two villains are playing Codlin and Short for our benefit is really funny, but I rather think there’s a surprise in store for each of them.”
“Something that will punish them both? Oh, do tell us!”
“Well, there seems some indication that the Sardars are as tired of one as the other, and will shunt Gobind Chand of their own accord; and if the Sheikh-ul-Jabal’s tales are true, he has worked up a strong party among Wilayat Ali’s supporters in favour of his nephew Ashraf. If so, we may expect some startling developments. The pity is, we can’t force them on, only sit and wait for them to happen.”