CHAPTER XXV.
THE RIGHT PREVAILS.
QUITE contrary to his expectation, Sir Dugald was able to ride into the town again the very next evening, and was received with unfeigned joy by the two ladies, to whom, through the medium of the talk in the bazar as reported by the servants, all sorts of hopeful and disquieting rumours had filtered during the interval. Was it true that Gobind Chand was dead and the Sardars had surrendered, they demanded eagerly, or was Wilayat Ali marching upon the town?
“Not that, at any rate,” said Sir Dugald. “In fact, barring accidents, things are going on pretty well. A deputation from the Sardars came in last night, bringing a gruesome object tied up in a bundle, which they said was Gobind Chand’s head, sent in as a guarantee of their good faith in offering to surrender. Their appearance would have been sufficient proof, for it was clear they were very hard up; but the evidence they preferred was distinctly unfortunate, for as soon as the Chief saw it, he said, ‘It’s not Gobind Chand’s head at all. They have killed some other Hindu of about the same age, and either they intend treachery, or the rascal has escaped.’ We had the deputation in, and put it to them, and in an awful fright they confessed he was right. Gobind Chand, seeing how matters were going, had managed to get away some hours before they found it out; but they caught one of his hangers-on, and thought they would make use of him instead. It was a very pretty little plan, but they hadn’t counted on the Chief’s memory for faces.”
“Served them right!” said Lady Haigh fervently.
“Well,” Sir Dugald went on, “it was arranged that the chief Sardars should come in this morning, as suppliants, and hear what terms the Chief would allow them. But when they came, they were prepared with a plan of their own. They were on the point of dethroning Wilayat Ali before the war began, you know, and his ingenious scheme for employing us to kill them off hasn’t increased their affection for him, so they proposed quite frankly to proclaim Keeling Amir, and then help him to get rid of his predecessor. They seemed to fancy the idea a good deal, and he had quite a long argument with them about it. He would govern them justly, as he had done Khemistan, they said, and they would be quite willing to take service under him and fight any one he chose. He asked them how they ventured to offer the throne to a Christian, and they were very much amused. They had known he was a good Mussulman ever since he came to the frontier, they said, and they were sure he would be glad to be able to give up pretending to be a Kafir. He assured them they were mistaken, and one after another got up and said they had heard him read prayers in a mosque, or seen him do miracles. Of course we knew then what they were driving at; but the trouble was, that the more he denied it the more they were convinced it was true, and that he was afraid of us. We had never known of his proceedings, it seemed, and might make trouble for him with the Company. They adjured him pathetically to let them see him alone, and promised that not one of the rest of us should leave the tent alive to say what had happened. If he would only trust himself to them, they would escort him safely to Nalapur, and, once there, the Company might whistle for him.”
“Dugald! you don’t mean to say they would have murdered you?”
“Like a shot, at a word from Keeling. Things were really beginning to look rather unpleasant, when the Sheikh-ul-Jabal, in a towering rage, burst into the conference. It seems that he is back in possession of Sheikhgarh, having summarily wiped out the Nalapuri garrison. Some of Gobind Chand’s men tried to make their escape through the hills, and lost their way and fell into his hands, so he learned something of what was going on from them. He is not exactly the mirror of chivalry, you know, in spite of his saintly pretensions; and having so often traded on his likeness to the Chief, he was seized with a fear that the Chief was returning the compliment, to the prejudice of young Ashraf Ali. He brought the youth with him into the conference, and it was confusion worse confounded when he declared who he was, and demanded that he should be recognised as Amir. Everybody talked at once at the top of his voice, and at last, when they had all shouted themselves hoarse, the Chief had a chance of making himself heard. He made the Sheikh come and stand beside him, so that the Sardars could see how the mistake had arisen; and horribly disgusted they were. Then he invited them to join with us in putting Ashraf Ali on the gadi, with proper guarantees as to the powers to be granted him; and they were all inclined to agree to that until a Mullah put in his oar, and said that the youth had been brought up by a heretic, and was no true Mussulman. Thereupon the Sheikh swore solemnly that his sect were rather better Mussulmans than other people, and invited any number of Mullahs to examine into his nephew’s orthodoxy. As they had been willing to accept Keeling, whose orthodoxy, on their own showing, must have been extremely shaky, they could not well refuse, and they are hard at it now, collecting all the Mullahs within reach to badger the unfortunate boy. If he survives the ordeal creditably, messengers are to be sent in his name to-morrow to Wilayat Ali, inviting him to recognise his nephew’s rights, and surrender, when his life and a suitable maintenance will be granted him. I wouldn’t give much for his chance of either when the Sheikh is in authority at Nalapur; and if he’s wise he will prefer to cross the border and take the Sheikh’s place as the Company’s pensioner.”
“And if he isn’t wise?” asked Lady Haigh.
“Well, he’ll scarcely be such a fool as to fight us and the Sardars together. But if he wants to be nasty, he’ll retreat into Nalapur, and hold one place after another till he’s turned out, and then wage a guerilla warfare until he’s hunted down, which would mean unlimited bloodshed and years of turmoil. That’s his only chance; and as he will be desperate and at bay, there’s every reason to fear he’ll take it. Well, I can tell you more next time I see you.”
The next occasion again arrived unexpectedly soon. It was on the morning of the second day—rumour, good and bad, having run riot in the interval—that Sir Dugald galloped up to the verandah, and before coming indoors, shouted for his bearer and gave him hasty orders, sending off also a messenger to Major Keeling’s house.
“We’re off to Nalapur,” he announced hastily, walking in and taking his seat at the breakfast-table, “to set the king on the throne of the kingdom, otherwise to put Ashraf Ali on the gadi.”
“Then has Wilayat Ali surrendered, after all?” cried Lady Haigh.
“Not voluntarily, exactly, but he has been removed. Sounds bad, doesn’t it? and I’m free to confess that the Sheikh-ul-Jabal has managed the affair with a cleverness worthy of a worse cause. We have been simply made use of, all along.”
“Oh, tell us what has happened! How can you think of breakfast just now?”
“How can I? Easily, when you remember that we start in half an hour. But I’ll do my best to combine breakfast and information. Well, when the messengers went to invite Wilayat Ali to abdicate in favour of his nephew, he very naturally sent back an answer breathing defiance, and containing libellous remarks about the Sheikh’s ancestors and female relations. The Sheikh promptly despatched a challenge to Wilayat Ali to meet him in single combat and decide things by the result. Of course Wilayat Ali returned a refusal, as any man in his senses would, who had everything to lose by such a combat, and nothing to gain but the removal of a single adversary. But here came in the Sheikh’s sharpness. As he told us before, the Amir’s camp was full of his adherents, and when they heard that Wilayat Ali meant to refuse the challenge, they raised such a to-do that they nearly brought the place about his ears. His soldiers became openly mutinous, and the camp-followers shrieked abuse after him. He must have seen then that he was cornered, for if he had tried to get back to his capital, he would pretty certainly have been murdered on the road, so he accepted the challenge as giving him his one chance. The Sheikh had laid his plans with such deadly dexterity that there was actually nothing else to do, for the Sardars were only too pleased to see him in a hole, after the way he had treated them. So the lists were set—that’s how the Chief put it—and we all stood to watch. The Sheikh left Ashraf Ali in Keeling’s charge, and rode out. They were to fight with javelins first, then with swords. The javelin part was rather a farce—they threw from such a safe distance, and I don’t think one of them hit, though one of the Sheikh’s javelins went through Wilayat Ali’s cloak. When they had thrown all they had, they drew their swords and really rode at each other. We couldn’t see very clearly what happened in the first round, but it looked as if something turned the edge of Wilayat Ali’s sword, and the Chief dashed forward and yelled, ‘It’s murder, absolute murder! Our man wears chain-armour under his clothes. It’s not a fair fight.’ He wanted to ride in between them and stop it; but we weren’t going to have him killed, whoever else was, so we simply hung on to him, and pointed out that as none of us had a spare suit of chain-armour we could offer to lend the Amir, and the Sheikh was probably proud of his foresight in wearing his, and would certainly refuse to take it off, things must settle themselves. He talked about Ivanhoe and the Templar, but we kept him quiet while they rode at one another again. This time we saw that, putting the armour out of the question, the Sheikh was the better man, quicker, more active, in better training—thanks to the desert life, I suppose. He avoided Wilayat Ali’s rush in the neatest way—the sword just shaved his shoulder as it came down—and turned upon him like King Richard in some book or other, standing in his stirrups and bringing down his sword with both hands. It’s a regular Crusader’s sword, by the way, with a cross hilt, and it cut through turban and head both, and the Amir dropped from the saddle as his horse rushed by. Then came the finest thing of all. The Chief was boiling over with rage—wanted to make the Sheikh fight him next, and so on; but on examining Wilayat Ali’s body we found that he had armour on too. They both wore armour, each trusting that the other didn’t know it, but each suspecting that the other wore it too, and that was why they both struck for the head, so that it was a fair fight after all—from an Oriental point of view. The Sheikh was proclaimed victor with acclamations, and Ashraf Ali’s right was acknowledged by most of those present; those who didn’t acknowledge it thought it best to slink away as unobtrusively as possible. Then the Sheikh turned to Keeling, and with the utmost politeness invited him to come to Nalapur as his guest, with an escort—not a force—to witness the youth’s enthronement. No British bayonets to put him on the gadi, you see. And we are going.”
“But hasn’t Wilayat Ali a son?” asked Lady Haigh.
“Yes, Hasrat Ali, who is officiating as governor of the city while his father is away. I imagine he would meet with an early death if we were not going to Nalapur; but as it is, the Sheikh intends to marry him to his niece, Ashraf Ali’s sister.”
“Oh, poor Wazira Begum!” cried Penelope. “Is the young man nice?”
“Very far from it, I should say; but when it’s a choice between marriage and murder, he will probably look at the matter philosophically.”
“I wasn’t thinking of him,” said Penelope indignantly, “but of the poor girl. How can they want her to marry him?”
“They want to have a check upon him if he takes kindly to the new state of affairs, and a spy upon him if he turns rusty, and they seem to think they can trust the young lady to be both.”
“Well, I call it infamous!” cried Lady Haigh; “and I only hope that Wazira Begum will refuse and run away. If she comes here, I’ll give her shelter.”
“You shouldn’t say that sort of thing in my hearing,” said Sir Dugald, as he rose from the table. “It might become my duty to insist upon your giving her up, and what would happen then?”
“Why, I shouldn’t, of course!” cried Lady Haigh defiantly.
* * * * * * *
It was a fortnight before Major Keeling and his escort returned from Nalapur, but messengers were constantly coming and going between the city and Alibad, so that there was little scope for anxiety. Sir Dugald came home late one night, and was instantly seized upon by his wife and Penelope, and ordered to satisfy their curiosity as to the course of events, which turned out not to be altogether satisfactory.
“The Sheikh has no notion of yielding an inch to make things pleasant on the frontier,” he said. “He will give up criminals of ours who take refuge in Nalapur, but merely as an act of grace, and he won’t enter into any regular treaty. No doubt it’s a piece of wisdom on his part,—for he is regarded with a good deal of suspicion as having lived so long on British soil,—and his attitude will tend to disarm the suspicions of the Sardars and the Mullahs.”
“But how ungrateful!” cried Lady Haigh. “I thought he professed to be so friendly to Major Keeling?”
“While he was under his protection, perhaps—not when he can treat with him as an independent power. And, after all, it has been clear all along that he was an old fox—what with his vows and dispensations, and his steady pursuit of a policy of his own when he persisted he had nothing of the kind in view. He was not exactly our willing guest from the first, you see, only driven to take refuge with us as the result of what he considers our treachery. He can’t forget that old grudge, and really one doesn’t wonder. It gives him a dreadful pull over us that he can always say he has seen the consequences of admitting a British force within his borders in time of peace, and doesn’t wish to see them again.”
“Then the Nalapuris will be as troublesome as ever?”
“Pretty nearly, I’m afraid; but as the Chief says, all he can do is to go on his own way, combining fairness with perfect good faith, and trust that Ashraf Ali may be induced to enter into a treaty when he is freed from his uncle’s influence. The worst part of the business at the present moment is that Gobind Chand has managed to escape into the mountains between Nalapur and Ethiopia, and has been joined by all who had reason to think their lives might not last long under the new state of affairs; and of course any discontented Sardar or rebellious Mullah will know where to find friends whenever he wants them. Keeling tried hard to induce the Sheikh to let a force from our side of the frontier co-operate with him in hunting the fellows down, so as to stamp out the rebel colony before it can become the nucleus of mischief; but he utterly refused, and professed to see the thin end of the wedge in the proposal. They’ll never be able to do it by themselves, and it’s bound to give us no end of trouble when we have to take the business in hand at last. But he won’t see reason.”
“Then has Wilayat Ali’s son joined Gobind Chand?” asked Penelope.
“Ah, you are thinking of your young lady friend. No; he was caught in time, and accepted the proposed marriage with resignation. So did the bride—if she didn’t even suggest it herself as a means of strengthening her brother’s position. Hasrat Ali is a Syad through his mother, so it is a very good match, and the Sheikh seems quite satisfied; but I rather think Ashraf Ali has some qualms. At any rate, he is giving her the finest wedding ever seen in Nalapur, and emptying the treasury to buy jewels for her. He has given her the title of Moti-ul-Nissa, and has had inserted in the marriage-contract a proviso that neither Hasrat Ali nor his household are ever to quit the city without his leave. That is to guard against his taking her away into some country place and ill-treating her, of course, so he has really done all he can.”
“Oh, poor girl! poor Wazira Begum!” cried Penelope, with tears in her eyes. “What a prospect—to marry with such a life before her!”
“They’re used to it—these native women,” said Sir Dugald, wishing to be consolatory.
“Does that make it any better? And you—all of you—acquiesce, and make no effort to save her!”
“My dear Miss Ross, what can we do? You know what these fellows are by this time. If one of us so much as mentioned the young lady, it could only be wiped out by his blood or hers, or both.”
“It feels wrong to be happy when such things are going on,” said Penelope, pursuing a train of thought of her own, apparently. “Can nothing be done?”
“Ask the Chief, if you care to,” said Sir Dugald. “He’s coming to dinner to-morrow.”
“It really is most unfortunate,” said Lady Haigh, on housewifely thoughts intent, “that if there is any difficulty with the servants some one is sure to come to dinner. I know this new cook will lose his head and do something dreadful. I think you ought to warn Major Keeling, Dugald.”
“The Chief never cares much what he eats or drinks,” was the reply; “and he certainly won’t to-morrow,” added Sir Dugald, too low for Penelope to hear.
Lady Haigh’s fears were justified. A few minutes before the dinner hour she ran into Penelope’s room, looking worried and hot.
“Oh, Pen, you’re ready! What a good thing! That wretched cook has ruined the soup, and we can’t have dinner for half an hour. I’ve been scolding him and trying to suggest improvements all this time, and I’m not dressed. Go and talk to Major Keeling till I come. Dugald won’t be in for twenty minutes. Such a chapter of accidents!”
Nevertheless, Lady Haigh’s voice had not the despairing tone which might have been expected in the circumstances, and she ran out of the room again with a haste which seemed calculated to conceal a smile. So Penelope imagined, and the suspicion was confirmed when Major Keeling came to meet her as she entered the drawing-room—he had been tramping up and down in his impatient way—and remarked innocently—
“At last! Lady Haigh promised to let me see you alone, but I was beginning to be afraid she had not been able to manage it. I have been waiting for hours.”
“Oh no, only ten minutes. I saw you ride up,” said Penelope, and turned crimson because she had confessed to the heinous crime of watching him through the venetians.
“You knew I was here, and you left me alone—and the time seemed so short to you! Well, it only confirms what I had been thinking—— Don’t let me keep you standing. May I sit here? Do you remember, that evening at Bab-us-Sahel, when I saw you first, you promised to leave Alibad at the shortest possible notice if I considered it advisable?”
“Leave Alibad?” faltered Penelope. “I—I know you made me promise, but I never thought——”
“I have come to the conclusion that it may be necessary.”
“But why?” she cried, roused to defend herself. “What have I done?”
“You are spoiling my work. I can’t tell you how many times to-day I have had to keep myself from devising ridiculous excuses for taking a ride in this direction. I had a fortnight’s arrears of writing to make up, and yet I have spent the day between my desk and the corner of the verandah where I can get a glimpse of this house. Now, I know you are too anxious for the welfare of the province to wish me to go on risking it in this way, and there is only one remedy that I can think of.”
“Only one?” Penelope was bewildered and pained.
“Only one—that you should keep your promise and leave Alibad.”
“If you wish it I will go, by all means,” she said proudly.
“But only as far as Bab-us-Sahel, and I shall come after you. And then I shall bring you back.”
“Oh!” said Penelope; then, as his meaning dawned upon her. “I didn’t think you could have been so cruel!” she cried reproachfully. Realising that she had betrayed herself, she tried to rise, but he was kneeling beside her chair.
“Cruel? to a little tender thing like you! No, no; you know I couldn’t mean that,” he said.
“It was cruel,” said Penelope, still unreconciled, and venting on him the anger she felt for herself. “It was unkind,” she repeated feebly.
“What a blundering fool I am!” he cried furiously. “Why, you are trembling all over. Dear girl, don’t cry; I shall never forgive myself. It was only a—a sort of joke. The fact was, I have asked you to marry me twice already, you see, and I was so unlucky each time that it made me rather shy of doing it again. I thought I’d see if I couldn’t get it settled without exactly saying the words, you know. Tell me I’m a fool, Penelope; call me anything you like—but not cruel. Cruel to you! I deserve to be shot. Yes, I was cruel; I must have been, if you say so.”
“You weren’t. I was silly,” came in a muffled voice. “I only thought—it would break my heart—to leave—Alibad.”
“Only Alibad? Is it the bricks and mortar you are so fond of?”
“I love every brick in the place, because you built it.”
Thus it happened that the journey to Bab-us-Sahel, the suggestion of which had caused so much distress to Penelope, was duly undertaken, and Mr Crayne insisted that the wedding should take place from Government House. He said it was because there was some hope now that Keeling might get a little common-sense knocked into him at last, which might have sounded alarming to any one who did not know that the bride’s head barely reached the bridegroom’s shoulder. But Penelope had a secret conviction that the old man had not forgotten the morning at Alibad when he welcomed her as his future niece, and that he had penetrated her true feelings more nearly than she knew at the time. Held under such auspices, the wedding was graced by the presence of all the rank and fashion of Bab-us-Sahel; but Lady Haigh, who had received a box from home just in time, raised evil passions in the heart of every lady there by displaying the first crinoline ever seen in Khemistan. The bride was quite a secondary figure, for not only had she refused the loan of the coveted garment, but she defied public opinion by wearing an embroidered “country muslin” instead of the stiff white watered silk which her aunt and Colin had insisted she should take out with her three years before.
It must be confessed that Penelope was not a success when she returned to Alibad as the Commandant’s wife, and therefore the burra memsahib of the place. The town is still famous in legend as the only station in India where the ladies squabble over giving, instead of taking, precedence. Long afterwards Lady Haigh congratulated herself on having been the means of averting bloodshed on one occasion, when a visiting official, finding himself placed between two ladies of equally retiring disposition, decided to offer his arm to the baronet’s wife. “I saw thunder in Colonel Keeling’s eye,” said Lady Haigh (Major Keeling had received the news of his promotion shortly before the wedding), “so I just curtsied to the General, and said, ‘Mrs Keeling is the chief lady present, sir,’ and he accepted the hint like a lamb.” But at the time, or rather, in the privacy of a call the next morning, she had taken Penelope to task.
“You don’t put yourself forward enough, Pen,” she said. “Do you think that if I had been burra mem, the poor General would have had a moment’s doubt as to the person he was to take in to dinner? You make yourself a sort of shadow of your husband—never do anything on your own responsibility, in fact. Why, when the history of the province comes to be written, people will dispute whether Colonel Keeling ever had a wife at all!”
“Will they?” said Penelope, momentarily distressed. “Oh, I hope not, Elma. I should like them to say that there was one part of his life when he got on better with the Government, and left off writing furious letters even when he was unjustly treated, and was more patient with people who were stupid. Then if they ask what made the difference, I should like to think that they will say, ‘Oh, that was when his wife was alive.’”
“My dear Pen, you are not allowing yourself a very long life.”
Penelope coloured. “I daresay it’s silly,” she said; “but that is how I feel.”