CHAPTER VI.
MOUNTING IN HOT HASTE.
GOBIND CHAND, to whom Lady Haigh had alluded, was the Hindu Vizier of the Mohammedan state of Nalapur, the boundary of which marched with that of Khemistan on the north. It was no secret to the rulers of Khemistan that the consolidation of their power, of which Major Keeling’s settlement on the frontier was only one of the signs, could not be particularly welcome to the Amir Wilayat Ali. Formerly the country beyond his own border had been a happy hunting-ground, whither he could despatch any inconvenient Sardar or too successful soldier to raid and plunder until he was tired, reserving to himself the right of demanding a percentage of the spoil when the exile wished to return home. There were also pleasant little pickings derivable from the passage of caravans through the Akrab Pass, and the payment by weak tribes or unwarlike villages of what one side called tribute and the other blackmail, as the price of peace. These things gave the Amir a distinct pecuniary interest in the frontier district, and during Major Keeling’s first sojourn on the border, every effort had been made by the Nalapuris, short of actual war, to convince him that his presence was both undesired and useless. The lapse of time, however, and the activity of the Khemistan Horse, proved to the Amir that his unwelcome neighbour had come to stay, and whereas at first any raider had only to cross the border to receive asylum, Wilayat Ali now persisted in regarding the regiment as his private police. It was quite unnecessary for him to take any trouble to secure marauders when the Khemistan Horse had merely to come and seize them, and would do so whether he liked it or not, and he announced that he left the task of keeping order on both sides of the frontier to them, though this was not at all Major Keeling’s intention, which had been to secure the Amir’s active co-operation for the good of both states. To the English the ruler posed as an obliging friend, but when he wished to demand support or subsidies from his Sardars, he became a helpless victim coerced by superior force; and as he could play both parts without disturbing his own tranquillity by taking any steps whatever, he opposed a passive resistance to all projects of reform. Major Keeling had visions of a time when he would have leisure to arrange a conference at which various outstanding questions might be discussed, and the Amir brought to see what was expected of him; but in view of the Amir’s obvious preference for the present state of things, there seemed little prospect of this.
Apparently, then, the Khemistan authorities should have been pleased when Wilayat Ali suddenly despatched his Vizier, Gobind Chand, to bear his somewhat belated congratulations to Sir Henry Lennox on becoming a K.C.B. To the more suspicious-minded it appeared, however, that the Amir had heard rumours of the General’s approaching departure, and wished to inquire as to their truth. This suspicion was confirmed when Gobind Chand, after postponing his departure from Bab-us-Sahel on endless pretexts connected with his own health and that of every member of his suite, suddenly took a house at the port and announced that he was going to learn English, and would remain until his studies were completed. As this would at the lowest computation allow ample time for Sir Henry to depart and his successor to arrive, the pretext was a little too transparent, and it was politely intimated to Gobind Chand that his own state must be in need of his valuable services, and he was set on his homeward way. In advance went a message to Major Keeling, ordering him to receive the distinguished traveller with all due attention, but to see him over the frontier without delay, and this caused a good deal of bustle and excitement at Alibad.
In spite of the activity with which building operations had been carried on, the gaol and the hospital were still the only edifices actually completed, and as Major Keeling refused hotly even to consider the possibility of receiving the envoy in the fort, it was necessary to erect a large tent in the space which had been set apart for public gardens, but which could not be laid out until the hot weather was over. Gobind Chand and his retinue would encamp outside the town for the night, be received by the Commandant in the morning, and resume their homeward journey in the afternoon—this was the programme. There were various ceremonies to be gone through, gifts had to be presented and accepted, and provision was made for a private interview between the two great men, to which only their respective secretaries were to be admitted. But when the time came for the interview, Gobind Chand surprised his host by requesting that even the secretaries might be excluded; and for more than an hour the officers of the Khemistan Horse kicked their heels in the anteroom, and gazed resentfully at the contented immobility of the Vizier’s attendants opposite them, wondering what secrets the old sinner could have to tell the Chief. Their waiting-time came to an end suddenly. Raised voices were heard in the inner room, Major Keeling’s storming in Hindustani, Gobind Chand’s, shrill with fear, trying to urge some consideration upon him. Then the heavy curtain over the doorway was pulled aside with such force that it was torn from its fastenings, and the cringing form of the Vizier appeared on the threshold, with hands upraised in deprecation. He seemed to be in fear of a blow, but Major Keeling, who towered over him, gripping the torn curtain fiercely, made no attempt to proceed to personal chastisement.
“Go!” he said, and the monosyllable came from his lips with the force of an explosive. Gobind Chand’s attendants were on their feet in a moment, and hurried their master out of the tent, Captain Porter, in obedience to a gesture from the Commandant, following them to superintend their departure.
“Haigh!” said Major Keeling, and Sir Dugald detached himself from the rest. “In my office—at once,” and he led the way, Sir Dugald following. For a moment or two Major Keeling’s indignation seemed to deprive him of speech, as he tramped up and down the little room; then he turned suddenly on his subordinate.
“What are you waiting there for? You will take twenty sowars and ride to Nalapur with a letter for the Amir. Go and change your things,” with a withering glance at Sir Dugald’s full-dress uniform, “and the despatches will be ready when you are. Or before,” he added savagely.
It was fortunate that Sir Dugald was a man of even temper, and had some experience of his leader’s peculiarities, for Major Keeling’s manner was unpleasant in the extreme. But as he was leaving the room he was recalled—
“You must get a guide from Shah Nawaz. Ferrers has several Nalapuris in his detachment. I will ride with you part of the way myself, and post you in the state of affairs. Send Ross to me for orders.”
The tone was quite different, and Sir Dugald had no longer reason to fear that he might unwittingly have excited his Commandant’s displeasure. He hastened to his quarters, sent a hurried message to his wife, and reappeared in undress uniform before the letter was finished, or the twenty horsemen, picked and duly equipped by Colin, had ridden into the compound before Major Keeling’s quarters. Each man carried, as was the rule on these expeditions, three days’ rations for himself and fodder for his horse, with a skin of water. When Sir Dugald had been summoned into the inner office to receive the letter, Major Keeling’s black horse Miani was brought up, and presently the little troop clattered out into the desert, the two Englishmen riding ahead, out of earshot of the sowars.
“Now!” said Major Keeling, when they had settled into the pace which experience had shown was the best for a long march, “I suppose you would like to hear what the row is about. I’m glad I kept my hands off that fellow, though I don’t know how I managed it. He wanted me to help him to murder his master and make himself Amir.”
“And what inducement did he offer?” Sir Dugald’s frigid calm in asking the question was intentional, for Major Keeling’s wrath was evidently bubbling up again.
“Half the contents of the treasury, whatever that might prove to be. But is that all you think about? Do you mean to say you don’t see the insult involved in the offer—the fellow’s opinion of us who wear the British uniform? Good heavens! are you made of stone?”
Sir Dugald smiled with some difficulty, for his face had grown tense. “You are the only man who would say such things to me, Major Keeling, and the only man I would allow to do it. With you I have no choice.”
“No, no; I beg your pardon. That abominable coolness of yours—but I shall be insulting you again if I don’t look out. But if you had sat listening to that villain for an hour, while he depicted Nalapur as a perfect hell on earth, and Wilayat Ali as a wholly suitable ruler for it, and then at last brought things round to the point he had been aiming at all along, but which I had never seen, you’d know something of what I feel. Why, the fellow had the inconceivable impudence to say that he thought I understood all the time what he was driving at, and only held back so as to make certain that he put himself completely in my power!”
“But he could never have thought we should set a Hindu over a Mohammedan state.”
“What have we done in Kashmir?”
“But Nalapur is outside our borders. We don’t claim any right to interfere in their choice of a ruler.”
“Whether we claim it or not, we have interfered already. It was before your time, of course, just after that wretched expedition to Ethiopia, where we ought never to have gone, but having gone, we should have stayed. Nasr Ali was Amir then, and his behaviour throughout was most correct, even when our fortunes were at the lowest. Unfortunately for him, it was thought well that the General and he should meet, so that he might be thanked for his loyalty, and a halt was made for the purpose. Things went wrong from that moment. The General and his escort were attacked by tribesmen in one of the passes, and when they got through, with some loss, the news came that Nasr Ali was ill, and not able to meet them. You know what Old Harry is, and how he was likely to receive such a message after the impudence of the tribes; and just as he was working himself up into a fine fury there came to his camp in disguise these two scoundrels, Gobind Chand and Wilayat Ali, the Amir’s brother. They made out that they had stolen away at the risk of their lives to warn the General that Nasr Ali meant to murder him and the whole escort. Sir Henry didn’t wait to inquire why Nasr Ali should choose the time when a victorious army was within call to assassinate its leader, for the fugitives’ news just fitted in with his own suspicions. They gave him a sign by which he was to judge of their good faith. Nasr Ali had promised to receive the mission at the gate of the city the following day: if he did not appear, that would be proof of his treachery. Sir Henry sent an order back to the army for a brigade to be in readiness, and waited. Sure enough, before they reached the city gate Wilayat Ali, in his own person this time, came to meet them and say that his brother was too ill to come out, but would receive them in the killa [palace] if they would enter the city. To Sir Henry, and all who remembered the Ethiopian business, it was simply an invitation to come and be murdered; so he rode back to camp, sent another messenger to order up the brigade, and passed a horribly uncomfortable night, expecting to be attacked at every moment. Much to his astonishment, he was not attacked, though bands of Nalapuris were said to be circling round, hoping to catch him off his guard, and then the brigade arrived after a forced march. Old Harry allowed the men two or three hours’ rest, occupied the hills overlooking the city in the night, and sent in a demand for its surrender in the morning. Nasr Ali, posing, so the General thought, as an injured innocent, protested against the whole thing as a piece of the blackest treachery, carried out under the mask of friendship, and refused to surrender. I don’t want to go into the whole sickening business; the place was stormed, and Nasr Ali killed in the fighting. Wilayat Ali opened the gates of the killa, and allowed the treasury (there was remarkably little in it) to be looted. He was the natural heir, for Nasr Ali’s women and children had all been massacred. Of course Wilayat Ali gave us to understand that our troops had done it, but that is absolutely untrue. The first man that broke into the zenana found it looted, and dead bodies everywhere—a shocking sight. I haven’t the slightest doubt that Wilayat Ali had admitted a set of badmashes to wipe out his unfortunate brother’s family, and intended to charge it on us, but there’s no proving it. Well, he was placed on the gadi with Gobind Chand as his Vizier, and we marched home again. Little by little things came out which made me think a horrible miscarriage of justice had occurred, and when I laid them before Sir Henry he had to believe it too. That Wilayat Ali deliberately traduced and betrayed his brother in order to obtain his kingdom I am as certain as that I am here, and now I have to interfere to save him from being murdered by his fellow-scoundrel!”
“There is no chance of putting things right,” said Sir Dugald, in the tone of one stating a fact rather than asking a question.
“None. If any of poor Nasr Ali’s children survived, we might do something, but the fiends took good care of that. There were two boys, certainly, and I believe some daughters as well, but they are beyond reach of any atonement we can make. And since no good could come of it, it would look rather bad for the paramount Power to have to confess how easily it had been hoodwinked; so we let ill alone.”
“Poetic justice would suggest that you should allow Gobind Chand to murder Wilayat Ali, and to be murdered in his turn by the Sardars.”
“And put young Hasrat Ali, Wilayat’s son, who by all accounts is a regular chip of the old block, on the gadi? That wouldn’t better things much, and would mean a nice crop of revolutions and tumults. Nalapur is too close to our borders for that sort of thing. I don’t say that I wouldn’t have welcomed poetic justice if it had had the sense to take its course without consulting me; but as it is, I can’t connive at the removal of an ally, even an unsatisfactory one. Your business is to see the Amir as soon as you arrive, if bribes or threats will do it, so as to forestall Gobind Chand; but don’t leave without delivering the despatch into his hands, if you have to wait for a week. Even if Gobind Chand succeeds in getting round him and persuading him of his innocence, the warning will make him keep his eyes wide open. And—I am not a particularly nervous man, but this is a wicked world—see that your men mount guard properly day and night while you are in Nalapur, and go the rounds yourself at irregular intervals. Since you know something now of Wilayat Ali, I needn’t remind you not to trust a word that he says. Well, I’ll turn back here. Take care of yourself.”
Sir Dugald saluted and rode on with his detachment, and Major Keeling, putting spurs to his horse, galloped back to Alibad, still in the gold-laced uniform and plumed helmet he had donned for his interview with the Vizier. He had never many minutes to waste, and Gobind Chand had robbed him of half a working day already, but he made time to pause at the fort and send Lady Haigh a message that he had seen her husband on his way.
“As if that was any consolation!” cried Lady Haigh when she received it. “If he had seen him coming back, now——! The way he keeps poor Dugald running about all day and every day is really shameful. I do believe”—with gloomy triumph—“that he picks him out for all the dangerous and awkward bits of work on purpose. If anything happened to any of the other men, their sweethearts or mothers or sisters might reproach the Major, and so he sends Dugald, knowing that I have sworn not to say a word, whatever happens.”
Penelope smiled feebly. She was very long in recovering from her attack of fever, and Lady Haigh was anxious about her, even throwing out hints as to the possibility of emulating the despicable conduct of the Punjab ladies, and taking a trip to the Hills or the sea. But Penelope only shook her head, and said she should be better when the cool weather came. No change of scene could alter the fact that she had finally and deliberately taken upon herself the responsibility of Ferrers and his failings, or relieve her from the haunting feeling that henceforward there would be a blank in her life. What caused the blank she had not courage to ask herself. People were not so fond of analysing their sensations in those days as in these; it was enough to be conscious of an ever-present sense of loss, to know that she had put away from her something that it would have been a joy to possess.
Three days passed without news of any kind, dreary days to the two ladies, who devoted themselves, as in honour bound, to their unsatisfactory pursuits, and only emerged from the fort for their evening ride. The “gardens”—for the name which sounded ironical had by general consent been adopted as prophetic—boasted a nondescript erection of masonry which did duty as a band-stand; and here a band in process of making struggled painfully through various easy exercises and a mutilated edition of “God Save the Queen.” Lady Haigh and Penelope always halted their palkis dutifully in the neighbourhood of the band, and stepped out to walk and talk a little with Major Keeling and the other men. It was as necessary to appear here once a-day as on the sea-drive at Bab-us-Sahel, and if Major Keeling was in the town he never failed to show himself. Riding, fighting, building, surveying, planting, exercising his men, administering his district, he had ten men’s work in hand, and his only moment of leisure in the whole day was this brief evening promenade. Lady Haigh told him once that it was very good of him to devote it to social purposes. He replied gravely that it was his duty, the least he could do—then hesitated, and confessed that he did not dislike it, nay, that the thought of it sometimes occurred to him pleasantly in the intervals of his day’s labours, and Lady Haigh received the information with suitable surprise and gratitude.
When the watchman on the fort tower announced at last that Sir Dugald’s detachment was in sight, Major Keeling broke up abruptly the court he was holding, and rode out to meet him. As soon as details could be discerned through the haze of sand, he assured himself that the numbers were complete, and that no fighting had taken place; but Sir Dugald’s face, as he met him, did not bear any look of triumph.
“Well?” asked the older man sharply.
“The Amir absolutely refused to receive me until the morning after we arrived, and by that time Gobind Chand had turned up, of course. They make out that Gobind Chand’s proposal to you was inspired by his master, and intended to test your friendship.”
“I hope they were satisfied that it had stood the test?”
“Well, hardly. They said that if you were really friendly you would hand over to them some fugitive called the Sheikh-ul-Jabal.”
Major Keeling nodded his head slowly two or three times. “So that’s it, is it? Rather a neat plan, if my righteous indignation hadn’t knocked it on the head. But somehow I don’t fancy Wilayat Ali would care to suggest to Gobind Chand the idea of murdering him. And yet, if you got to Nalapur before Gobind Chand, how could he have managed to delay the audience until he had put things right with the Amir? Of course he may have anticipated my action, and left directions, but—— Who was your guide, after all?”
“Ferrers’ munshi, Mirza Fazl-ul-Hacq.”
“What!” Major Keeling smote his hand upon his knee. “That man, of all men? The very last—— How in the world——?”
“Is there any objection to him? Ferrers did not want to weaken his garrison, for the outlaw Shir Hussein is in the neighbourhood again, and he hopes to catch him. This man knows Nalapur well, and has friends in the city. Ferrers trusts him implicitly—with all that he has in the world, if you are to believe the Mirza himself.”
“I can quite believe it. Well, no matter. I ought to have warned you. No, I know nothing against the man; but why does he always keep out of my way, if it isn’t that he’s afraid to meet me? And he has friends in Nalapur, has he? Did he go to see them as soon as you arrived?”
“Fairly soon after. I thought it as well to let him trot off, so that he might bring us warning if there was any talk of attacking us.”
“Quite so. But I hardly think he’d have done it. So they want the Sheikh-ul-Jabal given up? I’ll see them hanged first!”
“Is there anything peculiar about the man, Major,—any mystery——?”
“None that I know of. Why?”
“Both the Amir and Gobind Chand looked at me very hard when they made the demand, almost as if they expected to stare me out of countenance. And there was a sort of uneasiness about the whole interview, as if either they knew more than I did, or suspected me of knowing more than they did—I couldn’t make out which. And perhaps you didn’t notice, sir, that when Gobind Chand met you first he gave a great start? I noticed it, and so did Porter.”
“No, I didn’t see it. That wretched mystery cropping up again, I suppose! I wish I could get to the bottom of it. But there’s nothing mysterious about the Sheikh-ul-Jabal. He was a great friend of our unfortunate victim, Nasr Ali, who married his sister, and he managed to escape into our territory, with a few followers, when the trouble came. He had done us good service in the Ethiopian war, and Sir Henry, whose conscience was pricking him pretty badly, was glad to promise him protection, though Wilayat Ali has never ceased to press for his being given up. He is a heretic of some sort, and the orthodox Nalapuri Mullahs hate him like poison.”
“A Sufi, I suppose?” said Sir Dugald.
“No; he is the head of a sect of his own—the remnant of some organisation which was very powerful at the time of the Crusades, I believe. Even now he seems to have adherents all over Asia, and several times he has given us valuable information. But Wilayat Ali swears that he is perpetually intriguing against him, and so the Government have rewarded him rather scurvily—forbidden him to quit Khemistan. The poor man laid it so much to heart that he took a vow never to leave his house again as long as the sun shone upon the earth.”
“Then he is a state prisoner somewhere? Is he down at the coast?”
“No, he has furbished up a ruined fort which he found in the mountains, and calls it Sheikhgarh. He has an allowance from us, and he could range all over the province if he liked. It is only his vow that prevents him, and, curiously enough, I have reason to know that it’s not as alarming as it sounds.”
“Why, have you ever seen him?”
“I have, and I have not. I met him out in the desert one night—saw a troop of men riding, and challenged them. When he heard who I was, he came forward to explain that for a person of such sanctity it was easy to dispense himself partially from his vow—so as to let him take his rides abroad at night. He was muffled up to the eyes, and it was dark, besides, so I can’t say I saw him, but I liked his voice. I told him he need fear no molestation from me, that I considered both he and Nasr Ali had been treated scandalously, and that I was on his side if the Government troubled him any more.”
Sir Dugald hid a smile. Major Keeling’s opinion of any government he might happen to serve was never a matter of doubt, and no prudential motives would be likely to induce him to keep it secret.