IT seemed that Gul Ali’s ignominious flight had served to stimulate in his brother Shahbaz Khan the amiable instinct to profit by his disgrace, for very shortly afterwards he also arrived on the bank of the river, and sent to request the honour of beholding the General’s face. Sir Harry appointed as meeting-place the garden where Gul Ali had failed to present himself, and crossed the river attended only by two aides-de-camp and Richard Ambrose as interpreter. To the remonstrances of those who urged that Shahbaz was as likely as his brother to attempt treachery, he replied calmly that he liked Shahbaz—he was a sportsman, by far the best of the Khans—and declined precautions. Yet he left Brian behind, lest Mrs Ambrose should be robbed of husband and brother in one day; and Brian, panting to show his mettle, spent the time in trying to make Eveleen nervous by devising plans for a rescue. Nervous Eveleen declined to be—it was not in her where any daylight danger was concerned; but she was quite as ready to be excited as Brian himself, and firmly determined to make part of any expedition that might set out. But the day passed quietly. No boat struggled across with a piteous demand for succour, and nothing in the nature of commotion on the opposite bank rewarded the watchers who had posted themselves with glasses on the highest towers of the old fort, resolved to be the first to report calamity, even if they could not avert it. Precisely at the appointed time, the General’s boat was seen returning, and a sigh of relief went up—possibly tinged slightly with regret on the part of the prophets of evil.
“Shahbaz Khan is a precious fine fellow!” declared Sir Harry in high good humour, to those who had ridden to the landing-stage to meet him—Eveleen and Brian among them; “and he shall have the Turban, or Hal Lennox will know the reason why.”
“Did he give you a good reception, Sir Harry?” asked Eveleen, rather unnecessarily, as it occurred to her the moment after.
“Tiptop. Troops drawn up to receive us—everything most correct. Double pavilion pitched—into the inner room of which Shahbaz and I retire after the formal compliments, with Ambrose to interpret. Shahbaz declared honour of receiving me as his guest is quite enough, but if I have no objection he would be glad to know where he stands. He has cut himself off from the other Khans by declaring himself our friend, and they are encouraging Gul Ali to oust him from the succession. Would he have to suffer for his loyalty to us? Of course there was only one answer to that. ‘I care nothing for this Turban nonsense, but you are the rightful heir, and so long as you remain loyal, the Governor-General will protect you in your rights.’ He was uncommonly pleased at that, and said to Ambrose that he could have vindicated his rights by himself, but our backing would make his task much easier. A fine chap, a fine chap! worth ten of that old sot Gul Ali. It’s a pleasure to find a fellow of his kind to support.”
“Then will you be dethroning Gul Ali?”
“Not as long as he behaves himself. But there’s talk again of his resigning in favour of his son, who has no right to succeed until Shahbaz has had his turn.”
“Then you won’t alter that queer plan of theirs?”
“How can I? It’s nothing but folly, of course, but as long as the present state of things lasts it must go on. If I had let Shahbaz broach the question, I don’t doubt he’d have tried to get me to promise his son should succeed him, but that don’t come into my province. If this nonsense of Brotherhood rule is done away with, and Shahbaz becomes sole Khan, it may be settled his way, but that’s for Lord Maryport to decide—not me.”
“I wonder how can they go on with such a silly way of governing—all reigning at once,” said Eveleen.
“Why not, ma’am? Precious convenient way for them—you can never pin ’em down to anything. Ask your good husband what all the letters are about which are turning his hair as grey as mine. Oh, I forgot! he don’t tell you things—eh? Well, then, when I write to demand why the Khans have stopped the boats going down the river and demanded toll, contrary to treaty, the first thing is to deny it absolutely. With shocking bad manners I contradict ’em flatly—it has been done, and why? In a great hurry half the Khans reply that they had no hand in it; it was the doing of some of the other Khans’ servants. Then why have not the servants been punished? I demand. ‘Oh, they were not their servants, but the other chaps’.’ ‘Very well, then, if you don’t punish ’em, I shall,’ says I. ‘Oh,’ say the Khans, ‘the poor fellows were ignorant; we have admonished ’em, and bid ’em not do it again.’ It happens again the next week. ‘Precious lot of good your admonitions are!’ says I. ‘Be so good as to send the poor ignorant chaps to me, and I’ll admonish ’em.’ ‘Alas!’ says they, ‘the servants, being unaware of the honour destined for ’em, have fled.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ says I; ‘princes who give their seals and their authority to their servants to use must expect to be held responsible for their misdeeds. The fines due will be deducted from the sum which was to have been paid to their Highnesses as rent for our cantonments.’ Silence for a bit, while they think hard to find some way of getting round me. Bright idea! they’ll put an utter stop to the steamer traffic by forbidding woodcutting on either bank of the river on pain of death—making out that every patch of brushwood is part of their private preserves. ‘Sorry!’ says I, ‘but the traffic must be maintained somehow. If the wood ain’t to be taken from the shikargahs, why, I must destroy Qadirabad bit by bit, and burn the wood from the houses.’ Then they lament together in durbar over the wicked stiff-neckedness of that old rapscallion the Bahadar Jang, and talk big about the steps they are on the point of taking to teach him a lesson. ‘We will handle the English so vilely,’ say they, ‘that they’ll call out in despair, “Great Heaven, what have we done that Thou shouldst let loose such devils upon us?”’ Which is a very proper sentiment for patriotic princes defending their country against the invader, but things of that sort should be done first, and talked about afterwards.”
“D’ye tell me then they won’t be meaning it at all, Sir Harry?”
“Mean it? They mean to slip out of all their engagements, and all punishment for breaking ’em, by dint of shifting the blame on one another and on their servants, and if they could frighten me off, it would suit them nicely. But that they ain’t going to do. When the new treaty is presented to ’em, they’ll sign it or they’ll refuse it, and we shall know where we are, and if they sign it and break it, then also I shall know what to do—and I’ll do it!”
“You’ll just be waiting now for Bayard to come back, and then the treaty will be presented?” suggested Eveleen. Sir Harry turned a ferocious glance upon her.
“Waiting for Colonel Bayard? Certainly not. I don’t need Colonel Bayard to help me make treaties, ma’am—much obliged to you for thinking of it!” with deadly irony. “All he’s wanted for is to help with the arrangements about lands and so on, which will have to be made under the treaty—and which he ought to know something about, after his years here. The treaty will go to Qadirabad by Stewart as soon as it’s finished translating into Persian, and the moment he’s well away I begin to move my troops across the river—where they’ll be equally ready to occupy the stolen Habshiabad districts and hand ’em back to the Nawab, or to move on Qadirabad if the Khans turn nasty. Wait for Bayard, indeed!”
He went on growling to himself for some time, until Eveleen turned the conversation tactfully to horses. It was inadvisable to mention Colonel Bayard’s name to him again, but to her husband she said when they were alone—
“D’ye think Bayard will understand, Ambrose, that he comes back merely as assistant to the General?”
“I’m afraid not.” Richard spoke gravely. “I doubt if he would return to find himself nothing but an underling.”
“You think they’ll not work well together?”
“I think the best chance of it would be for the treaty to be signed—if signed it is to be—before Bayard gets back. Then he’ll find plenty to do in alleviating the feelings of the Khans, knowing that the thing is done and can’t be undone, and their best hope is to submit gracefully. Something must have happened to detain him in Bombay, or we should have had him back before this. Whatever it be, I trust it may detain him a little longer.”
It was not often that Richard spoke so openly and so seriously, and Eveleen was duly impressed. For the moment, that is—for the life going on around her was so interesting and engrossing that it was hard to realise Colonel Bayard as a possible disturbing influence. Sir Harry might expect to carry through the treaty peacefully, but his troops were longing for the Khans to refuse to sign. A new spirit had been breathed into the disintegrated force when the Peninsular veteran took it in hand. The bonds of discipline were tightened, something like esprit de corps was growing up between Queen’s and Company’s men, which were traditionally at daggers drawn, and the native regiments—in looking down upon which they had been wont to find their sole point of agreement; life might be harder, but it was incomparably more thrilling. The two or three thousand men at Sahar would have charged cheering upon the great hosts of Granthistan next door, and gone through them with the bayonet, so said Sir Harry, who realised—no one better—the change he had brought about in the spirit of his command. He said it to Eveleen and her husband, when they came upon him by the river, watching the tents and heavy baggage of a native regiment, which was due to cross on the morrow, being ferried over in haste before darkness fell to the camp which was in process of formation outside Bori.
“Almost a pity to see ’em so full of fight, with no enemy handy!” he added, a little gloomily. “But what a bloodthirsty wretch I am—almost as bad as the Bombay chaps make me out—to be regretting the strife I have strained every nerve to avert! If the poor fellows themselves know no better than to desire war, their commander at least should be superior to such a passion.” He was talking as though to himself, and Richard broke in rather hastily—
“Do I understand you, General, that the Khans have decided to submit? Is there news from Stewart?”
“Yes, a cossid [messenger] came in after you left. The Khans are sending Vakils to sign the treaty—under protest, naturally enough, but still to sign.”
“Then the rumours were nothing at all but talk?” said Eveleen.
“Nothing whatever. If there had been even some attempt at resistance I should have felt—foolishly enough—less unjust, but these poor Khans are so meek, so submissive, that one has the impression of behaving in the most shockingly arbitrary fashion. Had there been any truth in last week’s story of Gul Ali’s actual resignation of the Turban to that violent youth, his son, I could almost have welcomed the chance of an honest tussle, but it’s like raining blows on a feather bed. You don’t feel this?” he turned sharply on Richard. “You still believe they mean to fight?”
“I can’t believe they have assembled sixty thousand men for nothing, General—nor yet that the younger Khans have invited those armed bands we hear about into the desert solely to enjoy a picnic in their company.”
“Very true. We shall soon see. Those bands must disperse—or be dispersed—before the treaty is signed. We have ample force to meet any resistance they can offer. But sixty thousand! No, my dear Ambrose, I can’t credit such a figure as that. I know you have gathered it precious carefully from the reports of our spies—but after all, what trust can you put in the word of a spy? Oh, I know I make use of ’em, but I discount their reports pretty shrewdly. So don’t be frightened, ma’am”—with a benevolent smile at Eveleen—“by your good man’s dark forebodings. I’ll tell you this, Lord Maryport offered me additional troops either from the Upper Provinces or Bombay, or both, and I refused ’em. So you see what I think about it—eh?”
“Frightened!” said Eveleen, in high scorn. “And pray why would I be frightened, Sir Harry?”
“Why, indeed? But don’t think I blame your prudence, Ambrose,” noting the younger man’s silence. “From my soul I believe I have men enough to cope with any force the Khans can bring against us. To have asked for more would have meant delay—two months, three months, four, perhaps,—and there we are landed in the middle of the hot weather. You yourself have told me what that means for military operations here—not a soldier, European or native, able to show his nose on the parade-ground by daylight, men struck down by the dozen in a march of a few miles. No, if we have to fight, we’ll fight at once—the sooner the better, so long as Stewart has got back. I’m sure they have given me pretexts enough, if there’s any humbug about signing the treaty, and they know what I think about ’em—eh?”
“They must be uncommonly stupid if they don’t, General.”
“But that’s what they are—sodden with drink and drugs. If my letters don’t wake ’em up a bit—— See here, ma’am, if this don’t strike you as rayther neat. Twice in this last day or so poor Ambrose has had to write to Gul Ali for me. The young bloods have been talking big about burning our camp over at Bori there, and I knew their besotted elders might well be induced to give such an order over-night, and in the morning forget all about the matter and deny giving it. So I told Gul Ali that if I heard any more of night attacks on my camp he and the rest would be made to look precious silly, for not only would every one that tried it get killed, but I should march on Qadirabad and destroy it, leaving only the Fort standing, to show my respect for their Highnesses, for all they couldn’t keep their people in order. So they know what to look forward to now.”
“But sure they’ll not see the joke,” said Eveleen sorrowfully. “They will be too stupid, the creatures!”
“Well, this will touch ’em, I imagine. Gul Ali has had his emissaries in Bori since the first detachment crossed there, bribing our men to try and get ’em to desert. They have not been able to do it so far, but it don’t answer to let that sort of thing go on. So I gave the old fellow a friendly tip. He was paying his men to corrupt mine, believing he was getting good value for his money, says I. Well, he was being choused right and left. When any money did pass from his chaps to mine, they brought it straight to me, but he might take my word for it that most of it went in high living and never came near the troops at all. That ought to make a little unpleasantness between the old villain and his precious tools—eh?”
“He ought be feeling terribly small,” agreed Eveleen. “But he will not be any fonder of you for that, Sir Harry.”
“That, ma’am, is a consideration which I can safely assert never held back any Lennox that ever lived from saying a neat thing when he had it to say,” returned the General, with perfect truth.
The next day the station enjoyed a mild excitement, for Stewart came in by land, attended only by his orderly and personal servants, whereas he had gone down to Qadirabad by steamer, with an escort of thirty of the Khemistan Horse. At first people thought there had been another Ethiopian disaster, resulting in another sole survivor, but it soon became known that the escort were returning safe and sound by water, while Stewart had taken the quicker land route that the General might be aware as soon as possible of the true state of affairs. Yet the situation was not made much clearer by his report. It was true that the Khans had not rejected the treaty, though the Vakils they were sending to Sahar were empowered rather to complain of their wrongs than to sign on their behalf. But Stewart had had great difficulty in getting away, after being insulted in the streets and coldly received in durbar, and on his return journey he had only avoided having to fight his way by exercising extreme self-restraint masked by ferocious bluff. He found an enemy in every Arabit he met, and his life was in danger more than once, but the Khemis crowded to him in secret to express their longing that the British would take over the country, though in the presence of their masters they appeared indifferent or hostile. To him it seemed impossible to doubt that the Khans meant to fight, and that the Vakils, if they ever arrived, were intended merely to stretch out matters and gain time for their employers; but Sir Harry was not to be hurried. He would go on massing his troops at Bori, but nothing should induce him to take the first hostile step. His moderation seemed to be justified when, two days after Stewart, the Vakils arrived, though there was little satisfaction to be obtained from them. Possibly the Khans had come to an end of their excuses, for their sole answer to Sir Harry’s charges was to deny them all—adding that guiltless and oppressed as they were, they had no resource but to sign the treaty forced upon them. Perhaps they knew that this was their best way of dealing with the General, who was thrown into a perfect frenzy by finding himself accused of injustice, and laboured for hours to convince the messengers—and through them their masters—that they were being dealt with leniently rather than oppressively. He might even have consented to refer the treaty back to Lord Maryport, with the modifications the Vakils proceeded humbly to suggest, had the Khans possessed sufficient common-sense to maintain their pose of injured innocents. But stimulated perhaps by his apparent gullibility, they struck out a new line of annoyance, holding up the dâks and robbing the mails, with the result that every trace of meekness and compassion vanished, and Sir Harry sent off a sledge-hammer letter to Gul Ali, ordering him instantly to disband his troops, with the alternative of immediate war. It might have been supposed that this time the Khans were confronted with a straight issue that could not be evaded, but that they were not yet destitute of wiles was clear one morning when Richard was summoned before daylight to attend his chief. Brian, coming to the edge of the office verandah to bid him hurry, added a whispered word of warning.
“Look out! the old boy is dancing mad!”
If Sir Harry was not exactly dancing, he was doing something very like it—rushing about the office in a series of short dashes, as he was brought up by the walls or the furniture. He could not speak coherently.
“Sit down—write!” he jerked out. “That old fool—that old villain——!” a string of expletives in various Southern European tongues followed. “Thinks he’s diddled me, does he? I’ll diddle him!”
So far there seemed nothing to write, and Richard made a show of elaborate preparation, selecting a large sheet of paper, choosing a quill with care, and trying it on his thumb-nail. Then he looked up with respectful attention.
“Well, why don’t you write? Begin. ‘Khan!’ None of your flummery of polite phrases—I won’t have it. Let the fellow get it hot and strong.”
“‘Khan!’” repeated Richard obediently, secure in the knowledge that an English letter, however violent in expression, could do no harm.
“Well, go on! You know what I want said—pitch it him hot, I tell you. Can’t be too strong.”
“Perhaps if I knew which of the Khans it was, General, and what he has done——?”
“Done? Which of ’em? Why, old Gul Ali, of course. Is there ever anything wholly preposterous that the old idiot hasn’t got a hand in? As to what he’s done—why, he’s trying to embarrass me, sir! made up his mind to tie my hands! Says he’s helpless in the power of his family, who are keeping him prisoner, but he’ll escape and come to me and be my suppliant—lay his turban at my feet! Escape? yes—escape the punishment due to him, so he thinks—get me on his side, come out top dog after all! But I won’t have it. He shan’t come here and slobber over my boots! If I have to fight, I’ll fight with my hands free. Tell him I won’t receive him here—won’t see his dirty old face. He’s to go to his brother Shahbaz, if he goes anywhere, and stay with him till I send him orders to the contrary.”
“As you please, General.” Richard was writing busily.
Sir Harry came to a threatening stop just behind him. “Well, sir, what’s wrong? What d’ye mean, sir?”
“In this country it ain’t considered particularly healthy for an aged relative to entrust his safety to his next heir, General.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” Sir Harry laughed loudly. “If he chooses to resign the Turban to Shahbaz, so much the better. If Shahbaz thinks fit to exercise a little persuasion, I’m sure I have no objection. I have done with the canting old dog. Now let his brother deal with him, as I have no doubt he knows how. Then I’ll make short work of the rebellious young cubs.”
The letter written by Richard, if less peremptory in its terms than Sir Harry would have wished, produced the desired effect. Gul Ali made no further attempt to take refuge with the British, but turned aside meekly to the camp of his brother, while the unfilial Karimdâd, from whose violence he asserted that he had fled, took possession of his fortresses, and announced loudly that he would hold them against the man who called himself the Bahadar Jang or any other Farangi in creation. Sir Harry chuckled, and completed his consolidation at Bori, but it was not his measures that alarmed Karimdâd. From Shahbaz Khan’s fortress of Bidi came the news Richard had expected. Gul Ali had resigned the Turban—of his own free will, it was carefully added—in favour of his brother. The result was electrical. Karimdâd and his cousins lost no time in quitting the strongholds they had seized, and fled to Sultankot, far in the desert—a fortress which was declared and believed by all Khemistan to be not only impregnable but unreachable for an enemy, owing to the difficulties of the route and the lack of water. Sir Harry chuckled again, and with a calmness that staggered his own troops as much as his opponents, announced that he was going to take Sultankot. It might be a hundred miles in the desert, but if the Arabit bands could make the journey, so could trained troops. The fortress might be impregnable to a native army, but not to Europeans provided with artillery. Parts of the way might be impassable for heavy guns, but he would rely on his field-pieces. The wells might be destroyed or poisoned, vegetation might be lacking, but he would carry water and forage with him. The route might be unknown, but he would get guides from Shahbaz Khan, and in case the opportunity might be too tempting, Shahbaz Khan himself should come too. No smoothing-out of complications at one blow by allowing the British force to be overwhelmed in the desert, leaving him undisputed master of Khemistan! Shahbaz Khan professed unbounded delight in the honour conferred upon him, but begged the General politely not to impose upon himself the labour of such a march. He himself would undertake to reduce Sultankot with his own troops, and bring the rebellious princelings to heel. But Sir Harry refused to be spared, and gave his reason openly, though happily not to his prospective ally. It was just as well that Shahbaz Khan should be convinced of the ability of British troops to reach and capture any objective whatever—no matter how distant and difficult,—as a gentle hint that when he was placed in power he also would find no place of refuge if he chose to misbehave. The British force, fretting at the leash which held it inactive after its hard training, was ready to go anywhere and fight anything, and moved out joyfully from Bori into the desert, to the number—after the manner of Anglo-Indian armies—of three thousand fighting men and twenty thousand camp-followers.
Eveleen being what she was, it was natural—though Richard did not think so—that the prospect of actual fighting should excite her nearly as much as it did the soldiers. Returning one evening from a visit to the camp at Bori under Brian’s escort, she burst into her husband’s dressing-room, where he was trying hard to decide which of his indispensable campaigning requisites were absolutely indispensable, and which only relatively so.
“It’s a great sight!” she cried, without troubling to specify what the sight was—“but terrible, too. I wonder does Sir Harry feel himself a murderer when he thinks how few of those splendid horses and men may come back?”
Richard’s lips twitched. Eveleen made it a grievance against him that he had no sense of humour, but it sometimes seemed to him—as to other married people with Irish partners—that the accusation might as fitly apply to the accuser. “You are uncommonly cheering in your view of our prospects, my dear,” he said.
“But what d’ye think yourself? Is there a chance of success? Truly, now?”
“Under any other commander, not the faintest chance. Under Sir Henry—well, he has such a turn for performing the impossible when he’s said he will, that there may be a hope. But mind you, the enterprise will either be the most horrible disaster in history, or the maddest success.”
“And which would you say ’twill be?”
He spoke as though reluctantly. “Well, having had some opportunity of observing the General, I pin my faith to his madness, which has more method than the sound mind of most men. I believe he will succeed—not without loss, of course; precious heavy loss, perhaps.”
But Eveleen paid no heed to the qualification. Quite unexpectedly, for he was standing looking meditatively at the floor, with his arms full of clothes—his servant having discreetly faded away,—Richard found her head on his shoulder, and heard her coaxing voice in his ear—
“Ah, then, Ambrose, let me come too!”
“Let you come? Nonsense! certainly not.”
“Ah, now, do!”
“I tell you I won’t hear of it. Am I dreaming, or are you? or is the General’s madness infectious?”
“Why would you be so unkind? Just think how nice, when you come tired to your tent after a march, to find your wife waiting to welcome you, and your slippers warming—no, I suppose it ought be cooling—eh?”
“In my bath, I suppose—if there was one, or any slippers either. My dear, don’t be silly. Do you know that we take no baggage with us after the first day or two? You have no conception of the misery—the squalor—of an ordinary desert campaign, and this will be far worse.”
“What horrid words you use!” complained Eveleen softly, stroking his shoulder-strap. “Didn’t you hear Sir Harry himself telling how Lady Cinnamond was with Sir Arthur at Salamanca, and even rode in the charge?”
“That was Sir Arthur’s business, not mine. If I had been the Duke, I would have cashiered him for allowing it. But perhaps the unfortunate wretch was sufficiently punished by the anxiety he must have been in—to say nothing of looking such a fool. And in any case, war in Europe ain’t like war here. That’s a gentlemanly affair to this. You stay at home and mind your house.”
“But I’ll only waste your money and bring you to debt and disgrace. You’ve said so, often. Will you tell me now, am I the sort of wife to sit on the verandah darning your stockings and dropping salt tears on them because you’re away, thinking back over the future and looking forward to the past?—no, I mean it’s t’other way about. But anyhow, the sort of wife I am is the one that rides knee to knee with you in the ranks, and takes her turn in keeping watch at night——”
“And can never keep awake if she tries! Won’t do, my dear. You must remember you ain’t an Amazon, nor yet Joan of Arc, but the wife of a British officer in the nineteenth century—a much more prosaic person. The verandah is your lot, I fear, but we won’t insist on the darning. I trust I ain’t unreasonable.”
“Unreasonable? The man that insisted on wearing stockings of my darning would be stark staring mad!” cried Eveleen, with terrific emphasis. “And will you tell me, Major Ambrose, if you wanted that sort of wife, why you married me?”
“Oh, pray, my dear, don’t let us have that over again! I gave you my reason once, and if it don’t satisfy you, I’m sorry, for I have no other to offer. Now behave like a sensible woman, and make up your mind to be happy and employ yourself usefully in my absence. Come!” with a bright idea, “how would you like to buy another horse and begin to break him in?”
“I’ll remember that!” gloomily, yet with a distinct lightening of the gloom. “But I warn you, if this is the way you answer me, you won’t find me asking you another time. I’ll just come.”
“Oh, very well. If I know anything of the General, you’ll find yourself sent back under escort, after a lecture which will prove to you once for all that he has a rough side to his tongue, though ladies don’t often feel it.”
“If you knew anything of me, you’d know you were merely inviting me to prove you wrong. You’ll see!” He might have been excused for imagining she had some specific plan in view, but her mind was roaming vaguely over various possibilities of making herself disagreeable.