CHAPTER XXII.
THE BELLE AND THE BAUBLE.
WHEN Eveleen came to the surface again—for she had found no footing when she slipped from the boat’s side—she thought she must be dreaming. On the gunwale above her stood Richard—a gaunt figure in drenched pyjamas—laying about him furiously with a folded camp-chair. She could hear his blows as they fell, and the dismayed cries of the enemy, though she could not see the fight, and over the side of the boat lay—dead or unconscious—the man who had struck at her with his tulwar, his arms stretched limply as though trying to reach the water. Apparently Richard’s onslaught had cleared a space about him on the deck, for he turned suddenly, with heaving chest, and looked wildly at the water—only to see his wife trying to regain her hold of the gunwale. With a hasty exclamation he flung his weapon away, and stooped to reach her. But she had the presence of mind to draw back.
“No, Ambrose—jump! Jump, bearer!” and deliberately she loosed her grasp and dropped off into the water again. As she had expected, Richard was after her in a moment, quite uncomprehending, and decidedly angry.
“What did you go and do that for? I could have pulled you on board in a minute. Now those fellows will make off with the boat.”
“Let them. We’re better without it. There’s no safety for y’on board,” gasped Eveleen, as she struggled to turn him in the other direction.
“Will you keep quiet? Any one would think you were determined to be drowned. If only you won’t struggle, I can——” he had got his hand on the edge of the boat again, and as Eveleen had done, removed it hurriedly as some unseen person aimed a blow at it with the butt of a matchlock.
“Didn’t I tell you? The land, Ambrose, the land! or we’ll all be killed if we ain’t drowned.”
“This way, Sahib, this way!” came the despairing voice of Abdul Qaiyam, standing on tiptoe some way farther in to get his mouth above the water. “Destruction awaits your honour if you remain.”
Convinced at last, Richard struck out in the direction of the voice, but speedily found his feet on the ground. Then, partly dragging, partly carrying his wife, he waded towards the shore. Eveleen turned her head once, with the horrible feeling that the boat was pursuing them to run them down. But the enemy were merely standing in a row watching them, and not attempting to follow, though their ready matchlocks and tulwars showed that they had no amiable feelings towards the fugitives. Their powder must certainly be wet, or why did they not fire?
As the water grew shallower, the bearer came to his master’s help, and between them they pulled Eveleen along, for she felt as if the last horror had robbed her of every scrap of strength that remained. But a warning cry from Ketty floated out to meet them as they waded in. There was a sudden rush, and before their feet were even on dry land they were struggling in the midst of a fresh crowd of assailants. Eveleen had a vague impression of Richard snatching a tulwar from some one and dealing tremendous blows in a scrimmage which seemed to have arisen by magic, until a man with a heavy club struck at him from behind, and he went down like a log. The fighting was so confused that for a moment the assailants could not get at him with their swords, and in that moment Eveleen had pushed into the mêlée and thrown herself upon him, shielding his body with her own, so that no blow could reach him but through her. She tasted the bitterness of death a dozen times as the raging combatants tried to drag her away, abused her, threatened her, but the more frantic their efforts, the tighter she clung. She could hardly believe that they were really abstaining from injuring her, but when they drew back, baffled and breathing hard, she realised that she had not a wound, and made use of the moment’s respite to interlace her fingers under Richard’s shoulders to give her a better purchase. She gathered from the tones of the assailants that when they were not cursing her to one another, they were adjuring her to cease her useless resistance lest she should share her husband’s fate, but as they spoke in an unknown tongue she made no attempt to answer. Some of them seemed to give the matter up at last, and went off, while the rest still stood round, talking angrily, and she ventured to relax her strained hold for a moment, wondering now—when the tension was slackened—what she could do when the enemy laid aside their strange scruple, and really attacked her. So little would do it—a cut from one of those keen-edged tulwars would sever a wrist as easily as a finger, and she would be helpless, and Richard at their mercy.
There were fresh voices on the outskirts of the group. These men might be less scrupulous, and once more she put forth all her strength in a blind effort to hold—only to hold—Richard so that he might not be touched. Even his head was covered by her wet hair, and she had gathered his arms close to his sides when she clasped him first. He was as safe as the frail rampart of her body could make him. But to her immeasurable surprise, the sound that fell on her ears was not that terrible whistle of the swung tulwar, but a voice—a voice speaking English—a voice that she knew.
“Miss Evie—it’s never you!” said the voice. “Great heavens, however did you manage to get here?”
“If it’s you, Tom Carthew,” she returned, in a voice muffled by her hair, “call your murderous wretches off first, and then we’ll talk, if you like.”
“But they won’t do you no harm, ma’am, nor the gent neither—though how you came——”
“Do him no harm—when they have been doing their best to cut him to pieces? No, go away. I’ll not move while there’s one of them about.”
Some vigorous speaking on Carthew’s part, and the armed men melted unwillingly away, only to form a fresh hostile circle at a rather greater distance.
“Now, ma’am, they’re well away from you, if you’ll let me help you up. Captain Lennox won’t thank you——”
“Captain Lennox! What in the world would I be doing with Captain Lennox?” with asperity. “Don’t you know Major Ambrose when you see him?” Eveleen sat up and put back her hair, but refused to rise.
Tom Carthew might have objected with justice that he had been quite unable to see Richard before, and could only see the back of his head now, but he was looking helplessly from him to Eveleen. “Is it a mistake, or have they played a trick on me?” he demanded slowly. “Were you in the boat that was to be captured by the Codgers, ma’am—off an island, nearer t’other side of the river than this one?”
“We were captured, indeed—by some horrid treachery that I’ve not been able to make out yet. Was it your doing, will you tell me? And how is it”—with sudden recollection—“that you wouldn’t be dead, as we heard you were?”
“We needn’t go into that, ma’am—though I’ve often wished since that I was. But that boat——”
But Eveleen would not suffer any evasion. “We heard you were killed because you refused to fire on us in the Agency—your own people. Was it true or was it not?”
“Not that I was killed,” sullenly.
“Nor that you refused to fire, then. Tom Carthew, I never expected to find you a traitor!”
“You wait till you’re promised to have your nose and ears and eyelids cut off, and be tied down and stuck out in the sun for the ants and the hornets and the vultures and the pi dogs to finish, Miss Evie! See if you wouldn’t fire then. And I didn’t go for to fire straight, neither. You tell me if any soul in the Residency had a finger hurt through my shooting.”
“No, I believe they did not,” reluctantly. “So you played both sides false. And since then you have gone from bad to worse—laying plots against your own old friends.”
“It’s a cheat, I tell you—a nasty trick they’ve played me. I was bid make a plan for catching Captain Lennox, the General’s nephew, so that the Khan might hold him for a hostage and bargain with his uncle.”
“And why would you be plotting against poor Captain Lennox—who never did you any harm?”
“Why but because they can make me do what they like now, just by threatening to hand me over to the General?”
“I see. Then there’s nothing you’d baulk at now? Indeed and I’m sorry for you, Tom Carthew!”
“That you may well be, ma’am—but there is something I wouldn’t do, and these chaps know it. They didn’t dare ask me betray an English lady into their hands—least of all you. So they choused me with the tale that it was Captain Lennox they wanted. You believe that?”
“I do, I do; it explains things. But d’ye see now, as you have got us into this hole, it’s for you to get us out of it. And how will you do that?”
“Now you’ve beat me, ma’am. Not that there’s anything for you to be afraid of—in the way of bad treatment, that is——”
“In what way, then? And what about Major Ambrose?”
Carthew hesitated. “I’m afraid—as you’ve had all your trouble for nothing, Miss Evie.”
“What d’ye mean?” her voice rose to a shriek, and she flung herself on her husband again. “Bad luck to you, Tom, to be giving me such a fright! He ain’t dead a bit. I can feel his heart beat.”
“But it might be all the same as if he was, ma’am—better, perhaps——”
“Will you tell me what you mean? Why would they kill him, if that’s what y’are driving at? If it’s a hostage they want, sure he’ll do them every bit as well as Captain Lennox. The General would make no more consequence of his nephew than he would of any other officer—sure you know that yourself?”
“It ain’t a hostage he wants at all, I see it now. Think it over for yourself, ma’am—remembering that blue stone of yours that’s in the Khan’s hands. He thinks if he hadn’t had it, the General would have beat him and sent him out of the country with the rest of his family. It’s done that much good to him, but not near all the good it might do, because you’ve been contrary wishing it all the time.”
“Sure if that’s all, I’ll wish it—and him—all the good in the world except to beat the General. Fetch it here, Tom, and you will be surprised at the good wishes I’ll pour over it and instil into it and soak it with! Any mortal thing the gentleman can think of to ask for he shall get, so far as it depends on me, if he’ll only lend us a boat or some camels to get back to the army and a doctor with. But now be quick, or I’ll go fast asleep and forget all the benefits I’m longing to bestow on him!”
Carthew hesitated again. “I take it you wouldn’t be willing to come to the camp alone?” he asked slowly.
She caught his meaning in an instant. “And leave Major Ambrose here? Shame on you that you’d even ask me such a question! If he stays here, I stay; and if I go to the camp or anywhere else, he goes too. And if anything happens him—well, that blue stone will crack in pieces with the ill wishes I’ll put on it before they’re done with me. And that’s all I have to say to you.”
“All right, ma’am; I had to have it from your own lips, you see. Now I know what to say to these fellows, and to the Khan too. I mean to take a high tone with him, after his dirty trick, and I think I see a way—— But don’t hope for too much,” earnestly, “for if anybody ever was in a hole, you and your good gentleman are—not to speak of me, that don’t count.”
Eveleen’s usual quickness of mind and speech was deserting her under the pressure of fatigue, and she could not even find kind words in which to reassure Carthew. She watched him dully as he went off to the circle of Arabits, who had been looking on and listening suspiciously as the colloquy proceeded, and spoke eagerly and confidentially to one and another. Guessing that the alternative instantly present to their minds was to rush upon Richard and rid themselves of him as they had intended, she was ready to protect him again as she had done before, but she could not bring her mind to bear upon less pressing issues. The Arabits were not easy to convince, that was evident, and she wondered whether they were trying to induce Carthew to keep her in talk or distract her attention in some way while they made an end of Richard—such a quick and easy thing to do, with so many against one! But she had confidence, now as heretofore, in the streak of faithfulness which formed part of the renegade’s weak nature. He might betray his compatriots as a body, but the friend of his early days, never! Her confidence was justified. When mind and body were alike worn out, and she was almost dropping asleep as she sat, he returned to say that the Arabits consented to carry Richard with them to the camp, that Kamal-ud-din might have the responsibility of deciding what was to be done with him. A camel-litter was brought forward—intended for Eveleen’s own use—and Richard was lifted and laid upon the cushions. It was the kind of long palanquin called in Persia a takhtrawan, and Eveleen was able to climb in as well, and settle herself in the place which otherwise would have been Ketty’s. Looking out anxiously before the blinds were drawn down, she saw the two servants accommodated—uncomfortably, but safely—behind two camel-riders, and then the camels which bore the litter rose grumblingly to their feet in response to the shaking of their neck-chains of blue beads and tin bells by the drivers, and she had time to remember that she was wet and cold, horribly hungry and most incongruously thirsty, and in spite of all, consumed with sleep. But how easy it would be for the enemy to keep watch upon her through the semi-transparent grass blinds, and so find an opportunity of striking at Richard! With infinite difficulty she crawled along the creaking, swaying box until she could pillow her head upon her husband’s breast, and then twisted a tress of her hair tightly round one of his buttons, so that if any attempt was made to reach him, she must be disturbed. Then at last she was able to resign herself to sleep, and in spite of her cramped position, the shaking of the takhtrawan, the loud voices outside, and the sun which presently blazed down upon the march, slept peacefully for hours. She did not wake until the sudden kneeling of the camels roused her to the knowledge that they had reached the camp, where she naturally expected to face the man whose fate was perversely linked with hers by the blue stone. But she found she was fortunate, for Kamal-ud-din was not there at all. He had hastened back to his army some distance to the north, and Tamas Sahib, who had so successfully carried through the capture, was to proceed with his captives to Umarganj at once. This meant that only the extreme heat of the day was to be spent in the few small tents which had been left for their accommodation, and which were like so many ovens on the shadeless sand. Happily the storm had left the nullahs and hollows of the neighbourhood well filled, and by means of Abdul Qaiyam, and with the aid of Tom Carthew, Eveleen requisitioned a salitah, the strong piece of canvas which, roped over all, serves to protect and hold together the various packages making up a camel’s burden, and this, dipped in water and hung over the takhtrawan, made it much cooler. Richard remained in the same unconscious state, and a little rice-water was all they could manage to force down his throat. Abdul Qaiyam promised that when they halted for the night he would try to make some broth, and with that Eveleen had to be content. While the bearer attended to his master, she was thankful to submit her own dishevelled person to Ketty’s ministrations, for it was torment to have her hair hanging about her face in the heat. The brushes and other things the old woman had pocketed—with whatever intention—came in usefully now, and Eveleen felt that if only Ketty were dumb, she could be quite fond of her for once. As things were, she was obliged to pay for her services by listening to her grumbles.
The halt was short enough, and the march that followed a long one, and so it went on for several days. Afterwards Eveleen thought she must have been light-headed with fatigue—so confused were her recollections of those unending rides in the takhtrawan, punctuated by brief periods of blessed repose on firm ground, from which she was invariably roused the moment she had fallen asleep. Makeshift meals, cooked in some mysterious way by Abdul Qaiyam and all tasting of sand; distant glimpses of Carthew, looking anxious and careworn, but conjuring up a reassuring nod when he found her looking at him; perpetual grumbling from Ketty, for which there was only too much excuse and over all the ever-present sense of threatening peril, which kept her always in a fever of devising expedients to safeguard Richard and not let him out of her sight—this was the waking history of those days for Eveleen. She did not know whether to be thankful or alarmed that Richard should remain in a state of coma, nor whether she ought to try to rouse him or not. The blow on the head had not fractured the skull—of so much she and the bearer were able to assure one another—but whether there was concussion they were not surgeons enough to know. On the whole, it seemed better to leave the patient undisturbed—save by the incessant noise and movement going on around him—and trust that nature might be healing him in her own way.
How long they took to reach Umarganj Eveleen would have found it very difficult to say. It might have been a week, it might have been more—or less—before the joyful shouts of the escort announced that they were within sight of their journey’s end, and she peeped through a private spy-hole she had discovered and enlarged in the grass blind to see what the place was like. There was nothing magical and mysterious about it as there had been about the vanished Sultankot; it was simply a straggling mud town, dominated by a mud fort. It was surprising where its builders had managed to get so much mud in such a dry region, but she supposed they made their bricks in the rainy season, and piled them up hurriedly on the first fine day, lest they should all melt into mud again. She noticed that Carthew led the way round the town, so that they could reach the fort without passing through more than a small part of it, and that he was evidently anxious to get in as quickly as possible. The people were largely defrauded of their spectacle, for only a few were aware of the arrival in time to rush to their house-tops, where Eveleen heard them chattering excitedly overhead as the camel-litter went swinging by. There was some discussion when the gate of the fort was reached, between Carthew and a stout negro who was waiting there—clearly an official of some importance—on the subject of the disposal of the prisoners, as it seemed, and it appeared that Carthew won, for he took matters into his own hands and bade the camel-drivers follow him, while his vanquished opponent strolled away with a contemptuous cock of his nose, as Eveleen called it, which nature had rendered wholly unnecessary.
The place in which Eveleen found herself, when she had crawled out of the litter, which was taken from off its camels and carried bodily inside, was apparently a kind of guard-room, cool enough with its thick walls and high roof of beaten mud supported on wooden beams, but open along the whole of one side, where a series of squat blunted arches led out upon a verandah, which in its turn gave upon what looked like the court of the guard—to judge by the number of stalwart Arabits in all stages of dress and equipment who were strolling about or preparing their food or sitting peacefully on similar verandahs.
“I’ll send some of the slaves in to clean the place up a bit for you, ma’am,” said Carthew, his look of trouble more pronounced than ever, “and some stuff to serve for a curtain to the arches. There’s chiks you can let down till it comes, but for any sake don’t you go for to set a foot beyond ’em. And don’t you have nothing to say to anybody that comes out of the zenana gate opposite”—he indicated a massive iron-bound portal, guarded by sentries sitting or lounging about it, on the other side of the courtyard,—“nor put your lips to any food, or sherbet, or what not, that may be brought you out of there, on no account whatever. And I’ll go straight to the Khan—who’s got here before us, after all—and do what I can to put a little decency into him, if he kills me for it!”
He spoke so strongly, almost savagely, that Eveleen felt her fears rising again. “Won’t you tell me now, what is it y’are afraid of?” she asked timidly, for her.
“If I must, I will, when I come back. I’m leaving two men that I can trust on your verandah here, and you keep behind the chiks, and never leave your good gentleman for a minute—but that I know you won’t do. And if I don’t come back, you’ll know that traitor though I may be—I did my best for you, Miss Evie.”
“Indeed and I know it now, Tom, and I thank you for it with all my heart, and so would Major Ambrose if he could speak.”
She held out her hand, and he wrung it and went off. Abdul Qaiyam and one of the guards let down the chiks, and in the semi-darkness Eveleen retired to the litter again, while two half-starved, furtive-looking youths came in with inadequate brooms and swept the more obvious dirt from the middle of the floor into the corners. Then they departed, and there remained the problem of arranging the room, with the aid of one charpoy, so doubtful in appearance that Eveleen declined to make use of it, and the cushions from the litter. These were spread on the salitah on the floor, and Richard laid on them—across a corner, in which Eveleen determined to fix her abode, with the litter and the charpoy as flanking defences on either hand. What Carthew’s vague warnings portended she could not divine, but she had a horror of being snatched away unawares and leaving Richard unprotected.
It was some time before Carthew appeared, and then he was accompanied by men bearing trays of food—each viand occupying the exact middle of an unnecessarily large tray,—which were received from them with joy by the bearer, and surveyed with approval even by Ketty. But while the servants were busy squabbling over the best way of arranging the food, Carthew was stooping across Richard to speak to Eveleen.
“It was just as you thought, ma’am. My party had orders to kill Major Ambrose, but on no account to lay a finger on yourself. If it hadn’t been they were afraid of doin’ harm to you, they’d have killed him a dozen times over. You saved his life when you threw yourself upon him.”
“Of course. Why else would I have done it? Well, and what harm will poor Major Ambrose ever have done to the Khan that he should hate him so? Why is it at all?”
“Don’t you remember what I told you about that blue stone of yours, ma’am? They call you the Woman of the Seal, and the Khan thinks he won’t have his full luck till you two are together again—till you have the seal and he has you. So—if you’ll excuse me mentioning it—his notion was to give you back the stone and take you into his zenana.”
“Sure the poor man little guesses the sort of time he’d have!”
“I’m glad you can take it like this, ma’am!”
The reproving tone sobered Eveleen. “But you can’t mean—it’s too ridiculous entirely—that a man can propose to himself deliberately to murder a woman’s husband, and then marry her himself?”
“It’s their way here,” apologetically. “It’s a—a sort of compensation to the lady, if you understand me?”
“I do not, and you can tell your friend the Khan so.”
“It ain’t my fault, ma’am, believe me. I’m doing my best for you—honest. I told the Khan you belonged to a particular tribe of English whose women were uncommonly sought after for wives, on account of their being so faithful.”
“Indeed, and that’s one way of discouraging him!”
“But I told him they were so wrapped up in their husbands that if the husband was killed the wife went and died, ma’am.”
“I would—I know I would!” agreed Eveleen. “That was very true, Tom. And was he convinced?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, ma’am; but I’m sure it made an impression on him.” The luckless man refrained, naturally enough, from adding that he had assured Kamal-ud-din the lady’s husband was at the point of death, and if he were allowed to die in peace, and his wife to tend him to the last and mourn for him a certain number of days, the conventions of her tribe would be satisfied, and its daughter free to marry again. He had a suspicion that Eveleen could hardly be expected to accept this point of view. “If you’ll remember to keep that up if he should insist on coming in here——”
“Keep that up? He’ll hear a good deal more than that if he forces himself upon me! Tell me now—will I starve myself a little, just to look more like dying?”
“I wouldn’t, ma’am. You may want all your strength any time—there’s no knowing. Not but what I’ve done all I could to frighten the Khan—swearing to him that if he lays a finger on you the General will cut him up into little pieces, and all that. But you can’t tell.”
“I understand. I’ll know what to do.”
“Then good-bye for the present, ma’am. I’ll do my best to get word to you first if he does think of comin’ this way, but I mayn’t have the chance.” He went out dolefully, and Eveleen made a face after him.
“Y’are a faithful creature, I believe, but I greatly wish y’were a bit more cheerful!” she said. “Just when I’d like a little help in keeping up my spirits——”
Before she could finish the sentence, his face was poked in again. “Ma’am, he’s comin’ now! For Heaven’s sake, keep cool, and remember I’m nothing but the interpreter!”
The accents were so full of terror that Eveleen felt her heart sink. But only for a moment. She stooped over her unconscious husband, and touched his forehead with infinite tenderness. “Ah, my dear, wouldn’t I fight for myself if need be? and have I not you to fight for as well, when you’d be fighting for me if you could? Don’t be afraid now; your wife is by your side.”
She put her hand for a moment to her waist, to make sure that the little dagger there was ready in case of need. She and Abdul Qaiyam had both lost their pistols either in leaving the boat or in the struggle on the sand, but she had discovered that the old man possessed a dagger, and demanded it summarily. She had carried it ever since, safely concealed in the folds of her dressing-gown, and had trained herself sternly not to betray its presence by letting her fingers wander in that direction. Now she assured herself it could be drawn in a flash, and stood waiting. It would look more unconcerned if she remained seated in the Khan’s presence, but it would be easier to take her at a disadvantage before she could rise from the ground.
There was a warning cry outside, and then the blind was lifted, and three men came in—Tom Carthew, the negro who had been waiting at the gate, and a youth richly dressed and jewelled, with a handsome effeminate face—not unprepossessing in appearance, but like all his family bearing the marks of dissipation. Eveleen told herself triumphantly that he shrank under her gaze of righteous indignation. She did not realise that in the semi-darkness of the room, her white figure and wrathful eyes might be alarming. She bowed curtly as he approached, then her hand flashed out.
“No further, please. Stop there,” and though the hand was empty, Kamal-ud-din stopped short a yard from the bed, to look down curiously at Richard’s gaunt form and sharpened features.
“He is certainly very near death,” he muttered to Tom Carthew—much to the latter’s relief. “Tell the Beebee she has nothing to fear. Her husband shall die in peace, and be honourably buried.”
Exercising a wide discretion, Carthew gave the first part of the message only, adding various polite assurances for the sake of verisimilitude. Eveleen’s stern aspect did not relax.
“Tell him I expected nothing less,” she said, which—giving the Khan’s well-known magnanimity and benevolence as a reason—Carthew did.
“Tell the Beebee I am about to restore her what should never have been taken from her,” said Kamal-ud-din—adding, with an unpleasant laugh, “What one husband steals, another gives back,” and Carthew rejoiced that his master had chosen to speak in Arabit rather than Persian. With obvious reluctance to let it out of his grip, the negro produced the Seal of Solomon, still suspended from its steel chain, and held it out for Eveleen to take. She made the slightest gesture of rebuke, and motioned to Abdul Qaiyam, who brought forward one of the trays on which the food had been sent in, and receiving the pendant, presented it respectfully to his mistress. For the first time her eyes ceased to rest coldly on the Khan, evidently to his relief, as she stooped and laid the Seal on Richard’s breast, passing the chain round his neck.
“I receive the trust as an honour, tell his Highness,” she said to Carthew, “and I place his treasure in the safest spot known to me. As long as I live, and Major Ambrose lives, no harm can come to it. If it is removed or injured, the fault will not be ours.”
“Tell the Beebee she can be at ease,” said Kamal-ud-din, rather hastily. “No harm can befall her.”
“Tell his Highness I thank him for his promise of protection, and won’t detain him longer,” said Eveleen, and to her relief as much as his own, Kamal-ud-din went. She heard no more of him till the next day, when Carthew came to ask whether she needed anything.
“You did fine yesterday, ma’am!” he said admiringly—“almost frightened the Khan, one might say.”
“Sure I’m glad ’twas the right thing,” she answered wearily. “’Twas all I could do not to break down in the middle, and throw myself at his feet, and cry and entreat him to let us go.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, ma’am. His Highness was all taken aback. He has gone away to his army quite meek, as you might say. In fact, I have hopes of his letting you and the Major and your servants go away quietly when he comes again, but don’t you build too much upon it.”
It was well for Eveleen if she did not, for C