TOM CARTHEW must have known that Kamal-ud-din had hurried back into the field in the hope of uniting with his brother’s force before Sir Harry could intercept it, but he did not tell Eveleen so—possibly because he was afraid of raising false hopes. He was in a pitiable state of mind, equally afraid of the Arabits and of the British, anxious—it would be too much to say determined to save Eveleen and her husband, but fearing to take any practical step in that direction. She argued the matter out with him after the Khan’s departure. It was all very well for him to say that he hoped Kamal-ud-din would be kind enough to let his captives go free, but it would be much more to the purpose to help them to escape without putting the youth’s magnanimity to the test. She was desperate enough to try any expedient Carthew might suggest, and perhaps it was as well that he declined to think of any. Even if they accomplished the all but impossible feat of getting out of the fort and the town unnoticed, the desert ringed them round as effectually as any wall. What could they do, burdened with a helpless man? They would need camels and drivers, and even if they had the means to secure the fidelity of the sarwans, they must follow one of the well-known defined routes on which water was to be found, and on any of these they were sure sooner or later to meet the Arabits. When Eveleen persisted, he reduced her to silence by inferring that she wished to leave her husband behind, as by no other possibility could she be enabled to escape. It was characteristic of him that he was not ashamed to use arguments from which a stronger man would have shrunk. Eveleen felt a certain amount of unwilling gratitude towards him, for he had undoubtedly served her well, but it was mingled with no little impatience. He would not do a single earthly thing because he was afraid of compromising his already shaky position!
That one, at any rate, of his fears had been justified she learned very early in her captivity. The brief—almost momentary—coolness of morning was over, and the long hot hours had begun. In what Eveleen called their dungeon, she and Ketty were sitting, doing nothing, because there was nothing to do. With its thick walls and solid roof, the place was cooler than the tents in the desert, but there could be no movement of air. Deprived of the contrivances for mitigating the heat to which she had grown accustomed, and of the exercise she would have declared essential to her, Eveleen looked as thin and hollow-eyed as her husband, but restless instead of quiet. The inaction was horrible to her, and she spent her time in making wild plans of escape, which she knew were useless. Everything was so dreadfully complicated by Richard’s helplessness. There he lay, inert as a log, tended like a baby—the very thing he would most have detested had he known it—unable either to see, hear, speak, or, as far as they could tell, feel. Eveleen’s heart yearned over him with a passion of pity as she thought of his state, for to her active mind nothing could be more dreadful than continued idleness. It was a relief to hear the bearer’s voice in the verandah asking admittance, for in another moment she must have broken into sobs. The old man’s errand was a pleasant surprise. The ladies of the zenana had heard there was a Farangi lady in the Fort, and as she had not asked permission to visit them, they feared she must be in need of suitable raiment, and with a present of fruit to testify their goodwill, they sent her such things as they thought she might be wanting.
Such a kindly message would have been welcome at any time, but in Eveleen’s depressed mood it was a heaven-sent distraction. It was as though the ladies had divined Carthew’s anxiety, and sent nothing that could be suspected of conveying poison, and she felt ashamed that he should have doubted them. The fruit was magnificent, coming not from sun-baked Khemistan, but from cooler regions across the mountains, and Eveleen squeezed the juice from some grapes to make a drink for Richard, and pleased herself with believing that he liked it. Ketty was examining the other things sent, garments of embroidered silk and finest muslin, perfumes and unguents in curious little baked earth pots, and soap—or rather the washing-balls used throughout Khemistan, the basis of which was a peculiar kind of earth dug near Qadirabad. When the earth was mixed, as usually happened, with mustard-oil, the balls did not commend themselves to the fastidious European taste, but these were prepared in the proper way with oil of roses, and shed abroad a delightful fragrance. Among the toilet articles her forethought had provided, Ketty had included only one piece of soap, so that the sight of this substitute was most welcome. Eveleen sat turning the different things over and looking at them, and the thought came into her mind that she was wasting time by not trying to enlist the support of the ladies during the Khan’s absence. She would certainly accept the invitation to visit them—though it might be couched in the language of command.
“I wonder what will the best time be to go and see them?” she mused aloud. “The Khan’s mother is the head of the establishment, of course. What are you doing to the Master’s arm, Ketty? Was it a mosquito?” Ketty grunted that it was done gone, and Eveleen rose and began to try the effect of the clothes sent her. She could hardly pay the visit in her much tattered dressing-gown, but neither was she prepared to don trousers—beautifully as these were fashioned according to native ideas, very wide above the knee and extremely tight below. There were two or three tunics of curious shape, but wearable, she thought, and perhaps she could arrange one of the chadars as some kind of skirt underneath them. She was pleating and draping and twisting, when Ketty, with eyes of awful meaning, lifted Richard’s arm again and showed her a long patch of fiery red from wrist almost to elbow. Dropping the length of stuff she was holding, Eveleen sprang towards him, and saw that the skin was burnt as though with some acid.
“Ketty, what have you been doing?” she demanded furiously
“Master no done feel,” was the complacent reply.
“You did do it, you horrible wretch? How dare you? You burned your master’s arm?”
“Better done burn Master arm than Madam face,” persisted Ketty stolidly.
“’Twas not! ’Twas worse—far worse! But why would you want to burn either? Is it mad y’are?”
“Khanum done send wash-ball, done spoil Madam face—no marry Khan,” explained the handmaid brazenly.
“The wash-balls?” Eveleen picked up one of them and regarded it with dilated eyes. “You mean if I had used this on my face——? But why burn your master?”
“Madam done see, done believe.”
“Wouldn’t I have tried it on my own arm if you’d told me? But to go and torture him when he can’t feel——! Listen what I’ll do with you, Ketty. I’m going to see the Khanum now, and you’ll go with me and interpret. But what will we put on the poor arm first? This stuff looks cooling—— Ah no, I won’t let one of them come within a mile of him now. Bearer will likely know what to do.”
She summoned Abdul Qaiyam from the verandah, received his advice to apply a little ghi to the burn, and bade him send word that the Farangi lady craved leave to wait on their Highnesses; but as he went out again with disturbed face, she found herself clasped round the knees by the agonised Ketty, pallid with terror.
“Madam no done scold! No good. No help here. Khanum done kill Madam, kill Master, kill all.”
“Scold her? and why would I scold her? What good would that do? What would I scold her about?”
“Wash-balls,” moaned Ketty, drawing back and looking as though she doubted her mistress’s sanity.
“Oh, those! I won’t be saying a word about them, of course. Throw them away—— No, put them by; I may be glad of them myself yet. Why, Ketty, you silly old woman, don’t you see I want to put myself right with the ladies? They are making a horrid mistake about me, and well they may; and how can they be shown it unless I speak to them myself?”
“Done kill Master,” repeated Ketty miserably.
“If they do, they’ll certainly kill us as well, and then all our troubles will be over. But they won’t, for I’ll leave the blue stone round his neck, and Bearer to see that no one touches it. Here, put a pin in this.”
As an additional security, she fastened her improvised skirt with the girdle of her dressing-gown, then caught up another chadar and wrapped it round her head and shoulders, and waited impatiently for the bearer’s return, while Ketty, abandoning her tragic attitude, took up once more her familiar strain of grumbling. It seemed an immensely long time before Abdul Qaiyam returned, for the ladies must have been astonished by the suddenness of the visit, but at last he came back, bringing with him one of the negro attendants of the zenana. Under this man’s protection, after charging the long-suffering bearer with many injunctions as to his master’s safety, Eveleen crossed the courtyard—or rather, slipped from one patch of shade to another, and thus skirted round it, encountering various Arabits who hastily averted their eyes or took cover within the buildings. Ketty followed, looking exactly as if she was going to be hanged, so her mistress told her, and at the zenana door they were admitted by another negro, who handed them over to a number of old women. These offered perfunctory salutations in an unknown tongue, scrutinising the visitors greedily the while, and led them to a large vaulted room partially underground, where the ladies were passing away the hot hours as best they might. Eveleen had learnt enough from Ketty’s gossip—though it was difficult to tell whom she found to gossip with—to know who were the principal personages before her. There were three young girls—rather meek and abashed-looking—who sat together as though they found each other’s company a support. Two of them were wives of Kamal-ud-din, and one was his brother’s. Then there was Jamal-ud-din’s mother, a lady with a dissatisfied expression, who sat as near as possible to the chief place occupied by her superior, the mother of Kamal-ud-din. The Khanum was the pleasantest-looking person there, with an assured manner which showed to advantage beside the fidgetiness of her companion. To her, even as her lips uttered the words of salutation, and without being invited to approach, Eveleen moved swiftly forward, and dropping on her knees, laid hold of the Khanum’s silken draperies.
“I seize the Lady’s skirt and claim her protection,” she said in her best Persian. “Let her spread her mantle over my husband and me.”
Every one looked virtuously shocked that a woman should be so abandoned as to refer to her husband as such, but apparently the impropriety furnished a not disagreeable excitement, for the ladies gathered a little closer and listened eagerly. The Khanum alone remained unmoved.
“How is this, then?” she asked. “Is not the sick Farangi thy brother, lady?”
“Not a bit of it!” Eveleen sat back on her heels, still holding the Khanum’s dress, and felt—without realising the reason—the thrill that went round as she lifted her eyes to her audience. “My brother is only a boy. This is my husband, that I’ve followed over land and sea, after he came back for me when I’d waited twenty years for him.” Ketty followed as interpreter, but Eveleen began to suspect that her Persian was about on a par with her English when she saw the blank look on the ladies’ faces. She did her best, therefore, to repeat what she had said, and between the two some measure of understanding followed. The Khanum looked more sympathetic.
“It is told me the Farangi ladies are like the Turki women north of the mountains, who ride unveiled with their lords—even to war,” she said, and Eveleen followed the words anxiously and painfully. “But how is it this Farangi Sahib was not slain?”
“He was sick—not wounded in battle,” explained Eveleen. “I was taking him to the sea to heal him, for the sea heals all the ills of the English.”
This was quite comprehensible. “Naturally, since they come up out of it,” said the Khanum graciously.
“And we were betrayed into the hands of the Khan’s servants and brought here,” Eveleen ended rather lamely, and the benevolence became less marked.
“My son does not make war with sick men and with women. Why should ye have been brought hither?”
“They said——” Eveleen tried hard to put the story of the Seal of Solomon into manageable Persian, but found the task beyond her powers. “It was all a piece of foolishness,” she said unhappily.
“What was foolish? the tale of the precious thing—dear to my son and his whole house—the colour of which has passed into thine eyes? Why say this now, when by thy malediction upon what should have caused good fortune, thou hast brought so much evil upon my son and all the brotherhood?”
“Ah, but it couldn’t really——” Eveleen was beginning, and then realised that no amount of argument, even if she were equal to it, would disabuse the ladies’ minds of their belief either in her power or in that of the stone. “I was angry,” she confessed. “My husband gave the talisman to the Khan without consulting me.”
“And it was thine own possession?” asked the Khanum, with evident sympathy.
“My very own—given to me when I was married by the uncle who brought me up.” There was quite a chorus of sympathy now, but Jamal-ud-din’s mother struck a jarring note.
“And if it was,” she said querulously, “what better can his Highness, the son of my sister, do than what he proposes—namely, to restore the stone and take thee into his zenana, thus uniting thy influence with the fortunes of his house?”
Eveleen flushed angrily—the ladies watching as if fascinated the red spreading through the white skin. “We need not speak of that; it is not the custom of my people,” she said, controlling herself with difficulty. “Khanum, look——” she raised the heavy masses of hair from her temples, and showed the streaks of white that were making their appearance there. “I am old—old enough to be the mother of his Highness. Let me go with my own lord, whom I love, and who came to seek me after so many years.”
A little discussion arose. Jamal-ud-din’s mother held to her view of the case, Kamal-ud-din’s wives—not unnaturally—taking the other, though timidly and with due deference to their seniors. One of them thought that as the Farangi woman had a husband already, it was unnecessary to provide her with another; the other was cynically inclined, and said that in a world where such a thing as constancy was hardly to be found, it was a pity to make away with the one man who had proved himself faithful. The Khanum, listening and pondering, made it clear at last that she took a wider view of the matter.
“Is it true that by my son’s command, the Farangi Sahib is in no danger of death for the present?” she asked.
“That was his promise, Khanum.”
“And the gratitude that is his due—hast thou shown that? In return for the boon of life for thy lord, is good fortune once more to smile upon my son’s house?”
Eveleen was taken aback. “I wish him—and have wished him—all possible happiness,” she faltered.
“And success in his war with the English?”
“Nay,” wretchedly; “that I cannot do. Yet have pity, Khanum. Set not the life of my husband in the scale against”—a happy thought—“that of my brother.”
“The son of thy mother?” asked one of the girls with interest.
“The son of my mother, lady, and given into my arms by her when she died.”
Even the Khanum seemed moved. “Thou art indeed in a sore strait!” she said. “Rise, lady, and return to thy lord. For the present my skirt is over thee and him. It may be that good fortune will attend my son. If so, I will entreat him for thee. If not, I will send for thee again, and we will speak of this.”
It was a sore strait indeed, and Eveleen could hardly see for tears the attar and pan that were presented to her as she retired, nor utter the words of farewell. At any other time she would have been amused by the bearer’s incredulous delight on seeing her return alive and unharmed, and Ketty’s obvious disgust at the unimportant part she had been allowed to take in the proceedings, though she returned from the zenana the richer by a fine new cloth—the gift of the Khanum. She could not even be amused at herself for totally forgetting alike the Khanum’s present of clothes and the poisoned soap that accompanied it, nor at the ladies for ignoring them so completely. She could only tell herself that she had degraded the English name in vain by her humiliation, and that the General’s victory, which she was patriotically sure would come, would certainly be set down as the result of her malignity.
That she was right in this, at any rate, was proved only too soon, when she was summoned again to the Khanum after a night of turmoil in the town, when the shrill wailings of the women penetrated into the fort and were answered by like cries from the zenana. Sir Harry had defeated Jamal-ud-din’s force and held the boy prisoner, and Kamal-ud-din had been too late to rescue his brother. The Arabits in the courtyard cursed and spat at her as they turned their heads aside, and in the zenana Jamal-ud-din’s mother, noisy and dishevelled amid a group of sympathisers—yet not without a certain satisfaction in finding herself for once the prominent person—met her with bitter words and angry threats. Was this her gratitude? the ladies demanded hysterically. Was she so blind as to imagine that now she was in Kamal-ud-din’s power she could go on working her spells against him, and yet expect to escape unpunished? With monotonous reiteration the mourners repeated the question in different words, the only calm person present being the Khanum, who had consulted propriety by appearing ceremonially dishevelled, but sat apart from the noisy group, wearing the peculiar air of detachment which distinguished her. But she made no attempt to protect Eveleen.
“Go, go!” shrieked Jamal-ud-din’s mother at last, having exhausted her store of insults—and it was not a small one—“but think not to escape. Had I my will, thy head and that of the Farangi without would already be speeding to the camp of the Brother of Satan, whom ye call Bahadar Jang, to confront him at his table. But ye are protected”—with terrific scorn—“by the son of my sister. Yet take warning. If one hair falls from the head of my son, no protection of his Highness will serve thee—or thy lord—from the vengeance of the women, and these hands”—most realistic claws extended—“will be the first to tear.”
Eveleen knew well enough what she meant. There were women everywhere around—not merely the Princesses, in their transparent muslins, and silks that a single violent movement would tear, but hard-faced old women, of the race of those whose mission it was to finish up the wounded in frontier warfare. She had often heard shudderingly of their horrible methods of torture and mutilation—picking out the wounded man’s eyes with the long needles used for applying kohl to the eyelids was one of the mildest,—and the thought of the little dagger occurred to her again. Not for herself, there would not be time for both, but for Richard. She looked involuntarily towards the impassive Khanum, who spoke coldly.
“Go, and we will send for thee again. But bethink thee well ere thou bring further evil upon this house.”
Returning wretchedly to the dungeon, Eveleen found, with a certain warming of the heart, Carthew waiting to see her—or rather, shuffling uneasily about the room, a look of rooted misery on his face. It must have cost him so much effort to show himself on the side of such desperately unpopular people, that she hated herself for thinking that he had come because he feared she would make his allegiance even more conspicuous by sending for him. The natural contrariety of Eveleen’s disposition caused her spirits to rise immediately on beholding his depression, and she greeted him with a very fair imitation of cheerfulness.
“I’m glad to find you in such good spirits, ma’am,” he said—in a tone very far from glad.
“And why wouldn’t I be, when the General is well on his way to come and rescue us?”
Carthew shook his head. “I wouldn’t wish to damp you, ma’am, but I doubt the General’s ever getting this far.”
“But why? You can’t think he’d leave us in the lurch?”
“Not if he knew it, I’m certain. But how is he to know where you are?”
Eveleen stared at him. “But why not? Where else in the world would we be than here?”
“But why should he think to find you here? For anything he knows, if you escaped the storm at all you’re on t’other side of the river.”
“The other side of the river!” she repeated, her eyes dilating. “But how would we be there?”
“Didn’t I tell you, ma’am”—miserably—“of the plot I made to catch Captain Lennox for the Khan—when it was you they meant all the time? I had to lay a false trail to keep the General from sending the Camel Corps to cut us off between the river and this, and so I did it by bringing in the Codgers into the business, through that old Parsee that was with you.”
“The poor little good old man? D’ye tell me he was in it? Sure I’ll never believe in anybody again!”
“Not in the plot against you, but he was bringing supplies to the Khan from his aunt—one of Gul Ali Khan’s wives—in Qadirabad. Paying his army has swallowed up the Khan’s own treasure, pretty near, so he got word to this old lady, and she promised him jewels to a fairish amount. Old Firozji was to carry ’em about him, and I gave him all the directions—how he was to get protection by sailing in a British officer’s company, and make sure there was no trouble with the Codgers by engaging some of ’em to guard him. At one of the halts on the river—he was not to know beforehand which it would be—a messenger from the Khan would meet him with a certain password, and he would give up the jewels to him. The rest of the plan we arranged with the Codgers. They were to capture the boats by surprise, and do what they liked with ’em, but the old Parsee and the British officer were to be brought across the river on mussucks and handed over to us. That was my idea, but you know it was yourself, and no officer, that the Khan was after. The Codgers had the password, so that old Firozji would come quiet, and when he had given us the jewels he was to be let go, so that he could tell the General his boats and everything had been stolen, and he had escaped with nothing but his life to bring word of Captain Lennox being prisoner. It was the Codgers made things go wrong, though why they should have brought you across the river in the boat I can’t say.”
“I made them—with a pistol,” said Eveleen in a low voice.
“Then it was well you did, ma’am, or you would have come across tied on to a mussuck, and your good gentleman there would never have been heard of again. But I suppose it was that stirred up the Codgers, making ’em think they’d been choused somehow. They killed the old Parsee, anyhow, and collared the jewels themselves, instead of handing ’em over, and then made off, leaving me to find everything had gone wrong.”
“Well, if y’ask me,” said Eveleen vigorously, “I think it served you right entirely. Are you not ashamed of yourself, Tom Carthew, to be plotting this way?”
“Don’t, Miss Evie, don’t! Ain’t we all in the same boat? If I failed to get the jewels, wasn’t it because somehow or other I got hold of the Major as well as yourself—and then listened to you and let him be brought here? And if you ain’t bringing ’em the good luck they looked for—why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff your thoughts are on the Major, not the Khan.”
“I would just think so!”
“Well, there you are, you see. If there was ever any chance of the General getting within twenty miles of this place, do you think the Major would be there to see it? Why, it’s he keeps you from doing your duty by them—that’s the way they look at it.”
“But you wouldn’t think—after all this time——?”
“It’s my fault again. I told ’em he was dying, you see—couldn’t live above a day or two—and I believed it. But he’s alive still.”
“Of course he is! And sometimes—I almost think there seems a little weeshy bit of difference—a sort of change in his eyes—as if his soul was trying to find its way back, don’t you know?”
“Miss Evie, don’t—for pity’s sake! The one chance for you is that he stays as he is. I don’t think the Khan would finish off a man in that state—I hope he wouldn’t. But if once he saw him beginning to get better——”
“Y’are a nice old croaker, Tom! Then the General must come quick, before he gets better—eh? But what did you mean by saying there was not a great chance of his coming?”
“Why should he? The river is rising again, he dursn’t let himself be cut off away from his camp, he don’t know of any particular reason for coming here. He won’t come. He’ll turn back and make for Qadirabad—you’ll see.”
“I won’t, then! I believe the General will come in time and save us. Y’ought be ashamed of yourself for trying to make me unhappy about it. I tell y’ I won’t be miserable—there!” But whether, when she was again comparatively alone, Eveleen was quite as valiantly positive as she professed to be, Ketty could have told.
Three days later the blow fell—just the reverse of the last one. The town rang with rejoicings and blazed with lights. From the zenana came presents of fruit and sweetmeats, jewels and rich garments, with a special message from the Khanum herself: “The mother of his Highness send thanks and greetings to the Farangi lady, who had brought blessing when to blind eyes she seemed to be bringing a curse.”
It was some time before a diligent quest for information on Ketty’s part made this cryptic message clear. The reason for the general rejoicing was soon discovered. The Bahadar Jang was sick unto death. All his people stricken about the same time were dead already, and he must soon follow. Depression and disintegration had already set in among his forces, as was shown by the conduct of the body of troops detached to cut off the Khan from Umarganj. It had halted for no reason, and remained passive, and Kamal-ud-din had passed it safely, and would arrive in an hour or two. This was the news as it was communicated to the public, but to one or two cronies of his own the messenger had imparted the further tale of young Jamal-ud-din’s dishonour—his offer to assassinate his brother to win favour with his captor,—and this it was that had moved the gratitude of the Khanum. Now they knew where they were, she said, and her son could guard himself in future. The capture of the boy, which had seemed such a disaster, was a blessing in disguise, since it had revealed him in his true colours. And to this she adhered, though Jamal-ud-din’s mother stormed and raved and tore her hair as she vowed that the treachery must have been suggested by the enemy, and that her son had feigned to assent to it only through fear of death.
Eveleen cared nothing for Jamal-ud-din and his mother and step-mother. The news of the General’s illness—perhaps death—and Kamal-ud-din’s return came upon her like a thunderbolt, in nowise lightened by the knowledge that both events were in all good faith ascribed to her favourable influence. At last she had tried hard enough—and behold the result! They would never let her go now that she had so signally proved her value to them. She had signed Richard’s death-warrant as surely as though she had set her hand to paper, for though they might contemptuously decline to take his life, how could he live on in this state without her tendance? She might escape dishonour herself, thanks to the little dagger, but how could she save him?
She sprang up wildly at last, and meeting the surprised glance of Ketty, who had been hugging herself in the complacency natural to the bearer of appalling tidings, bade her harshly to go out—make enquiries—bring more news. Ketty was nothing loath. The present popularity of her mistress shed its lustre over her, and she knew she would be a welcome guest among the wives of the soldiers in the courtyard. Out she went, and Eveleen, who had stood rigid with her hand to her heart, crossed the room again and sank on her knees beside her husband. Pride was gone now.
“O God,” she sobbed, “it was my fault—all my fault. But that’s the very reason I need Thy help. I can do nothing, I deserve nothing. I have ruined myself, but not him——O God, not him! Let him be saved—whatever happens to me—whatever—whatever.”
Exhausted by the vehemence of her entreaty, she knelt in silence, panting painfully. Then her outstretched hands touched one of Richard’s, clasped it and let it go, and then in the semi-darkness she passed them gently over his face—as though for the last time.
“So often I have said I’d die for him, and now I have killed him!” The words were forced from her, and she broke into a low hopeless sobbing, with her head on his breast. Was it fancy—madness—or did she really hear his voice close to her ear, speaking dreamily and as though he was but half awake?
“What is it? My dear, don’t, pray don’t!”
“Don’t what?” she asked in amazement.
“Don’t cry—so sadly. I can’t—bear it.” He was certainly speaking, in a drowsy voice like one newly awakened from a long sleep. Eveleen gave a cry.
“Ambrose, can you hear me? Are y’awake?”
“Gently—hush, pray. I was afraid—of something. It must have been—this.”
“Is it afraid you were? Will you tell me have you been in your right senses all this while, when I thought you could hear nothing?”
“I don’t think so,” doubtfully, but the voice was stronger. “There have been times—— Sometimes I think I must have heard—— Perhaps I might have waked—— But