“AWAKE, Miss Sahib, awake!”
“Miss North! Miss North!”
Mabel sat up in bed. Her window was being shaken violently, and outside on the verandah were those two persistent voices.
“See what it is, Tara,” she called to her ayah, but the woman was crouching in a corner, her teeth chattering with terror. Seeing that she was too frightened to move, Mabel threw on a dressing-gown and went to the window. Outside stood Fitz Anstruther, his face pale in the moonlight, and Ismail Bakhsh, who was armed with his old regimental carbine and tulwar. Thus accoutred, he was wont to mount guard over the house and its inmates when Dick was absent, patrolling the verandahs at intervals; but he had never hitherto found it necessary to alarm his charges at midnight.
“What is it?” asked Mabel, opening the window.
“You must get dressed at once, and bring anything that you particularly value,” said Fitz hurriedly. “We were attacked on the way to Nalapur, and there was no durbar. I’m come instead of the Major to fetch you to the old fort, for Bahram Khan and his cut-throats may be here at any moment. Will you speak to Mrs North, please? I was afraid of startling her if I knocked at her window or came into the house. Winlock is outside with twenty sowars, and he and I will see after the papers in the Major’s study.”
Mabel dropped the blind and went towards Georgia’s room, twisting up her hair mechanically as she did so. Rahah was already on the alert, and met her at the door with gleaming eyes.
“I know, Miss Sahib. The evil is at hand at last. Awake, O my lady!” She laid a hand gently on Georgia’s forehead. “The time has come to take refuge in the fort. The Sahib bade me be prepared.”
“Dick has sent Mr Anstruther to fetch us, Georgie,” said Mabel, unconsciously altering Fitz’s words, as Georgia, half awake, looked sleepily from her to Rahah. “I think he wants us to be quick.”
“Of course,” said Georgia, rousing herself. “Now, Rahah, you will be happy at last. We’ll come and help you, Mab, before Tara’s ready. Oh, but the papers!—I must see that they are safe.”
“Mr Anstruther is looking after them,” said Mabel.
“I wonder whether Dick thought of giving him the key of the safe? Very likely he forgot it in his hurry. He had better have my duplicate. Oh, thanks, Mab! There’s a tin despatch-box standing by the safe which will hold all the most important papers.”
With the key in her hand, Mabel hurried down the passage, her slippers making no sound on the matting. There was a light in Dick’s den, and Fitz and Captain Winlock were shovelling armfuls of papers and various small articles into a huge camel-trunk which stood open in the middle of the floor. As Mabel reached the door, Winlock held out something to Fitz. “Not much good taking this, at any rate,” he said, and a cold hand seemed to grip Mabel’s heart as she saw that it was Dick’s tobacco-pouch, which Georgia, with what his sister considered a reprehensible toleration of her husband’s pleasant vices, had worked for him.
“No, put it in,” said Fitz gruffly. “It may comfort her to have it.”
A slight sound at the door, half gasp, half groan, made both men jump, and looking round they saw Mabel, her eyes wide with terror.
“Mr Anstruther, what has happened to Dick?”
The words were barely audible. Fitz stood guiltily silent.
“Tell me,” she said.
“He was wounded,” growled Winlock.
“It’s worse than that, I know. Is he taken prisoner?”
“No,” was the unwilling reply.
“Then he’s killed! Oh!——” but before Mabel could utter another word, Fitz’s hand was upon her mouth.
“Miss North, you mustn’t scream. For Heaven’s sake, think of his wife! Remember what those two are—have been—to one another, and remember—everything. Let us get her safe to the fort, and let Mrs Hardy break it to her gently. A sudden shock like this might kill her.”
Mabel freed herself from the restraining hand, and stood shivering as if with cold. “Oh, Dick, Dick!” she wailed pitifully, in a tone that went to the men’s hearts, and then she crept back in silence along the passage. Once in her own room, she dropped helplessly into a chair and sat rigid, staring straight before her. Dick dead! Georgia a widow! that perfect comradeship at an end for ever!—and Georgia did not know it. Mabel wrung her hands feebly. It was the only movement she had strength to make. All power of thought and action seemed to have forsaken her. Dick was dead and Georgia was left.
“My beloved Mab!” Georgia came hurrying in, equipped for driving. “I said I should be ready first, but I didn’t expect to find you quite so far behind. I believe Rahah keeps half my things packed, all ready for a night alarm of this kind, but of course your ayah is not accustomed to these little excitements. Are you quite overwhelmed by the amount that has to be done?”
“Yes; I don’t know what to pack first,” said Mabel, with a forced laugh, keeping her face turned away.
“Well, Rahah and I will see to that while you dress. We may be some days in the fort, and you don’t want to go about in an amber dressing-gown the whole time. We’ll begin with your jewel-case. Where is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know! What’s the good of taking that sort of thing?”
“It might be invaluable—to buy food, or bribe the enemy, or ransom a prisoner—or anything. Where is it, Mab? I thought you kept it in here?”
“Yes, I do.” Mabel looked up from the shoe she was tying, as Georgia ransacked a drawer in vain. “But no doubt Tara has taken it out to the cart already. She has always been instructed to save it first of all if the house was on fire.”
Mabel spoke wearily. The awful irony of Georgia’s fussing over a box of trinkets while Dick lay dead almost destroyed her self-control. How was it that she did not guess the truth without being told?
“But why hasn’t she come back to help you to dress? I hope it’s all right, Mab, but I doubt if you’ll see that jewel-case again. She has had time to slip away with it and hide somewhere. Here, Rahah, put all these things in the box. It’s well to take plenty of clothes, Mab, for we are not likely to be able to get much washing done.”
“Don’t!” burst from Mabel.
“Why not?” asked Georgia, in astonishment.
“Why, it sounds as if you thought we were going to spend the rest of our lives in the fort,” said Mabel lamely.
“I don’t see why. Surely you would like to save as many of your things as possible, whether we stay there long or not?”
“Oh yes, of course.” Mabel turned away to fasten her dress at the glass, conscious that in Georgia’s eyes she must be playing a sorry part. Georgia thought her dazed with fright, whereas her mind was full of that dreadful revelation which must be made sooner or later.
“Are you nearly ready, Mrs North?” asked Fitz’s voice in the passage.
“Quite,” replied Georgia, stuffing Mabel’s dressing-gown ruthlessly into a full trunk. “Tell the servants to come and fetch the boxes, please.”
“Well, I’m afraid the servants have stampeded to a certain extent. Ismail Bakhsh and the rest of the chaprasis and one or two others are left, and that’s all, but of course they’ll make themselves useful.”
“You see, Mab!” said Georgia, and Mabel understood that she need not expect to see her jewel-case again. They followed Fitz out into the verandah, in front of which were ranged all the vehicles belonging to the establishment, drawn by everything that could be found even remotely resembling a horse.
“I told Ismail Bakhsh to get them out,” said Fitz. “There are the wives and children to bring, and I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course not,” said Georgia. “Wait a moment, please; I have forgotten something,” and she ran back into the drawing-room. Mabel knew what it was she had suddenly remembered.
“I hope she won’t be long,” said Fitz anxiously. “We’ve been here a quarter of an hour already.”
Only a quarter of an hour! To Mabel it seemed hours since she had been awakened by those voices on the verandah. She looked out beyond the line of troopers sitting motionless on their horses, and noticed, without perceiving the significance of the fact, that there were two or three of their number acting as scouts farther off in the moonlight.
“I daren’t lose any more time,” Fitz went on, fidgeting up and down the steps. “I can’t think how it is they have left us so long.”
Ismail Bakhsh, stowing Mabel’s dressing-bag under the seat of the dog-cart, looked round. “Sahib, he rides to-night. They will not cross the border until he has passed.”
“Then whoever or whatever he may be, he has probably saved all our lives,” said Fitz, as Georgia came out of the house. While he was helping her into the dog-cart, Mabel caught once more the sound of the tramp of the galloping horse, which the old trooper’s quick ear had perceived some minutes before. The sowars straightened themselves suddenly in their saddles, and the horses pricked their ears in the direction of the noise.
“Old boy seems somewhat agitated to-night,” muttered Winlock to Fitz, as the invisible rider pulled up abruptly, then galloped on again.
“There’s enough to make him so,” returned Fitz, who was helping to hoist the last terrified native woman, with her burden of two children and several brass pots, into the last cart. “All right now?” he demanded, looking down the row of vehicles. “We had better be off, then.”
Was it fancy, or did Mabel see the sparks struck from the stone on which the unseen horse stumbled as the sound came nearer? She could have screamed for sheer terror; but Rahah, who was her companion on the back seat of the dog-cart, laughed aloud as she wrapped the end of her chadar round the great white Persian cat she held in her arms.
“What is there to fear, Miss Sahib? No man has ever stood against Sinjāj Kīlin, and he is close at hand. The rule of the Sarkar will continue.”
“Now do tell me what has happened,” Mabel heard Georgia saying to Fitz, as he drove out of the gate. “I’m sure I am a model soldier’s wife, for Dick suddenly sends me a bare message ordering me to abandon all my household goods and take refuge in the fort, and I do it without asking why! But I must confess I should like to know the reason. Did the durbar break up in disorder, or were you attacked on the way back?”
“There was no durbar at all. The attack came off on the way there. But I say, Mrs North,” said Fitz desperately, anticipating Georgia’s question, “I can’t tell you what happened then, for I wasn’t there. Won’t it do if I recount my own experiences, and you ask the other fellows about the rest of it when we get to the fort?” He left her no time to answer, but went on hurriedly:—
“Yesterday we got as far as the entrance to the Akrab Pass, some way beyond Dera Gul, and camped there for the night. The Major chose the site of the camp himself, in an awfully good position commanding the mouth of the pass, and arranged everything just as if it was war-time. I knew, of course, that he was looking out for treachery of some sort, and I was awfully sick when he told me this morning that I was to stay and do camp-guard with Winlock, and not go with him to the durbar. I yearned horribly to disobey orders, but, you see, he left me certain things to do if—if anything went wrong.” Fitz cleared his throat, muttered that he thought he must have got a cold, and hastened on. “Beltring had come down from Nalapur to meet the Commissioner, as he thought, and the Sardar Abd-ul-Nabi was waiting just inside the pass with an escort of the Amir’s troops. We in camp had nothing to do but kick our heels all day, for the Major left strict orders against going out of sight of the pass. He meant to get through his work by daylight, so as to sleep at the camp to-night, and come back here in the morning, you see. There were no caravans passing, and the place seemed deserted, which we thought a bad sign. But about eleven this morning one of our scouts brought in a small boy, who had come tearing down the pass and asked for the English camp. We had the little chap up before us, and I recognised him as a slave-boy I saw at Dera Gul the day Miss North and I were there. He knew me at once, and began to pour out what he had to say so fast that we could scarcely follow him. It seems that the Hasrat Ali Begum had managed in some way to get an inkling of Bahram Khan’s plot, and she despatched one of her confidential old ladies to warn you and the Major. Unfortunately, the old lady got caught, and Bahram Khan was so enraged with his mother that he promptly packed his whole zenana off to Nalapur, to be out of mischief, I suppose. On the way through the pass this boy, by the Begum’s orders, managed to hide among the rocks when they broke camp, and so escaped with her message. He hoped to catch the Major before he started, but, most unhappily, he durst not ask the only man he met whether he had passed, and he was behind him instead of in front. So he came down the pass, missing him entirely, of course, and warned us instead. The Major’s force was to be attacked in the worst part of the defile, he told us, and as soon as a messenger could reach Dera Gul to say that the attack had taken place, Bahram Khan would set out to raid Alibad. It was an awful dilemma for Winlock and me. It was no use sending after the Major to warn him, for whatever was to happen must have happened by that time, and if we tried to warn the town, Bahram Khan was safe to intercept the messenger and start on his raid at once, and of course we couldn’t evacuate the camp without orders. We decided to strike the tents and get everything ready for a start at any moment, and we posted our best shots on either side of the entrance to the pass, in case the Major’s party should be pursued. Then we waited, and at last the—the force turned up. Thanks to the Major’s suspicions and precautions, the surprise was a good deal of a fizzle. But as I said, I can’t tell you about that. Well, we had to get back here. The enemy were supposed not to be far behind, so we left Beltring and twenty-five men to hold the mouth of the pass at all hazards, and see that no messenger got through until we were safely past Dera Gul. After that it was left to them to seize the moment for retreating on Shah Nawaz, which Haycraft was to evacuate, so that both detachments might return here by the line of the canal. We put our wounded and baggage in the middle, and started—”
“No, wait!” cried Georgia, for hitherto Fitz had spoken so fast that she had found it impossible to get in a word. “Who were the wounded? You said nothing about them before. Was any one killed?”
“I—I really can’t give you any particulars,” returned Fitz, at his wits’ end. “Please let me finish my tale. I’m getting to the most exciting part. It was fearfully thrilling when we had to pass under the very walls of Dera Gul. Of course we were all ready for action at a moment’s notice, but the men were told to ride at ease, and talk if they liked, to give the impression that all was well. I know Winlock and I exchanged the most appalling inanities at the top of our voices, till the Dera Gul people must have thought we were drunk. As we expected, pretty soon there came a hail from the walls, asking who we were, and Ressaldar Badullah Khan, who was nearest, called out that we were coming back from Nalapur without holding the durbar. ‘But what has happened?’ asked the voice from the wall. ‘What should happen, save that the Superintendent Sahib won’t hold the durbar?’ said the Ressaldar, and we went on. Of course they must have been awfully puzzled, for they couldn’t see our wounded in the dark, and the only thing they could do was to send some one off to the pass to find out what had happened. Beltring was to look out for that, and if possible to seize the messenger and get his men away at once, before Bahram Khan could come up and take him in the rear.”
“And I suppose Dick is helping to prepare the fort for defence?” asked Georgia. “There must be a dreadful amount to do.”
“Oh, that reminds me, Miss North,” cried Fitz quickly, turning round to Mabel. “The Commissioner was most anxious to come and fetch you himself, but we pointed out to him that he could do no good, and being so lame, might hinder us a good deal. Excuse me, Mrs North, but I think I must give all my attention to driving just here. I don’t know why the whole population should have turned their possessions out into the street, unless it was to make it awkward for us.”
They were approaching the fort, and the roadway was almost blocked with carts, cattle, household goods, and terrified people. Several vedettes, to whom Winlock gave a countersign, had been passed at various points, and it was evident that the sudden danger had not taken the military authorities, at any rate, by surprise. The space in front of the fort gates was a blaze of light from many torches, and several officers in uniform were resolutely bringing order out of the general chaos. Gangs of coolies, bearing sand-bags and loads of furniture, fuel, provisions, and forage, seemed inextricably mixed up with shrill-voiced women and crying children, ponies, camels, and goats; and it needed a good deal of shouting and some diplomacy, with not a little physical force, to separate the various streams and set them flowing in the right directions. As the dog-cart stopped, Woodworth, the adjutant, came up.
“We want volunteers to help destroy the buildings round the fort,” he said. “You’ll go, Anstruther? What about your servants, Mrs North?”
“There are seven who have come with us, nearly all old soldiers,” said Georgia. “If you will speak to Ismail Bakhsh, who is a host in himself, I will see that their wives and children are safely lodged while they set to work.”
“Awfully sorry to trouble you about this sort of thing just now,” said Woodworth awkwardly.
“Trouble? I am delighted they should help, of course. Where shall I find my husband?”
“Good heavens! You haven’t heard——?” The adjutant stopped suddenly.
“You blighted idiot!” muttered Fitz under his breath. “Fact is, Mrs North, the Major’s hurt—rather badly—” this reluctantly; “but I didn’t want to frighten you sooner than I could help——”
“Where is he? Take me to him at once,” was all she said.
Woodworth stepped forward mechanically to help her out of the cart, but found himself forestalled. The Commissioner had come hurrying up, preceded by two huge Sikhs, who cleared a passage for him through the throng, and now, supporting himself upon his crutch, he held out his hand to Georgia.
“Believe me, Mrs North,” he said, “you have the sympathy of every man here at this terrible time. Surely it must be some consolation to you that your noble husband fell fighting, as he would have wished, and that the smallness of our losses is entirely owing to his prudence and self-sacrifice?”
Georgia, on the ground now, looked about her like one dazed, finding, wherever she looked, fresh confirmation of the cruel tidings. In Mr Burgrave’s sympathising face, in Woodworth’s pitying eyes, in the sorrowful glances of the stern troopers who had closed up round the group, she read the truth of what she had just heard. Her hand went quickly from her heart to her eyes, as though to shut out the sight. Then it dropped again.
“Oh, you might have told me at once!” she cried bitterly to Fitz. “I could have borne it better from you than from the man who has done it all.”
“When you are more yourself, Mrs North, I know you will regret this injustice,” said Mr Burgrave, without anger. “Allow me to take you to your quarters in the fort.”
Georgia shook from head to foot as he offered her his arm. She was on the point of refusing it, of yielding to the sickening sense of aversion with which his presence inspired her, when the scowling gaze of the mounted troopers arrested her attention, and awakened her to the deadly peril in which the Commissioner stood. These men idolised Dick, and they had heard her accuse Mr Burgrave of causing his death. A word from her would mean that his last moment had come. Even to turn her back upon him would be taken to show that she left him to their vengeance, which might not follow immediately, but would be certain to fall sooner or later. With a great effort she conquered her repugnance, and laid her hand upon his arm.
“At a time like this there are no private quarrels,” she said hoarsely, addressing the troopers rather than the Commissioner. “We must all stand together for the honour of England.”
“Of course, of course!” agreed Mr Burgrave, wondering what on earth had called forth such a melodramatic remark, for he had missed the growl of disappointed rage with which the troopers let their ready blades fall back into the scabbards. “Most admirable spirit, I’m sure.”
“Upon my word!” muttered Woodworth to Fitz, “the man would have been cut to pieces before our eyes in another moment, and he never saw it.”
“Oh, ignorance is bliss,” returned Fitz shortly. “What’s to happen to the carts?”
“Broken up for firewood, I suppose. We can’t make room for everything.”
“I fear you will find your quarters somewhat confined,” Mr Burgrave was saying kindly to Georgia, as with the help of his Sikhs he piloted her through the gateway, “but we cannot expect palatial accommodation in our present circumstances. Our good friends Mrs Hardy and Miss Graham are taking pains to make things comfortable for you, I know, and you must be kind enough to excuse the deficiencies due to lack of time and means.”
Georgia gave a short fierce laugh. The Commissioner’s tone suggested that if he had been consulted sooner there would have been a perfect Hôtel Métropole in readiness to receive the fugitives. She broke away from him, and laid her hand lovingly upon one of the new gates, for his presentation of which to a presumably ruined fort all the newspapers of the province had made Dick their butt only the week before. The echoes of their Homeric laughter were even at this moment resounding in Bombay on the one hand and Lahore on the other.
“If your life—any of our lives—are saved, it will all be due to him!” she cried, and the Commissioner marvelled at the lack of sequence so characteristic of a woman’s mind. He led Georgia through the labyrinth of curiously involved passages and courts at the back of the club-house, in which Government stores and stray pieces of private property were lying about pell-mell, until they could be separated and reduced to some sort of order by the overworked officer in charge of the housing arrangements. Mabel followed with Rahah, and at last they reached a tiny oblong courtyard not far from the rear wall of the fort. Here, in the middle of the paved space, was Mrs Hardy, sorting a confused heap of her possessions with the assistance of an elderly Christian native, Mr Hardy’s bearer.
“Oh, my dear! my poor dear!” she cried, running to Georgia, and for a moment the two women held each other locked in a close embrace.
“This room,” said Mr Burgrave, who seemed to feel it incumbent upon him to do the honours of the place, “has been allotted to Miss Graham, as it communicates by a passage with the Colonel’s quarters in the next courtyard. The two on the right are Mr and Mrs Hardy’s, the two on the left are intended for you, Mrs North, and the one opposite is for you, Mabel. I believe the arrangement was suggested to Colonel Graham by Major North himself.”
Mrs Hardy raised her head and gave him a fiery glance. “Miss North, will you be so kind as to request Mr Burgrave to go away?” she said viciously.
“No; wait, please,” said Georgia. “Which of the officers were with my husband when he—was hurt, Mr Burgrave?”
“There were several, I believe, but the only one not seriously wounded was Mr Beltring, and he will not come in until the Shah Nawaz contingent gets here—if at all.”
“If—when he comes, I should like to see him, please,” said Georgia, and the Commissioner departed.
“Now come in, dear, and lie down,” said Mrs Hardy. “Your rooms are ready, and I see Rahah, like a thoughtful girl, has even brought the cat to make it look homelike. Anand Masih will bring you some tea in a minute, and then I hope you will just go to bed again.”
“Dear Mrs Hardy, you have given us all your own furniture,” protested Georgia, recognising a well-worn writing-table; but Mrs Hardy shook her head vigorously.
“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense! We had far more brought in than we can possibly use in this little place, and as soon as I have seen you settled, Anand Masih and I will look after my two rooms. Mr Hardy is helping Dr Tighe in the reading-room, which they have turned into a hospital, or I know he would have come to see if he could do anything for you.”
Never silent for a moment, Mrs Hardy administered tea without milk to Mabel and Georgia, and then tried vainly again to induce them to go to bed. Just as she was departing in despair, Flora Graham ran in.
“I am helping to arrange the hospital—I can’t stay,” she panted. “Oh, Mrs North, Mabel darling, I am so sorry! I can’t tell you how much—” She stopped, unable to speak. “I know a little what it is like,” she added, with a sob; “Fred and his men are not in yet.”
She dashed away, and Georgia and Mabel sat silent, hand in hand, until the sound of a cheer from the hard-worked garrison heralded the arrival of the Shah Nawaz detachment. Presently the clink of spurs on the verandah announced young Beltring, who was Dick’s most trusted pupil among the military officers desiring political employment, and as a man after his chief’s own heart, had been allowed to earn experience, if not fame, as his assistant at Nalapur. He came in slowly and reluctantly, scarcely daring to look at Georgia, his torn and bloodstained clothes and bandaged head bearing eloquent testimony to the fighting he had seen that day.
“Sit down, Mr Beltring,” said Georgia, holding out her hand to him. “You got here without further loss, I hope?”
“Yes, the enemy were on both flanks, but they never came near enough to do any harm,” he answered, dropping wearily into a chair.
“Now tell us, please. You were with him—at the end?”
“I was the nearest, but not with him. He was riding with that treacherous scoundrel Abd-ul-Nabi, and we had orders to keep a few paces to the rear. We thought he wanted to speak to Abd-ul-Nabi privately, but now I believe it was because he foresaw what was coming. The rest of us were still in that part of the pass where the walls are too steep for any ambush, while he, on in front with Abd-ul-Nabi, was rounding the corner where the track goes down suddenly into a wide rocky nullah. He must have seen something that he was not meant to see—the glitter of weapons among the rocks perhaps—for he turned suddenly and shouted, ‘Back! back! an ambuscade!’ Abd-ul-Nabi spurred his horse across the pathway to prevent his getting back to us, but the Major came straight at him, and the ruffian pulled out a pistol and fired at him point-blank. I cut the wretch down the next moment, but the Major had dropped like a log, and before we could get him up there was a rush round the corner in front, while Abd-ul-Nabi’s escort, who had been riding last, attacked us in the rear. Leyward took command, and the fellows behind were soon disposed of, but in front we had a pretty hard time. At last we drove them back far enough to get at the Major’s body. He was lying under a heap of dead. I got him out, and his head fell back on my shoulder. No, there could be no mistake, Mrs North. Do you think I would ever have left him while there was any breath in his body? I tried to get him on to my horse, and Badullah Khan helped me. Just as we had got him up, there was another rush, and the wretched beast broke away. I was thrown off on my head, and when I came to myself the Ressaldar was holding me in front of him on his horse, and we were in full retreat down the pass. We had lost eight killed beside the Major, and Leyward and the two other fellows were all badly wounded, besides almost every one of the men, and—and they wouldn’t go back.”
“No, no; it would have been wrong,” murmured Georgia. “Thank you for telling me this. There could be no message.”
“No message,” repeated Beltring, answering the unasked question.
“He could not send me any message,” wailed Georgia, as the young man went out, “and I parted from him in anger. Oh, Dick, my darling, my darling—forgive me!”
“Oh, Georgie, don’t!” sobbed Mabel.
“Poor Mab! I forgot you were there. Lie down here on my bed. I can’t sleep.”
“I’m sure I can’t,” protested Mabel.
It was not long before she cried herself to sleep, however, but Georgia sat where she was until the morning.