CHAPTER XIX.
AN IMPOTENT CONCLUSION.
MABEL was not far wrong in guessing that before she spoke to Fitz it had been decided he should take part in Daffadar Sultan Jān’s reconnaissance. Colonel Graham’s choice had fallen upon him less on account of any merits he possessed than of his personal appearance. It could not be said that he outshone the other men in coolness or courage, and in knowledge of the surrounding country Winlock, at any rate, was his equal, but the determining point in his favour was the fact which his friends, dancing with rage the while, were forced to acknowledge, that he made up detestably well as a native. From his Irish mother he had inherited the Spanish type of colouring often found in Connaught and Western Munster, large dark eyes, black hair, and a skin so smooth and sallow that very little assistance from art was needed to assimilate it to the comparatively light tint prevailing among the frontier tribes. There were difficulties at first with Sultan Jān, who had once saved Haycraft’s life in a border skirmish, and had constituted himself a kind of nursing father to him ever since. He rejected with scorn the idea of taking any but his own particular sahib with him on his perilous journey, until it was pointed out to him that this would almost certainly involve the death of both. Haycraft’s fair hair, grey eyes, and sun-reddened complexion made it impossible to disguise him satisfactorily, and the old man yielded the point, ungraciously enough, when he had seen Fitz in native dress.
A noted freebooter in his unregenerate days, Sultan Jān had never found it easy to submit his own will to that of his military superiors. Belonging to a powerful tribe across the border, he had been the terror of the outlying British districts, until one of General Keeling’s lieutenants induced him first to come in to a conference, and then to join the regiment. His independent habits operated to prevent him from rising to any higher rank than that of daffadar, but he was a power in his troop, which was now largely composed of his nephews and cousins of many varying degrees. Haycraft would say sometimes that he was entirely devoid of the moral sense, and that his regard for the honour of the regiment was not wholly to be depended upon as a substitute, but as no one knew exactly what this condemnation implied, Haycraft’s brother-officers generally put it down to liver. One thing was certain, that Sultan Jān’s faithfulness to his salt was above suspicion, since he had on occasion assisted in inflicting punishment upon his own tribe for various raids, and there were special reasons for anticipating his success in the adventure he was undertaking. The scheme, indeed, had been entirely modified in accordance with his views, since Colonel Graham’s first intention had been that his messenger should turn southwards, and cross the desert into the settled territory. Sultan Jān recommended a dash for Fort Rahmat-Ullah instead, pointing out that if he and his companion chose a dark night for their start, they might swim down the canal for a considerable distance, supporting themselves on inflated skins. When beyond the enemy’s farthest outposts, they could strike across the desert to the north until they reached the mountains, with every pass and track of which he was familiar. By certain little-known paths they could then make their way to Rahmat-Ullah, where there would be the chance of discovering what was going on in the outside world, as well as of representing the hard plight of the defenders of Alibad. In returning they might, if opportunity offered, acquaint themselves with the enemy’s dispositions nearer home.
The hour, and even the night, appointed for the start, were kept a profound secret from all but those immediately concerned, lest information should in any way be conveyed to the enemy, and it was not until a whole day had passed without a visit from Fitz, that the dwellers in the Memsahibs’ courtyard made up their minds that he was actually gone. Mabel, sitting in the safest of the four verandahs, with the baby in her arms, looked up anxiously when Flora came to tell her that Fred Haycraft admitted they were right in their surmise.
“Oh, poor Mr Anstruther!” she said. “I do hope he won’t get hurt. I should feel so dreadfully guilty if anything happened to him.”
“You needn’t, then,” said Flora bluntly, as Mabel stopped short, remembering that she had not intended to make public her compact with Fitz. “His going has nothing whatever to do with you. He was chosen as the most suitable man all round, that’s all. Fred said so.”
This was hardly to be borne. “I didn’t mean to tell you,” said Mabel, with dignity, “but I asked him to go, that he might make inquiries about Dick.”
“Oh!” cried Flora, suddenly enlightened; “then Fred was right after all, and you have broken off your engagement. I never would have believed——”
“I really don’t see why you should jump to a conclusion in that way.”
“Why, because you couldn’t very well be engaged to two people at once.”
“I am not engaged to anybody,” very haughtily.
“Not to Mr Anstruther?”
“Certainly not.”
“And yet you make him run this awful risk for the sake of your brother? Oh, nonsense! he knows he will get his reward when he comes back.”
“You don’t seem to understand,” coldly, “that some men are willing to do things without hope of reward. Since I have told you so much, I may as well say that if Mr Anstruther chooses to ask me to marry him when he comes back, he will do it knowing that I shall refuse him again.”
“Again?” cried Flora. “Would you like to know what I think of you? Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t, but I am going to tell you. If you happened to be plain—but no, if you were a plain woman, you wouldn’t find men to do this sort of thing for you—if you were any one but Queen Mab, people would say you were absolutely mean! It’s simply and solely the celebrated smile that makes you able to do these horrid things, and you presume upon it.”
“Oh, don’t, please!” entreated Mabel. “That’s Dick’s word.”
The tables were turned, and Flora became the criminal instead of the avenger of justice. She had seized upon one of Mabel’s dearest memories with which to taunt her, and she was silent for very shame. It tended to deepen her remorse that Mabel betrayed no anger, only a gentle forbearance that cut the accuser to the quick.
“You don’t understand,” she said sadly, “and I don’t know that I understand it myself. You wouldn’t wish me to marry Fitz Anstruther if I don’t care for him, would you? and he wouldn’t wish it either. But could I lose a chance of saving Dick because of that? It’s not as if I had pretended to give him any hope. I spoke perfectly plainly, and he quite sees how it is.”
“But you must care for him a little,” broke out Flora, “when he is willing to do such a thing for you without any reward. Oh, you do, don’t you?”
“No,” said Mabel slowly, “I’m sure I don’t. If I did, I couldn’t have let him go.”
“Oh yes,” cried Flora hopefully, “for Mrs North’s sake, and your brother’s, you could give him up.”
Mabel shook her head. “I like him very much,” she said, “but I don’t want to marry him.”
“Now that’s what I say is being mean!” cried Flora. “You get all you want out of him, and offer him nothing in return, because he is generous enough to work without payment. He has made himself too cheap.”
“Well, I am very sorry, but I don’t see how I can help it. If I want things done, and he is willing to do them on my conditions, would you have me refuse?”
“Did your Browning studies with the Commissioner ever take you as far as the story of the lady and the glove?” asked Flora suddenly. “The knight fetched her glove out of the lions’ den, you know, and then threw it in her face. Mr Anstruther would never do anything so rude, but I should really love to advise him to try how you would feel towards him after a little wholesome neglect.”
“Mr Anstruther is a gentleman,” said Mabel, growing red.
“And you trade upon that too! Oh, Mab, you don’t deserve to have a nice man in love with you. It would serve you right if a William the Conqueror sort of person came, and urged his suit with a horsewhip.”
“You are so absurd, Flora. I do wish you wouldn’t bother. I don’t want to marry any one, if you would only believe it. I’m quite satisfied as I am,” and Mabel rose with a flushed face, and carried the baby indoors.
That day and the next passed without any news of the adventurers, but on the second night after their departure the sentries on the south rampart were startled by a hail which seemed to come from the canal. The moon had long set, and nothing could be distinguished in the misty darkness, but again the cry came, weak and quavering, as if uttered by a man all but exhausted. The listening sowars grew pale, and whispered fearfully that the murdered irrigation officer, Western, whose body had been thrown by the enemy into the canal at the beginning of the siege, was claiming the funeral rites of which he had been deprived. The whisper soon reached the ears of Woodworth, who was on duty, and rating the men heartily for their superstition, he went down at once to the water-gate. Here, clinging to the poles which sustained the canvas screen placed to protect the water-carriers, they found Fitz, barely able to speak, supporting Sultan Jān’s head on his shoulder. The old man, who was covered with wounds, and almost insensible, was partially upheld by the inflated skin to which he was tied, but his helplessness had obliged Fitz to propel the skin before him as he swam. It was with the greatest difficulty that the many willing helpers succeeded in bringing the two men, one almost as powerless as the other, up the steps and in at the gate, and when they were safely inside, both were carried at once to the hospital, and delivered over to the care of Dr Tighe. The news of their return spread through the fort as soon as it was light, but it was not until the evening, when Haycraft came into the inner courtyard after a visit to the hospital, that the ladies learned anything of the adventures they had met with.
“I haven’t seen much of Anstruther,” he said, in answer to the eager questions which greeted him. “He was only allowed to talk for a few minutes, and of course the Colonel had to hear all he could tell, but I have a message for you, Miss North. He could not discover anything to justify Mrs North in believing that the Major is still alive. The few men to whom he ventured to put a question were positive that neither Bahram Khan nor the Amir have any white prisoners, and he believes they were speaking the truth.”
“Oh dear! I was so hoping—” sighed Mabel. “But of course he could not help it.”
“Help it? Scarcely. He has done wonders as it is. I have just been hearing all about it from Sultan Jān, who was frantic lest he should die before he could tell his story. The doctor said it would do the old fellow less harm to talk than to lie there fuming, so I listened to the whole thing, and took notes, just to satisfy him.”
“Oh, do tell us what they did,” cried Mabel and Flora together.
“Well, things seem to have panned out all right just at first. They got past the enemy’s outposts, and swam a good bit farther before they thought it safe to take to dry land. When they had let the air out of their skins, they hid them on the opposite bank of the canal, so as to throw any one who found them off the scent, and swam over. They managed to get across the desert before it was light, so that they were not seen, but in the mountains, where they expected to find everything easy, their troubles began. They were scouting awfully carefully, and yet they all but dropped into a pleasant little party of Sultan Jān’s own tribesmen.”
“But why was that a trouble?” interrupted Flora. “I should have thought it was the best thing that could happen to them.”
“Flora is just a little bit apt to jump at conclusions,” said Haycraft, in a stage aside to Mabel, dodging dexterously the palm-leaf fan which Flora threw at him. “If she would just consider that Sultan Jān’s tribe are fighting for Bahram Khan, she would see that family relations might possibly be a little strained if they met. Well, nearly the whole day our two fellows dodged about among the hills, trying to find a path left unguarded, but there wasn’t one. You see, the tribe know the locality as well as Sultan Jān does, and they have picketed all the passes for the benefit of any traders who may come by. So at night our men slipped down into the desert again, and struck out for Rahmat-Ullah by that route. But the level ground was dangerous too, owing to a few other bodies of Bahram Khan’s adherents, who don’t dare dispute the mountain paths with the hillmen, but keep their eyes open for anything that may come their way. After avoiding two or three lots of them with difficulty, Sultan Jān suggested taking a short rest in a cave that he knew of, and going on again when the moon set. Unfortunately, the cave had also occurred to other people as a nice place for a night’s lodging, and before they had been asleep very long, they were waked by the arrival of a whole party of belated travellers, some of the very fellows they had escaped just before. Why, Miss North——”
“No, no, it’s nothing. Please go on,” said Mabel, who had shivered violently.
“Old Sultan Jān had all his wits about him, and cried out at once that he and his son had quarrelled with their tribe, and were coming to Alibad to take service with Bahram Khan. The other men cross-questioned them a good deal, but finding nothing suspicious in their answers, agreed to take them on with them to Alibad in the morning. Of course it was a blow not being able to go on to Rahmat-Ullah, but they didn’t mind that so much when they found out from their new friends that the people there are practically as much besieged as we are. The tribes have given up attempting to rush the place, but they hold the passes, and it’s impossible for the fellows in the fort to force them until there’s a relieving column ready to co-operate at the other end.”
“But what about the relieving column?” broke in Flora. “Is it never coming?”
“In the course of a few centuries, I suppose. There seems to be the usual transport difficulty, to judge by the way the tribesmen are chortling over the loss of time. Of course Anstruther and Sultan Jān made good use of their ears, and learned all they could without asking suspicious questions. In the morning they started off with their fellow-lodgers in this direction, and I must say I don’t envy their feelings. If they had happened to meet one of Sultan Jān’s tribe, it would have been all up. However, the rotten discipline of Bahram Khan’s lot stood them in good stead. It seems that the permanent investing force here consists only of his personal hangers-on and a detachment from the Nalapur army, which the Amir has made as small as he dares, and would like to recall altogether. All the rest—the tribesmen and robber bands—start off whenever they like to raid along the frontier, just leaving representatives in the town to see how things go, so as to make sure of not missing their share in the loot when this place falls. There’s one good thing—they’ll have established such a sweet reputation among the country-people that we shan’t have much trouble in hunting them down when the rising is over.”
“Aren’t you counting your chickens a little too soon?” asked Mabel, with a rather strained smile. “And we are forgetting——”
“Our two fellows? So we are. I’m an awful chap for wandering away from the point. Well, they found Bahram Khan established in the court-house, which was in a horrible state of squalor, overlaid with a little cheap magnificence. He received them with every appearance of friendliness, though they were certain he suspected them. They had nothing to go upon, for he treated them royally, and promised them both posts in his bodyguard, but they felt sure there was something wrong. They expected to be denounced every minute, but he was too wily for that. Before letting them go to their quarters at night, he informed them confidentially that he had just finished constructing a mine reaching from General Keeling’s house to our east curtain, and that it was to be exploded the next day. They should form part of the storming-party, and have the honour of leading. Of course they pretended to accept with tremendous delight, but he had got them in an awful fix. There was just the one hope that the mine did not really exist at all, but when they asked the rest about it, they were shown the entrance, though they were not allowed to go down into it, because of the explosives put ready there, the fellows said. I think myself, and so does Runcorn, that the soil is much too light for them to be able to dig such a length of tunnel without its falling in, and that we must have heard them at work if they had got as near as they make out, but of course Anstruther dared not trust to the chance. He didn’t venture to speak to Sultan Jān, but they managed to give each other a look which meant that they must get away and warn us. Of course that was just what Bahram Khan had been counting upon, and they found that their quarters for the night were in the stables belonging to the court-house, where all their new comrades slept. There were sentries in the yard in front, which looked as if something was expected to happen. Anstruther and Sultan Jān had one of the stalls to themselves, and as soon as ever the rest seemed to be asleep, they set to work to dig through the wall with their daggers, one working, and the other lying so as to screen him from the sentry, or any one else who might look in. Just before they broke through, it struck them to ask one another what was on the other side. They knew there was a lane at the back of the stables, but would they come out into the full moonlight or the shadow, and was there another sentry there? After listening carefully, they settled that there, wasn’t a sentry, but they couldn’t decide upon the moonlight, so they had to chance it. While Sultan Jān dug away the mud bricks, Anstruther was heaping up the straw they had been lying upon to hide the hole, and arranging their poshteens [sheepskin-lined coats] to look as if they were still there. Happily, when they got through, they were on the dark side of the lane. They crept out, and built up the hole again as well as they could from the outside. It was awfully nervous work, for a patrol might come along at any minute, but at last they were able to be off. They wriggled along in the shadow, and Sultan Jān led the way towards the east side of the town. Of course it was a fearful round, but they couldn’t risk passing the enemy’s headquarters again. The moon bothered them horribly, for they knew that until it set there was no hope of passing the outpost at the old godowns on the bank, even if they got to the canal safely. They reached the desert all right through the by-lanes, and made tracks for the point at which they had landed two nights before, but to get to it they had to pass the house of one of the Hindu canal-officials, who seems to have been left in possession in return for doing some sort of dirty work for Bahram Khan. There was a dog which made a row, and the Hindu came out and caught them. Sultan Jān wanted to kill him, but Anstruther wouldn’t hear of it, so they asked for a night’s lodging in one of the outbuildings, intending, of course, to slip away as soon as he was gone to bed again. But he insisted on bringing out food, and sat up talking to them, while they were agonising to get rid of him. And all the time he must have sent some one to the town to give the alarm, for suddenly he changed countenance and got confused as he talked, and they looked at the door, and there were Bahram Khan’s men. In a moment they were in the thick of a tremendous rough-and-tumble fight. There was no room inside the hut to use rifles, but both sides had daggers, and the enemy tulwars. Anstruther says he fought mostly with his fists, and the enemy seemed to think that wasn’t fair, for pretty soon they began to give him a wide berth. Just as he got out of the scrimmage, Sultan Jān went down, and in falling knocked over the lamp and put it out. The enemy devoted their attention to one another for some little time before they saw what had happened, and then they started to find Anstruther. He was standing up, perfectly quiet, against the side of the hut, and he says it nearly turned his brain to hear the fellows feeling for him in the dark, while he knew that his only hope was not to move. They didn’t find him—actually! but they found the Hindu instead. He had been hiding in a corner in an awful fright, and they killed him, and having accounted for two, thought they had done their business. They didn’t stop to mutilate the bodies, apparently because there was a false alarm in the town just then. You know one of our men let off his rifle by mistake last night, and we noticed that the enemy seemed a good deal disturbed. Well, there was Anstruther left in the hut, with what he believed to be Sultan Jān’s dead body. And this is what the old man can’t get over—he wouldn’t leave him to be cut up by those swine, but dragged him down to the canal, and when he had fetched over one of the skins and blown it out, tied him on to it, and started to swim up here. But as soon as the cold water touched Sultan Jān’s wounds, he revived, and was able to put one arm round Anstruther’s neck, and so make it a little easier for him. But it was tremendous—simply tremendous, and if ever any man deserved the V.C., Anstruther does, though of course he won’t get it, being merely a poor wretch of a civilian.”
“Why, Mab!” cried Flora, for Mabel had risen suddenly. Her eyes were dilated and her cheeks flushed, and she looked more beautiful than the others had ever seen her. They almost expected her to break out into an impassioned eulogy of Fitz’s achievement, but the sight of their astonishment seemed to recall her to herself, and she faltered and grew crimson.
“Oh, it’s too splendid!” she stammered. “I—I can’t bear it,” and they heard a sob as she rushed away.
“I say!” remarked Haycraft, with meaning in his tone.
“Fred!” responded Flora, in a voice of such crushing severity that he hastened to apologise, and to assure her that he had not meant anything.
“Of course not. Why should you mean anything?” demanded Flora.
“Oh no, naturally. There was nothing that should make any one mean anything,” he said lamely; whereupon, as a reward for his docility, Flora assured him she had great hopes that everything would come right, and when it did, he should know all about it, but that if he went and fancied things and made trouble, she would never speak to him again.
“All right! Henceforth I am blind and deaf and dumb,” he declared.
“That’s right! When you can’t do anything to help, at least you needn’t spoil things. Oh, but that reminds me, Fred. I am not blind and deaf, you know. Is it true that Mr Beardmore is dead, as the servants say?”
“Yes, poor chap! and it was only last night that we were chaffing him about being seedy. He was so perfectly happy looking after the stores, you know, and we said he couldn’t bear to think that he would soon have to write to the Colonel, ‘Sir, I have the honour to report that the last ounce of food has been distributed according to instructions. Please send further orders.’ His occupation would be gone, you see.”
“Yes,” said Flora absently; “but, Fred—only last night? That’s fearfully sudden. Was it—is it true that it was—cholera?”
“Hush!” said Haycraft, looking round apprehensively, “you mustn’t let it get about. If it’s once suspected that cholera has broken out, we shall have the natives dying like flies of sheer terror. And there’s no occasion for panic. It was the poor fellow’s own fault—a case of the ruling passion, you know. He was mad to make the stores last out as long as possible, and there were a lot of tins that Tighe condemned as unfit for food. Beardmore was certain they were all right, and backed his opinion by trying one—with this result. But you see how it is. There’s no reason for any one else to be frightened.”
“I’m glad you told me,” was Flora’s only answer, “for now I can help to keep it from the rest.”
“You’re a trump, Flo! I’d share a secret with you as soon as with any man I know.” And with this unromantic tribute Flora was wholly satisfied.
Mabel had rushed away to her own room, and was now lying sobbing upon her bed, with her face pressed tightly into the pillow, lest any sound should reach Georgia’s ears through the thin partition. At this moment even the news of the outbreak of cholera would not have disquieted her, for she had other things to think of. It seemed to her that a veil had been suddenly removed from her eyes, with the result that for the first time she saw Fitz Anstruther as he really was. “That boy,” as she had been wont to call him, with friendly, half-contemptuous patronage, was a hero. He had gloried in making himself generally useful to Dick and Georgia, doing anything that needed doing, and requiring no thanks for it. Mabel herself had made a slave of him—a willing slave, undoubtedly, for he had entered into all her whims with a ready zest, not merely submitting to them, but furthering them. Why was this? Not because he was fit for nothing better than humouring her fancies, as she had been inclined to think, but because that was the way in which he had deliberately chosen to do her homage. It was because he loved her. Had he chosen, he could have beaten down her defences long ago, but his love knew itself so strong that it could afford to wait. It refused to accept defeat, but it responded to her appeal for mercy. Mabel sprang up from her bed, and began to walk about the room. She could not be still.
“Oh, how can he? how can he?” she demanded of herself. “To care for me so tremendously after the way I have treated him—a man who can do such splendid things! How can I ever meet him? I daren’t face him. He’ll guess. I should be too dreadfully ashamed to let him know I have changed so suddenly. It seemed to come all at once. Oh, why didn’t I care for him a little before? why did I say those awful things to him only the other day? why did I let even Flora see what a mean wretch I was? She said herself that I was mean. And now they’ll all think it’s just because he deserves the V.C. that I care for him, and it’s not. It isn’t what he did, but what he is—but no one will believe it. He has been quite as splendid all the time, and I never saw it; and when he speaks to me again, he’ll think that I—I am different to him just because he didn’t leave Sultan Jān to die. As if that signified! It’s—it’s simply because he cares for me that I care for him.”
These considerations, though they might seem somewhat inconsistent with one another, made Mabel sit down in despair to think the matter out. First of all, how was she to nerve herself to meet Fitz again? and next, how was he to be brought to perceive the delicate distinction, that she loved him not because he had done a great thing, but because the doing of it had revealed his real self to her?
“I know,” she said to herself at last; “I will meet him just as usual. I think I have pride and self-respect enough left for that, and when he speaks to me again I won’t accept him at once. I won’t refuse him again, of course, or at any rate, not definitely. I will be kinder, and give him a little hope. Then he will feel at liberty to try again,” she laughed nervously; “and I can give in by degrees, so that he will understand how it really is. Oh dear! how glad I am that he made that condition the other day.”
For two or three days she waited impatiently, unable to carry out her plan, for Dr Tighe announced loudly that he was keeping Fitz a prisoner in hospital, and that he found him a perfect angel of a patient, not fussing a bit to be out before it was safe to let him go. Mabel received the statement with secret incredulity, judging of Fitz’s feelings by her own, but when she did see him next, the meeting proved grievously disappointing. On the first day of his convalescence Mrs Hardy invited him to tea in the inner courtyard, with the special intimation that his mission there was to cheer up the inmates, and he did his duty nobly. The tea was very weak, and without milk, and Anand Masih, with shamefaced reluctance, handed round a few broken biscuits—the last that could be mustered—in his mistress’s shining silver basket. It wounded his hospitable soul to see guests invited to a Barmecide feast, and when Mrs Hardy alluded pleasantly to the care he showed in keeping everything nice, he was covered with confusion. Fitz, decorated in several places with bandages and sticking-plaster, was the life of the party. He was particularly amusing on the subject of the stores, which came naturally to the front, since the rations had been reduced that day, in consequence of the deficiency caused by the unsoundness of some of the tinned provisions, of which Haycraft had spoken to Flora. Mabel sat listening, with an impatience that was almost disgust, to his funny stories of sieges and the shifts to which other besieged garrisons had been put—stories so palpably absurd that they could not shed any additional gloom on the present situation. Then he turned upon Rahah, who came out of Georgia’s room, followed by her inseparable companion, the great Persian cat. She had brought the baby for Fitz to see, with her mistress’s compliments, and was not the Baba Sahib grown?
“I’m looking with wolfish eyes at that cat of yours, ayah,” he said, after duly admiring the baby. “Some morning you will find it gone.”
“Then the Dipty Sahib will be found shot by Ismail Bakhsh,” said Rahah, unmoved.
“Why, you don’t mean to say you would have me killed for trying to get one good meal? You shouldn’t keep the creature so fat if you don’t want it stolen, you know. What do you feed it on—rats?”
“The cat shares with me, sahib.”
“Well, that’s very noble of you, I’m sure; but it would really be safer for the poor thing if you let it shift for itself.”
“No one will eat the cat but my Memsahib,” said Rahah severely. “When there is no food left, it will preserve her life for two or three days, and that is why I feed it with my own ration, sahib.”
She departed with dignity, and the rest did not dare to laugh until she was out of hearing. Then Fitz took the lead in the conversation again, and talked away until Dr Tighe appeared suddenly and haled him back to the hospital. Mabel was disappointed—bitterly disappointed. She had felt certa