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It was badly aimed and did not sever the head, but cut far and deep into the neck and shoulder. The miserable wretch fell to the ground, deluged with a great spout of blood, but yet wailing dismally in agony and terror. In a moment two more tulwars swung through the air, and the sufferings of the murdered man – literally cut to pieces – were over, though his limbs still beat the ground in convulsive struggles.

Umar Khan spat in derision, while the other barbarians laughed like demons over this atrocious deed. The murderers wiped their swords on the garments of their victim, and examined the keenly-ground edges solicitously, lest they should be in any way notched or turned. But now their attention was diverted. Another speck was growing larger and larger on the road, this time advancing from the direction in which their late victim had been proceeding. Drawing nearer it soon took shape. Another “gharri” similar to the one whose driver they had slaughtered.

The whole band rode down to meet it. Besides the driver it contained another man.

“Peace, my sons,” said the latter as they drew up.

“And on you peace,” returned Umar Khan. “But first – for this dog. Hold – Alight, both of ye.”

There was that about the aspect of these armed brigands that would admit of no hesitation. Both obeyed. This driver, too, was a low caste Hindu. His “fare” was an old man, white-bearded, and wearing a green turban.

No sooner were both fairly out of the “gharri,” than Ihalil Mohammed rode at the Hindu and cut him down. Others fell upon him with their tulwars, and the miserable wretch, like his fellow-craftsman, was literally hewn to pieces then and there. With savage shouts the murderers waved their bloodstained weapons aloft, curvetting their steeds around the survivor.

The latter turned pale. Quick as thought, however, he had drawn a volume of the Korân from beneath his garments, and placed it upon his head.

“La illah il Allah” – he began.

” – Mohammed er rasool Allah,”² chorused the blood thirsty savages, as though in one fierce war shout, turning to hack once more at the mangled carcase of the miserable Hindu.

“Hearken, my father,” said Umar Khan, pointing his rifle at the traveller. “A true believer is safe at the hands of other believers. But, father, delay not to deliver over the seven hundred rupees which are in thy sash.”

The other turned paler still.

“Seven hundred rupees?” he exclaimed, holding up his hands. “What should a poor mûllah do with such a sum?”

“Thou hast said it, my father. What indeed?” sneered Umar Khan. “What indeed, save as alms for the poor, and the debtors and the insolvent, as enjoins the holy Korân? And such thou seest before thee. Wherefore we will receive them, father, and pray the blessing of Allah, and a rich place in the seventh heaven for thee and thine.”

“Do ye not fear God, O impious ones, that ye would rob His servant?” said the mûllah, waxing wroth in his desperation.

“We fear nobody,” returned Umar Khan, with an evil sneer. “Yet, my father, delay not any longer, lest this gun should go off by accident.”

“Wah – wah!” sighed the mûllah. “Be content my children – it may be ye are poorer than I. Receive this packet, and the blessing of a servant of the Prophet go with it. And now I will proceed upon my way.”

“Wait but a few moments,” replied Umar Khan, receiving the bag which the other tendered him, and which he immediately handed to Ihalil with one word – “Count!”

“It may not be, for the hour of evening prayer draws near. Peace be with you, my children.” And he made as though to move on.

“We will say it together then,” replied Umar Khan, barring the way. “What is this? Two hundred and fifty rupees? Two more packets hast thou forgotten, my father, and – delay not, for the hour of evening prayer draws near.”

There was a grim, fell significance in the speaker’s tone and countenance. The mûllah no longer hesitated. With almost trembling alacrity he drew forth the remaining bags, which being counted, were found to contain the exact sum named.

“We give thee five rupees as an alms, my father,” said Umar Khan, tendering him that amount. Gloomily the mûllah pocketed it. “And surely God is good to thee, that in these days thou hast been able to relieve the necessities of Umar Khan.”

A start of surprise came over the face of the other, at the mention of the name of the dreaded ex-outlaw. He had more than a shrewd suspicion that but for his sacred office he would be now even as his Hindu driver – which went far to console him for the loss of his substance.

“Wah – wah!” he moaned, sitting down by the roadside. “My hard earned substance which should comfort my old age – all gone! all gone!”

“The faithful will provide for thine old age, my father. And now, peace be with thee, for we may not tarry here. But,” – sinking his voice to a bloodcurdling whisper – “it is well to give alms in secret, for he who should boast too loud of having bestowed them upon Umar Khan, not even the holy sanctuary of Mecca would avail to shelter him.”

“Blaspheme not, my son,” cried the mûllah, affecting great horror, and putting his fingers to his ears – though, as a matter of fact, the warning was one which he thoroughly understood.

They left him seated there by the roadside, despondent over his loss. They left the two mangled bodies of their victims to the birds and beasts of prey, and gave vent to their glee as they dashed off, in shouts and blood thirsty witticisms. They were in high good humour, those jovial souls. They had slain a couple of human beings – that was to keep their hands in. They had robbed another of seven hundred rupees – that would replenish the wasted exchequer for a time; and now they cantered off to see if they could not do a little more in both lines – and the goal for which they were heading was the Kachîn valley.

Umar Khan had burnt his boats behind him.

Chapter Thirteen.
Experimental

The days had gone by, and now Campian was installed in the forest bungalow. Colonel Jermyn’s invitation had gone forth, but the missive which would have counteracted it had not, so here he was.

Not without some deliberation had he decided on accepting it. He had thought himself safe; had reckoned he had safely parted with all illusions, as conducive only to disturbance and anxiety, and the greatest of all illusions was Vivien Wymer. But the sudden and unlooked for reappearance of the latter had reopened a wound. Yet why? She was the same as before. She had failed him once. She had sacrificed him to others once, and would of course do so again unhesitatingly. Why not? There was no such thing as love as they two had once looked at it – had once imagined it. A mere illusion; pleasant while it lasted, painful when its illusoriness became evident. But then the wrench, though painful, even agonising, was over – and in its effect salutary. Five years make a difference in a man’s life. He had not been young then; he was older now. Sensibility was blunted. The capacity for self-torment was no longer his.

Love, the ever endurable! He had believed in that once. He was no misogynist, even now. His experience of the other sex had been considerable. He was ready to accord the members thereof the possession of many delightful qualities. As friends they were staunch, as companions unrivalled. Life unbrightened by feminine presence and feminine influences would be a dull affair. But as exponents of Love, the ever endurable, they were a failure; and exactly as he came to appreciate this did he come to appreciate the other sex the more because he had ceased to expect too much.

His experiences had been many and varied, and took in all types of the softer sex, and he had found them wonderfully similar. The fire and passion of to-day became chill and indifference a year hence. Then Vivien Wymer had come into his life, and lo, all was changed. Here was a glorious exception to the rather soulless rule. She met his every want; she appealed to him as he could never have believed any woman could, and by some strange, magnetic instinct, his own personality appealed to hers. They seemed made for each other – and yet – he had been sacrificed. Not even there was he to be all in all – to be first and everything.

They had seen each other again once since that chance meeting in the markhôr cave. The colonel and his niece had ridden over to Upward’s camp to tiffin, and it was on that occasion that the hearty old soldier had pressed him to come and pay them a visit. He had not even glanced at Vivien, striving to read to what extent she would second the invitation, but had accepted on the spot, yet not without a mental reservation.

For there was one point which he desired to debate within himself, and that was the very one which had occurred to Vivien. How could they two be together under the same roof, in close, daily intercourse as mere acquaintances, they two who had been so much to each other? How could they bear the strain, how keep up the rôle?

Then when his meditations had reached this point, a strange exultant thrill seemed to disturb the balance of his clearer judgment. Why should the rôle be kept up? After being parted for five years, they had met again – nay, more – had been thrown together again in this strange, wild country, that in former times had been to either of them no more than a mere geographical name. Both were unchanged. There was a softening in Vivien’s voice, when off her guard, as on the last occasion of their meeting, which seemed to point to the fact that she was. For himself – well, he had grown older, wiser – and, he imagined, harder. Still, the wound did seem to be reopening. Why, the whole was almost as though Fate had gone out of her way to bring they two together again.

Yes, he had grown harder. Love, the ever endurable! Ridiculous! She had sacrificed him before, and would do so again if occasion arose. If she did not do so it would be because occasion had not arisen, and this consideration constituted a state of potential unreliability, which was not reassuring. The idea even served to re-awaken much of the old bitterness and rankling resentment, and he decided that it would be an interesting, if coldblooded, study in character to observe how Vivien herself would come out under such an ordeal as the close, intimate intercourse which life beneath the same roof could not but involve.

Once there, he had no cause to regret his decision. The colonel was a fine old soldier of the very best type. Most of his life had been spent in India, and he was full of anecdote and reminiscence. He had served through the Mutiny, and in several frontier disturbances, and his knowledge of the country and its natives was intelligent and exhaustive. He had been a sportsman, too, in his time – and, in short, was a man whom it was a pleasure to talk with. He and Campian took to each other immensely, and the two would sit together under the verandah of an evening, smoking their cheroots and exchanging ideas, while Vivien discoursed music through the open doors, upon a cottage piano which had been lugged up, at some risk to its tuning and general anatomy, on board the hideous necessary camel.

Decidedly it was very close quarters, indeed, this party of three, isolated there in that remote forest bungalow, away among the chaotic, piled up mountain deserts of wild Baluchistan; but there was no element of monotony about it; indeed, how could there be when to two out of the three life thus represented an ordeal that meant so much, that might mean indeed so much more. Yet it spoke volumes for the self control of both that no suspicion should have entered the mind of the third that they had ever beheld each other elsewhere, and under very near circumstances. Their intercourse was free and unrestrained, but it was the easy intercourse of two people who had ideas in common and liked each other’s society, and totally devoid of any symptom of covering a warmer feeling. They would frequently take rides or walks together through the juniper forest, or to some point overlooking a new or wider view of the great chaotic mountain waste, and it spoke volumes for their self control that no allusion was ever made to the past. They would not have been human if occasionally some undercurrent of feeling had not now and then come unguardedly near the surface, but only to be instantly repressed. It was as though both were engaged in a diplomatic game requiring a high degree of skill, and in which each was watching the next move of the other with a jealous eye.

Once, in course of their rides together, the two were threading a tangi, and the sense of being shut within those high rock walls moved Vivien to broach the subject of the adventure which had so nearly ended in tragedy for her companion and his.

“It must have been a dreadful experience,” she said, looking up at the cliffs overhead.

“Yes. It was awkward. I’ve no use for a repetition of it.”

His tone was discouraging, as though he would fain have changed the subject. But she seemed to cling to it.

“I think that was a splendid feat,” she went on, looking straight at him. “I wish I knew what it was like never to be afraid.”

“So do I – most heartily. But I simply don’t believe in the existence of that enviable state; if you can talk of the existence of a negative, that is.”

“But you do know what it is. Were you ever afraid of anything in your life?”

The very words Nesta had used. Then he had not taken them in a complimentary sense. He had thought the remark a foolish one. Now coming from this woman, who had idealised him – who did still – with her wide luminous eyes turned full upon his face, and that unguarded softening which had again crept into her tone, there was a subtle flattery in it which was delicious, but enervating. As a matter of fact he really thought nothing of the feat, beyond what a lucky thing it was they should have been able to save both their lives. He answered so shortly as to seem ungracious.

“Very much and very often. I would rather run away than fight any day. Fact.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No? People don’t, I find. Some day I may do that very thing – then when everybody is howling me down I can always turn round and say – ‘I told you so, and you wouldn’t believe me.’”

“But do you want them to believe you?”

“Why, of course. You don’t know me at all, Vivien, even now.” Then, as if to hurry away from a dangerous slip. “By the by, I never can understand the insane way in which even civilised and thinking people elect to deify what they call courage or pluck. There is no such thing really. It is purely a matter of opportunity or temperament – in short, sheer accident. To get out of a tight place a man has got to do something. While doing it he has no time to think. If he had, in nine cases out of ten he’d run away.”

“Yes? And what about when he has to go into a tight place?”

“Why, then he’s got to go. And as a matter of fact it is funk that drives him in. The opprobrium and possibly material penalty, he would incur by backing out constitute the more formidable alternative of the two. So of the two evils man, being essentially a self preserving animal, instinctively chooses the least.”

“Plausible, but not convincing,” returned Vivien, with a laugh. “And is there not something of what they call a ‘crank’ underlying that philosophy?”

“‘They’ are apt to say that of any application of the principles of common sense,” – “as I have so often told you before,” he was nearly adding.

“Was Miss Cheriton very much scared that day? She says she’ll never get over it as long as she lives.”

“Poor little girl. It must have been a ghastly experience. She behaved very well; was no more scared than any other woman would have been, and a good deal less so than some.”

“What a pretty girl she is.”

“Very – of her type.”

Vivien was conscious of two emotions – swift, simultaneous as a lightning flash; first a pang over the readiness with which he endorsed her remark, then a heartbeat of relief, for those three words constituted a whole saving clause.

“You must have seen a great deal of her?”

No sooner uttered than Vivien would have given anything to recall the remark. What construction would he put upon it other than jealousy of this blue-eyed, golden-haired girl, who had several years of youth the advantage over herself?

“That depended upon circumstances. Nesta Cheriton has a great penchant for the British Army, and the British Army thoroughly reciprocates the predilection. While the British Army was represented at Chirria Bach I saw not much of her, over and above the occasions when one had to meet in ordinary life. While it was unrepresented she seemed to make herself equally happy in going chikór shooting with me. On the whole, I rather like the little girl. She is bright and amusing, and acts, I suppose, as a passing tonic to one’s jaded and middle-aged spirits.”

His tone had been that of absolute and unaffected ease, and now it occurred to him suddenly, and for the first time, that Vivien was putting him through something of a catechism. The moral dissection which he had promised himself in risking a sojourn beneath the same roof with her had already begun, and this was only a phase of it. At such times the old feeling of rankling bitterness would come upon him, and with it a wave of desolation and heart-emptiness. Why had she failed him – she his destined counterpart? Why had she proved so weak under a not very strong ordeal? He had indeed become hard, when he could go through day after day in closest companionship with her, and yet keep on the mask, never once be betrayed into letting down his guard.

One consideration had acted as a salutary cold douche in the event of the smouldering fires of his nature rising too near their restraining rock crust. One day Vivien was telling him all about her uncle and how she came to be keeping house for him. She had done so since her aunt’s death, and supposed she would go on doing so. He was such a dear old man, she said – so thoughtful and kind and unselfish, and he had no one to look after him but her. All of which her listener, even from his short opportunity of observation, was inclined to endorse; but the sting lay in the concluding consideration, for it recalled that other time. In it had lain the pretext for sacrificing him to an imaginary duty. He was not going to risk a repetition of what he had then undergone. The iron entered deeper and deeper.

Once an incident occurred which nearly availed to shatter and melt it. Vivien had gone into his room during his absence, as she frequently did, to see if there was not some little touch she could add to its comfort or attractiveness. An object on his table caught her attention. She picked it up and examined it, and her eyes filled. Yet it was only an old tobacco pouch, and a very worn and weather-beaten one at that – so worn and frayed that hardly more than a few threads of the original embroidery still hung to the cover. Then she did an extraordinary thing. Instead of replacing it she took it away with her. That night she sat up late, and lo, in the course of the day, going into his room Campian found that the old battered pouch for which he had hunted high and low was replaced by a beautiful new one, the embroidery of which was a perfect work of art.

“Why did you take so much trouble?” he said when next they met. “You could not have known I had lost the other.”

“Is that why we were so glum last night?” she returned, a glad light, struggling with a mischievous one, in her eyes. “Never mind. This is a much better one.”

“I loved that one. I would give a great deal to recover it, as you ought to know.”

“Wait a moment.” She left him and returned almost immediately.

“Here it is – or what is left of it. Now – ? What will you give?”

She held it out to him – then drew it back. Her eyes were raised to his. Her voice was soft and caressing as ever he had heard it in the old days. Just one of those trivial accidents bringing about the most crucial moment in two lives – when, as usual, the most trivial of causes availed utterly to mar its effect. That most trivial of causes was the voice of Colonel Jermyn, followed by the entrance of its jolly possessor.

“Here’s the dâk just come from Upward. They’re all going back to Shâlalai the day after to-morrow Campian, and want to know if you’ve had enough of us yet. If you have they say they are leaving early and you’d better be down at the camp to-morrow night. If you haven’t – why – all the better for us.”

“The point is whether you haven’t had enough of me, Colonel.” But while he made the laughing remark his glance travelled round to Vivien’s face. It was one of those moments when her guard was down. The interruption had come so inopportunely. Decidedly the study he had promised himself was bearing rich results.

“Pooh! Of course we haven’t. Why, you’ve only just come. Besides, you can get to Shâlalai at any time. That’s settled then. But I have an idea. We might go down to Mehriâb station and see them off. There are some things I am getting up, and that idiot of a Babu in charge can’t send an intelligent answer to any question I write him. It’s not a bad sort of ride down there, and we’ll kill two birds with one stone. What do you say, Viv?”

“I beg to second it, Uncle Edward. The idea is an extremely good one.”

To him who watched it, while not seeming to, there was an entire revelation in Vivien’s face during that momentary lifting of the veil. She was as anxious to prolong the time as – he was. Yes, that is what it amounted to. The experiment, from its coldblooded side, seemed to have failed.

“We shall be up here some weeks longer, Campian” – went on the Colonel – “but of course if you have to go, it is easy enough to get to Shâlalai. Meanwhile my boy, as long as you can make yourself happy here we are only too glad.”

“Oh, I can do that all right, Colonel. And I’m not tied to time in any way either.”

Again that relieved look on Vivien’s face. Some weeks! What might not be the result of those weeks was the thought that was in the minds of both of them? What might not transpire within those weeks? Ah, if they had only known.

“By the way there’s another item of kubbar in Upward’s letter,” went on the Colonel, fumbling for that missive. “A budmâsh named Umar Khan has started out on a Ghazi expedition down Sukkâf way. He and several others rode out along the road and cut down a couple of poor devils of gharri-wallahs. Killed ’em dead as a door nail. There was a mûllah in one of the gharris, and they plundered him. He got out a Korân and put it on his head – singing out that he was a mûllah. ‘Mûllah or not,’ says Umar Khan – ‘hand out those seven hundred rupees you’ve got on board.’ And he had to hand them out. Sacrilegious scamps – ha, ha! But if he hadn’t been a mûllah they’d have cut him up too. Well these budmâshes will have to swing for it. They’ll soon be run to earth. Nice country this, eh, Campian?”

“Rather. It seems to me only half conquered, and not that.”

“Yes. It’s run at a loss entirely. A mere buffer State. We hold it on the principle of grabbing as much as we can and sticking to it, all the world over – and in this particular instance putting as much as we can between the Russians and India.”

“And what if Umar Khan is not speedily run to earth?”

“Oh, then he’ll knock around a bit and make things generally unpleasant. Do a little dacoity from time to time. But we are bound to bone him in the long run.”

“There’s an uncommonly queer closeness in the air this evening,” said the Colonel as they were sitting out under the verandah a little later. “As if there was a storm of sorts working up. Yet there’s no sign of thundercloud anywhere. Don’t you notice it, Vivien?”

“I think so. It has a dispiriting effect on one, as if something was going to happen.”

The sun had gone down in a lurid haze, which was not cloud, and the jagged peaks of the opposite range were suffused in a hot, vaporous afterglow, while the dark depth of juniper forest in the deep, narrow valley seemed very far down indeed. What little air there was came in warm puffs.

“We all seem rather chûp this evening,” said the Colonel. “Viv, how would it be to play us something lively to wake us up?”

She rose and went inside. Campian could still see her as she sat at the piano, rattling off Gilbert and Sullivan at their liveliest. He could continue the very favourite occupation in which he had been indulging – that of simply watching her – noting every movement, the turn of the head, the droop of the eyelids, the sweet and perfect grace which characterised her most trivial act. This woman was simply perfect in his sight – his ideal. Yet to all outward intent they were on the easy, friendly terms of two people who merely liked each other and no more.

“Come and have a ‘peg,’ Campian,” said the Colonel presently.

“No thanks – not just now.”

“Well, I’m going to,” and away he went to the dining room.

Then Campian, sitting there, was conscious of a very strange and startling phenomenon. There was a feeling as though the world were falling away from beneath his feet, together with a dull rumble. There was a clatter of glass and table ornaments in the drawing room, and he could see Vivien sway and nearly fall from the music-stool. He sprang to his feet to rush to her aid, and seemed hardly able to preserve his own balance. Both staggering they met in the doorway.

“Oh, Howard, what is it?” she cried, seizing in both of hers the hand which he had stretched out to help her.

“Quick. Come outside,” was all he said. They were able to walk now, and he drew her outside the verandah, right into the open. Then again came that cavernous rumble, and the earth fairly reeled beneath their feet.

“That’s what all this heaviness in the air has been about,” he said, as the ground felt firm again. “A shock of earthquake.”

“Is it over? Will there be any more?” she gasped, her white face and dilated eyes turned up to his. She still held his hands, in her sudden terror, casting all considerations of conventionality to the winds.

“I don’t think so,” he answered, a very tremble of tenderness in his voice as he strove to reassure her. “These shocks generally go in twos or threes, like waves. And even if there are any more we are all right outside.”

Here the humorous element asserted itself, in the shape of Colonel Jermyn choking and coughing in the verandah. In his hand he held a tall tumbler, nearly empty.

“Look at this, Campian,” he cried. “A man can’t even have a ‘peg’ in his own house without the whole world rising up against it. Flinging it in his face, and half choking him, by George.”

“Some awful big teetotaler must have gone below, Colonel, to raise racket enough to knock your ‘peg’ out of your hand. I hope you’ll take warning and forswear ‘pegs.’”

“Ha, ha! Well, Viv? Badly scared, child?”

She laughed, but the colour had not yet come back to her cheeks.

“I predicted something was going to happen, didn’t I?” she said.

“And it has happened – and now there’s another thing going to happen, and that is dinner, so we’d better go inside and begin to think about it. What? Is it safe? Of course, though, my dear, I don’t wonder at it if you were a little scared. It’s an experience that is apt to be alarming at first.”

The while the speaker was chuckling to himself. He had been a witness both by ear and eye to the foregoing scene, having overheard Vivien’s alarmed apostrophe.

“So? It has come to that, has it?” he was saying to himself. “‘Howard,’ indeed? But how dark they’ve kept it. Well, well. They’re both of them old enough to look after themselves. ‘Howard,’ indeed!” and the jolly Colonel chuckled to himself, as with kindly eyes he watched the pair that evening, reading their easy unrestrained intercourse in an entirely new light.