Kitabı oku: «The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier», sayfa 6
Chapter Twelve
A Strange Midnight Ramble
She was walking in her sleep.
This was the conclusion Raynier instinctively arrived at as he followed stealthily and noiselessly behind; and to his mind the problem occurred as to what he had better do. He had always been under the impression that to awaken a person under such circumstances was likely to produce an alarming, if not rather a disastrous, shock. But what on earth was to be done? She could not be suffered to walk on like this, Heaven knew where. Should he go back and rouse up Tarleton? But at the pace she was going she would be away and out of sight by the time he had hammered into the understanding of that contentious idiot the urgency of the situation, and this was no sort of country for any woman to go wandering about in at night. There were wolves around, too, for had they not been making themselves heard? and however chary such were of letting themselves be seen if anyone were anxious to get the sights of a rifle upon them, a solitary woman was a different story – and he was cognisant, moreover, of the fact that even the most skulking of wild animals are, strangely enough, far less afraid of the female of the human species. No, he must follow on after her, and that at once.
But where on earth was she going to lead him? On, on, she pressed, walking swiftly, and although the ground itself was, in places, none of the smoothest, yet, while not seeming to notice the way, she sped over it almost quicker than he did, looking carefully where he was going. It was a weird sort of undertaking. He could see in the moonlight her splendid hair streaming like a mantle about her shoulders, and noted the grace and ease with which she walked. On – ever. They were nearing the edge of the plain – and lo! – there in front of them rose the mountain which was cleft by the great tangi– the haunted tangi, equally feared seemingly by the enlightened and highly-educated Europeans who were his fellow-travellers as by the superstitious natives of the land.
Straight for this the unconscious pedestrian was heading. What strange influence was drawing her thither, thought he who followed: and for the first time something of the superstitious shrinking which caused them to shun the place began to creep over him. He glanced over his shoulder with some faint hope that others might have discovered the girl’s absence and be following, but no. All was dead and silent. Nothing moved in the silvery moonlight.
And now in front rose the great rock portal – and on, ever on, kept the white and gliding figure before him. He saw it stand forth whiter than ever against the gloom of the entrance, then disappear, swallowed within the cavernous blackness of the great chasm.
Would the sudden change both of light and atmosphere awaken her? Would she come rushing forth wild with terror, instinctively making for the light? For a moment he waited in case this should be so – then plunged within the darkness of the place.
Raynier felt that here her wandering would end. Some strange psychological wave, acting with their experience of the day before, stimulated by the subject of their conversation that evening, had moved her to rise in her sleep and come hither. But to what end? There was something uncanny about her, Haslam had remarked, but Raynier was conscious of a very lively sense of thankfulness that he had been awake, and thus ready to follow and watch over her on this eerie and far from safe adventure upon which she had all unconsciously embarked.
The light from without hardly penetrating here, Raynier found himself slipping and stumbling in the gloom, yet, with it all, his quick ears could hear the footsteps in front moving easily and firmly without trip or stumble. It was marvellous – nor did the noise he made on the rattling stones seem in any way to disturb her whom he followed.
Now it grew light again in front. The white figure had reached the point where the rock walls widened out, and – had halted. The moon, immediately overhead now, darted down its light right into the chasm. Should he go forward and gently awaken her, if indeed she were not already awake? Surely she must be, for now she turned slowly round and faced him. He could see her great eyes, wide open and stamped with a wondering look; then, as he was about to advance and address her, she turned again and moved slowly onward.
And then a sound struck upon Raynier’s ears which caused every drop of blood within him to freeze, and well it might, for well he knew that sawing, grating cough drawing nearer. A panther was coming up the tangi. Heavens, and the girl was between it and him.
Then the brute appeared – and with it a cub. Raynier knew with what deadly peril the situation was now fraught, for a revolver, save in the hand of a thorough expert, is an uncertain weapon, especially in an indifferent light. At sight of them the brute stopped, then crouched, uttering a hideous, purring snarl. In that second of time the scene was photographed upon his mind; the ghostly moonlight glinting down between the great rock walls, the spotted, sinuous shape of the savage beast, every muscle quivering as it crouched there ready for its spring, its tail softly waving to and fro, and the white gliding figure advancing straight upon it; straight upon destruction in the most horrible of forms. Yes, in a flash the whole scene was before him as, pointing the pistol past her, he steadied his nerves to take the best possible aim.
But – what was this? Instead of edging forward preparatory to making its fatal rush, as he had often seen a cat do when stealing upon a bird or mouse, the brute was stealthily backing. Was it fear of the strange sight that was actuating the beast? Was there indeed some latent magnetic force about those wide open eyes? For the gliding white figure advanced unwaveringly, and as it did so the crouching brute shrank back more and more – now in unmistakable alarm. Then suddenly snatching up its cub in its mouth, it turned and bounded away beyond the elbow of rock wall round which it had first appeared.
Every nerve in the spectator’s being thrilled to the revulsion produced by this sudden removal of the awful tension of those few moments. At all risks he must awaken her and take her back to the camp. But as he advanced to do this, she halted again, turned round, passed a hand over her brow and face, looked upward at the great cliffs, then down again at him. Then she spoke, —
“So we are here together again.”
That was all. Her tone was even, placid, and evinced no astonishment whatever, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to get up in the middle of the night, and take a moonlight stroll away over a particularly wild, and, as the recent incident showed, somewhat dangerous country, or to wake to consciousness in the heart of a vast rock chasm of awe-inspiring and savage grandeur and enjoying an eerie reputation. To her listener this was well-nigh the most astounding part of the whole adventure. Was she conscious? was his first thought.
Again she passed a hand over her brow, and her great eyes rested calmly upon his face.
“Now I remember,” she said, in the same even tones. “Something threatened me – there, just now,” looking toward the spot where the panther had crouched. “It was an animal – a panther. But – it went,” she added, with a slight smile.
“That it certainly did,” rejoined Raynier, “and thank Heaven it did. Do you know that that was about the tightest situation I have ever heard or read of – a panther with a cub – with a cub, mind, for in that lay nearly the whole of the peril – coming along this narrow tube where there’s no possible means of getting out of its way – and you walking straight into its jaws. And this, under the circumstances, is a precious unreliable weapon,” showing the revolver he still held in his hand. “You or both of us might have been horribly mauled before it even began to take effect.”
“So we might. But I had a better plan with it, don’t you think so? Anyhow, the thing got in my way, and – it had to get out of it.”
The same cool tone, the same confident, but rather captivating smile. Two subjects of wonderment were at that moment crowding Herbert Raynier’s mind to the exclusion of all others. What was there about this girl – what magnetic compelling power had enabled her, by the sheer, unflinching fearlessness of her presence, to put to flight what, under the circumstances – the narrowness of the place to wit, the suddenness of the encounter, and, above all, the cub – was one of the most dangerous and formidable of wild beasts? This was one. The other was, how on earth he could ever have passed her by as being without attractiveness, and that not once, but day after day. Here, standing before him in the moonlight, looking tall in her loose white wrapper – for her strange excursion had not been so impromptu as he at first supposed – her splendid hair flowing in masses over her shoulders, her great eyes smiling upon him with something of the compelling force which had given her power over the brute, he decided that she was scarcely, if anything, short of beautiful. And then the somewhat uncommon circumstances of this interview came back upon him.
“What made you come here?” he said, the lameness of the remark striking him even while he uttered the words.
“The very question I was going to ask you.”
“Well, the answer to that should be obvious,” he said. “I saw you start out, and thought you were walking in your sleep – and I need hardly remind you that this is not an over-safe part of the world for that kind of exercise.”
“And you came to take care of me? That was very sweet of you.”
“If I had gone back to wake up Tarleton, you might have got to Heaven knows where by the time he was under way,” went on Raynier, conscious that her tone and manner had become insidiously alluring. Was he going to drift into the common idiocy? he thought, with something of dismay. “You might have altered your course and got right away from us. Then, when I did come up with you I didn’t like to wake you, because I thought it might give you a shock of sorts.”
“But I was not asleep – at least, I don’t think I was.”
Raynier stared.
“Not asleep? But you won’t mind my saying that that is – er – rather an unusual kind of walking attire.”
She laughed, glancing at her wrapper.
“Isn’t it? The fact is I hadn’t gone to bed yet I was sitting reading in the tent, and some impulse moved me to come to this place again – I can’t explain it, but it was there. Yet, I must have been asleep at times, when I walked. But I was half conscious, too, that you were near to me.”
“Well, you did not seem surprised when you woke up, so to say, and found I was.”
“No. And in a way it was a waking-up. I can’t explain it – unless it was a kind of sleeping consciousness.”
“What a strange girl you are, Miss Clive. Somehow I can’t make you out at all.”
“No? And yet you wish you could. Am I right?”
The smile she flashed at him was inexpressibly winning and sweet. Raynier recalled Haslam’s dictum. Something uncanny about her, he had said – something sort of creepy. Well, there might be from the point of view of some, even of most. But what would have repelled most men appealed to him, and the proof of it was that he was conscious of no inclination to terminate this interview – rather the reverse. Still, it had to be done.
“We ought to return to the camp, I think,” he said, in the same unconcerned tone as though suggesting a return from an ordinary walk or ride. And she acquiesced.
“I want you to promise me something,” Raynier said, rather earnestly, and perhaps a little tenderly, as they wended their way back over the moon-lit wildness of the plain, and the tents of the sleeping camp were quite near, “and that is not to repeat to-night’s adventure. It’s anything but safe. And if the same impulse comes over you, you must combat it.”
“I’ll almost promise that. Do you know, you are awfully unlike other men. For instance, all this time you have scarcely given a single thought to the awkwardness of this situation. Most men would have been fidgety and thinking what everyone would say, and so on.”
He laughed.
“Magician as you are, that is not difficult to divine,” he said. “What I want to get at is, how do you know I have not?”
“There’s no magic in knowing that. It is almost like setting yourself out to prove a negative. I can see – by the absence of all signs of it. Shall I tell you why that strange place has a fascination for me? Something warns me there will come a day when our knowledge of it will make all the difference between life and death. There – the thought has gone, nor can I pick up the thread of it. It has left me.”
That same movement of the hand as though clearing away an invisible mist from before her eyes. Upon her face, earnest and serious in the moonlight, there rested that same look which he had seen there when they were discussing clairvoyance and things occult, during the evening, and he felt just a little awed. Did she really possess the gift of seeing into the future?
“Good-night now, and get a good rest,” he said in a low tone and somewhat concernedly, as they regained the tents. And with a bright nod she disappeared within hers.
Chapter Thirteen
Of the Dak – and Mehrab Khan
“Halloa, Raynier. I see the dak coming,” cried Haslam, putting his head into the tent where the other was sitting, going over some official papers with his Babu; for, even though this was a sort of holiday trip, there were things to be attended to, and every day a Levy Sowar rode into and out from Mazaran, a distance of about forty miles. To the rest of the party this daily post was a daily event. They got English mail letters – or news from the outside world. Haslam, for instance, whose family was away in England, was wont to wax excited over the event. But to Raynier it was more of a nuisance than otherwise. It brought him official correspondence, but as for English letters he never got any, and did not want any. So Haslam’s announcement failed to awaken any interest within him.
A little later there entered a chuprassi bearing a leather bag. This Raynier unlocked, and proceeded to extract the contents by the simple process of turning it upside down. The usual official matter – but – what was this? An English mail letter?
There it lay amid the heap of long envelopes, and even before he took it up a frown came over Raynier’s face, for it was directed in the handwriting of Cynthia Daintree.
What on earth could she have to write to him about? The envelope had been re-directed on from Baghnagar, so she was evidently ignorant of his transfer and promotion. He sat staring at the envelope, and the frown deepened. He felt in no hurry to explore its contents, for his instincts warned him that they would certainly prove unpleasant, possibly mischievous. Well, it had to be done.
The letter was long and closely written, and a feeling of weariness and repulsion came over him at the anticipation of having to wade through all this. And – it began affectionately.
But before he had read far the mystified expression upon his face became one of blank astonishment and dismay.
“Great Scott! The woman must be mad,” he ejaculated, bringing his hand down upon the table; all of which afforded huge if secret delight to the Babu, whose keen native scent for an intrigue had led him to put two and two together – the receipt of the letter in a feminine hand, and the bewilderment and disgust evoked thereby in his master.
Good cause indeed had the latter for both. For the writer, after referring to their quarrel, lightly, daintily and in a prettily repentant way, proceeded to set forth that an excellent opportunity to join him having now occurred in the shape of some friends who were returning to India, she was coming out immediately – would, in fact, already have sailed by the time he received this letter, and that they could be married at Bombay when she landed, or from her friends’ house at Poonah. Then there was a good deal that was very high sounding and gracious about turning over a new leaf and learning to understand each other better and so forth, with a deft rounding off of affection to close the missive effectively and clinchingly. No wonder he was dazed.
“You can go now, Babu,” he said.
The Bengali rose and salaamed. There was going to be some fun now about some mem-sahib, he was thinking to himself with an inward chuckle, for he had seen that kind of thing before.
Raynier sat there thinking, and thinking hard. What on earth was the meaning of it all? He went over in his own mind that parting scene. There was no sort of ambiguity about it, he decided; no loophole or possibility of doubt that it was absolute and final. He recalled her own words, “Very well, then. It is your doing, your choice, remember.” There was no sort of reserve, no double meaning there, even if her silence ever since had not shown that she had considered her acquiescence final. And now she wrote coolly announcing her intention of coming out, and marrying him straight off hand. Marrying him!
It is possible that never until that moment had he so completely realised the intense feeling of emancipation which had been with him day and night since the breaking off of that most mistaken understanding. Of late, too, it had been stronger still upon him, yet now it was the strongest of all.
The thing was preposterous – in fact, preposterous was hardly the word for it. But what was to be done? To suffer himself to be led as a sheep to the slaughter was simply and entirely out of the question. But the unpleasantness of it all, the scandal it would create, the ridiculous and even scurvy position in which it would place himself – why, it was intolerable!
He scanned the letter. Even as she had said, she was well on her way now. It was absolutely too late to cable and stop her – even if he knew where, for he did not fail to notice that so important a little detail as the name of the ship, or even of the Line, was deftly omitted. How then could he meet her? Easily enough. She would cable him from Aden as to the time of her arrival, she had said. And Aden was the last port of call.
For all that he would cable on the off-chance of being in time to stop her. Such messages were expensive, and he had an idea that it would in this case prove a sheer waste of money. Ha! That was it. He would send the message to the Vicar direct. He of course would know the ship Cynthia was on board of, and would send after her to the first port of call, and thus avoid humiliation for herself and all concerned. He got out telegraph forms, and rapidly, though carefully, indited a couple of messages. Then he lifted up his voice, —
“Koi hai!”
There entered a chuprassi.
“Take those at once, and tell Mehrab Khan he is to send them in to Mazaran, now, immediately. Let him pick out the man with the best horse, and tell that man to ride it. You hear?”
“Ha, Huzoor.”
To another in the camp the post had seemingly brought tidings of moment. Hilda Clive, in the seclusion of her tent, was scrutinising her correspondence with anything but indifference. Several envelopes were opened, their contents just glanced at, and thrown down. Then a quick, eager look came into her face as she drew one sheet from its cover, and settled herself to read. As she read on the look of interest deepened, and a very soft, velvety glow rendered her eyes dangerously fascinating and winning had any been there to see them.
“Just as I have thought,” she said to herself, as she came to the end of the communication.
“Now it will all come right. And yet – and yet – do things ever come right? Well, this shall – yes, it shall.” And the smile that parted her lips and the light in her eyes rendered her face positively radiant, as she rose, and with extra care locked away the correspondence she had just been perusing with such happy effect. And ten minutes later Raynier’s bearer was notifying him, with profuse apologies for presuming to intrude upon the notice of the great, that the Miss Sahib was waiting, and ready to start upon the ride they were to take together.
Hilda Clives spirits were simply bubbling over, for she had just discovered something she had set herself to find out, and the result was in every way satisfactory. But they had not been long on the road before she discovered something else – viz, that her escort, usually so equable, and full of ideas and conversation, was to-day not himself. He would give random answers, and his thoughts seemed to be running on something entirely outside; in short, it took no more than a couple of searchingly furtive glances to convince her that he had something on his mind.
Their objective was the village of a sirdar of the Gularzai, and their way lay through ten miles mostly of craggy mountain, all tumbled and chaotic – shooting upward in a sea of jagged peaks. The path by which they threaded the labyrinthine passes was in places none too safe, frequently overhanging, as it did, the boulder-strewn bed of a mountain torrent, now nearly dry. All of this Hilda Clive thoroughly enjoyed, although she had to dismount while Mehrab Khan led her horse. This Mehrab Khan was jemadar of the Levy Sowars, and wore a sort of khaki uniform and a blue turban and kulla. For the rest, he was a very smart and intelligent man, and by nationality was a Baluchi of the Dumki tribe. By some intuition Raynier had at once singled him out as one to be trusted. He liked to have him in attendance on such expeditions as the present one, and would talk with him for hours at a time, and of this preference the man was intensely proud.
As they emerged from the mountain passes upon the more open country, they approached a camp of four or five shaggy herdsmen, who would hardly give the salaam, but scowled evilly at them, leaning on their queer long guns with sickle-shaped stocks. Hardly had they gone by than there was a rush of two great dogs – guardians of the flocks pasturing along the mountain side. Open-mouthed, with one ferocious bay, they came straight for Hilda, who was riding on that side. In a moment she would have been dragged from her horse, for Raynier’s steed had taken fright, and it was all he could do to keep the idiotic beast from incontinently bolting, let alone come to her assistance. But Mehrab Khan, who was behind, spurred alongside of her, and with a lightning-like sweep of his tulwar cut down the foremost beast, nearly severing it in half.
The other sheered off, growling. But a savage, vengeful shout behind told of a new danger. The herdsmen they had just passed came running up, and it could be seen that two or three of them had drawn their swords.
“Stay, brothers,” called out Mehrab Khan. “Stay. It is the Sirkar.”
Would they stop? It was little enough these wild mountaineers cared for the Sirkar. The situation was critical. There were five of these fierce, fanatical savages, fired with hate for the infidel intruder, burning with a desire for revenge upon the destroyers of their property. Raynier had got in front of Hilda Clive, whispering hurriedly to her on no account to move, while Mehrab Khan and the other Levy Sowar, with their rifles ready, faced the oncomers.
The latter, not liking the look of things, slackened their speed and came to a halt, spitting curses.
“Why do they keep savage animals to rush out at people?” Raynier asked, for, though he could talk Pushtu fairly well, he chose to put it through Mehrab Khan. “Dogs of that kind are more dangerous than a pack of wolves.”
The men answered scowlingly that they were kept to protect the flocks, and that dogs were of no use at all for such a purpose unless they were fierce. Besides, they were not accustomed to strangers in a strange dress.
“There’s something in that,” said Raynier.
“Would not the Huzoor pay for the property he had destroyed?” the spokesman asked. “Such a dog as that was valuable.”
Raynier replied that he would, but they must send or come to the camp to receive it, as he did not carry money about with him. Then a bargain was struck, allowing a trifle over for their trouble in travelling that distance, and with a surly salaam, the herdsmen withdrew.
“Of course I might have refused to pay a single pice,” Raynier said, as he explained to the girl what had transpired. “But it is not sound policy invariably to stand stiffly on one’s rights, and it’s better to pay a few rupees than make enemies of these people. Besides, poor devils, it is a loss to them.”
Hilda agreed, only insisting that, as the liability was incurred in her defence, she ought to be allowed to discharge it – a proposal which was laughed to scorn.
“You see, now, what might have happened during that little moonlight stroll of yours,” Raynier went on. “And I don’t think you’d find these brutes so ready to turn tail as that panther was. By the way, I daresay you’d rather turn back now?”
“Of course not. Why?”
“Only that you must have seen enough of the interesting Gularzai at close quarters for one day.”
“Then I haven’t,” she answered gaily. “I wouldn’t give up this visit to a real native magnate for the world.”
“It was well done, Mehrab Khan,” said Raynier, in Pushtu. “Thy stroke was a worthy one, strong and swift.”
And the Baluchi, proud and pleased, murmured his thanks.
