THE RANKS ARE THINNED.
“Mr Stratford! Mr Stratford!”
The words were accompanied by an emphatic knocking at the door, and
Stratford sat up in bed.
“Come in!” he shouted, recognising the voice, and Fitz Anstruther
entered, shutting the door carefully behind him.
“I’m afraid there’s something wrong over at the doctor’s,” he said.
“His house-door is ajar, and yet none of his people seem to be
stirring. I wanted to go over and see what was the matter, but old
Ismail Bakhsh wouldn’t let me pass out of the gate, and told me to
call you and Major North. May I go now? I won’t be a minute.”
“No, call North, and he and I will go over,” said Stratford, beginning
to dress, and Fitz, with a sense of deep disappointment, obeyed. In a
very few minutes Stratford and Dick came down the steps together, and
after posting Fitz at the gate in case a hurried return should be
necessary, passed between the lounging forms of the Ethiopian soldiers
who were occupying the street, and entered the doctor’s house. Its air
of desolation surprised them, for they found the courtyard and
verandah strewn with books and papers, and odds and ends of small
value.
“Looks as though the place had been looted,” said Dick.
They crossed the verandah and entered the house, still without meeting
a soul. Here again all was desolation. Everything of value seemed to
be gone, and the furniture was broken and knocked about. The only
things left uninjured were the glass bottles containing the natural
history specimens, which still remained untouched on their shelves.
The door into the next room was ajar, and a kerosene lamp was burning
itself out on the table, filling the air with its pungent odour as the
flame flickered, recovered itself, and sank again. Glancing into the
semi-darkness, the intruders could make out the form of the doctor,
lying half-dressed across his bed, the lamp-light gleaming on the
barrel of a revolver in his hand.
Somewhat reassured by the sight, they advanced and pushed the door
wide open, then recoiled precipitately. The face which met their view
was that of a dead man--of one who had died in the extremest agony.
The protruding eyeballs, the lips drawn back to the gums, the black
and swollen tongue, all testified to the sufferer’s having endured the
utmost torments of thirst.
Ashamed of their momentary panic, Stratford and Dick, putting a strong
constraint upon themselves, entered the room and lifted the corpse,
unclasping the rigid hand from the revolver.
“They did poison him, then!” said Dick, fiercely. “Well, we will have
Fath-ud-Din’s blood for this.”
“How?” asked Stratford. “When was he poisoned? Was it at dinner last
night, or had his servants poisoned the water in the filter? If young
Fath-ud-Din and Hicks are both unhurt, we can never prove that it
wasn’t that. It has been very smartly managed.”
“Here is a piece of paper and a pencil,” said Dick, handing them to
him. “He must have been writing as he lay.”
“Look here,” said Stratford, holding out the paper after glancing
through it, “the poor fellow has put down his symptoms and the
remedies he tried, as a guide to us. He wrote at intervals, evidently.
You see, after recording his symptoms twice, he says, ‘Servants
gathered round the door watching me. Refuse to bring water.’ Then more
symptoms, and then, ‘Servants are looting the house. Afraid to touch
collection.’ Now you see the writing becomes much weaker. ‘Ask Miss
Keeling to keep collection in memory of me. Take my mother back the
Bible she gave me. Good-bye all. Take care of Miss Keeling; they will
strike at her next--the only doctor left. God have mercy----’ It
breaks off there, you notice, with a scrawl right across the page. The
pencil must have dropped from his hand. To think what the poor fellow
must have been enduring all alone in the night, with those fiends
gloating over him!”
They stood up on either side of the dead man and looked at each other.
Both were men who would not have flinched in the hottest fight, and
yet each now saw reflected in the other’s eyes the unutterable horror
of his own. What chance was there of success against a foe who fought
with such weapons as this? Stratford was the first to speak.
“I must go over and get the Chief to come,” he said. “Will you stay
here with--him? I won’t be longer than I can help.”
Dick nodded, and he went off swiftly. For a few moments Dick sat
still, staring fixedly at the distorted face of the man who had been a
true comrade and good friend to him during the last few months. Then
he pushed back the box on which he had been sitting, and began to walk
up and down the room, averting his eyes from the dreadful thing on the
bed.
“What are we to do?” he cried in despair. “It’s not for myself--God
knows it’s not for myself--but those poor women!”
Georgia’s face rose up before him--not an uncommon occurrence in these
days--and he ground his teeth as he remembered the dead man’s warning.
He was powerless, and he knew it. What could four Englishmen, with
Kustendjian and the little handful of native servants, do against a
whole nation? How could they defend the helpless women who had come to
Kubbet-ul-Haj trusting in their protection?
“At any rate,” said Dick, clenching his fist involuntarily, “if they
strike at her they shall strike me first!”
Presently Stratford came back with Sir Dugald, to whom he had
explained hastily the doctor’s suspicions of the night before. Sir
Dugald’s arrival and his immediate grasp of the situation did
something to lessen the tension in the minds of the two younger men,
an effect which was enhanced by the prompt and decisive orders which
he proceeded to give.
“I shall send you to the Palace with Kustendjian, Stratford, to tell
the King exactly what has happened, and to insist that it shall be
inquired into immediately. There is no such thing as an inquest here,
of course, but I suppose we had better leave the body for the present
as you found it, in case they send some one to see how things were.”
“But what about punishing the murderers, sir?” asked Dick, eagerly.
“Who are the murderers?” responded Sir Dugald.
“What is your opinion, sir?”
“My opinion is the same as yours and Stratford’s--that poor Headlam
was poisoned at Fath-ud-Din’s dinner; but you must see for yourself
that it is absolutely impossible for us to prove it. Fath-ud-Din will
say that the servants murdered their master in order to steal his
property. Why otherwise should they have looted the place and
decamped?”
“Because they were afraid of being suspected,” suggested Dick.
“Possibly; although in that case it was an insane idea for them to
meddle with the poor fellow’s things. Besides, three of them came with
us from Khemistan, and were not like these Ethiopians here. They were
British subjects, and would have known that we should protect them and
give them a fair trial. No; my opinion is that the servants had been
got at, and were in league with Fath-ud-Din. He was to administer the
poison, and they were to loot the house and disappear, in order that
suspicion might rest upon them. No doubt he guaranteed their escape,
and provided a safe refuge for them. But, if this is the case, you see
we are powerless. Nothing but a direct confession from one of those
immediately concerned could enable us to bring the crime home.”
“Then you will not even charge Fath-ud-Din with it?”
“My dear North”--Sir Dugald laid his hand not unkindly on Dick’s
shoulder--“pull yourself together, and consider what our position here
is. Don’t let your eagerness to avenge poor Headlam blind you to the
fact that we are in an enemy’s country, with several women to protect,
and four guns (I don’t count Kustendjian) to do it with. At present
Fath-ud-Din is bound to work against us secretly, but if we brought
such an accusation against him it would be open war. The King could
not give him up for punishment if he would, and it would be far
easier, in any case, to get rid of us than of him. You may put me down
as cold-blooded and calculating--in fact, I know you do--but it is my
duty to try to bring the Mission out of this most unfortunate business
with as little loss of life as possible.”
“I quite see that, sir; but when I look at the poor chap lying
there----”
“You must not look at the dead, North, but at the living. If it should
so happen that I were to die as the doctor has died, my last care
would be to give Stratford a solemn charge to get the rest of you
safely out of the country before he hinted at suspicion or said a word
about avenging me. I don’t deny that we ought never to have brought
the ladies here, but, hampered as we are by their presence, we have
given hostages to fortune. Heaven helping me, I mean to have that
treaty signed yet, before we leave Kubbet-ul-Haj; but, if that is not
to be, then I shall turn all my thoughts to getting the ladies across
the frontier in safety. I hope I may feel assured that my staff will
do all in their power to co-operate with me, and to take my place
should I be removed.”
“You may count on me, Sir Dugald,” said Dick, slowly. “I hope you will
forgive what I said just now. I was so much upset that I did not
consider things properly.”
Before Sir Dugald could answer, Stratford, who had gone back to the
Mission to prepare for his visit to the Palace, returned with
Kustendjian, and received his orders. He was on no account to enter
the Palace, merely to stand without and demand justice; and he was to
be satisfied with nothing less than a royal proclamation denouncing
the murderers, and ordering an immediate search for the fugitive
servants. Little success as could be hoped for from this measure, such
an edict would at least vindicate the prestige of the Mission.
“Now,” said Sir Dugald to Dick when Stratford and the interpreter had
taken their departure, “we will get two or three of the servants over
here, and set them to work to knock together a coffin. We must make it
out of some of these packing-cases, I suppose. It will only be a rough
affair. And then we must see about a burial-ground and a grave. It is
sad to leave behind one you have liked and trusted in a country like
this!”
Sir Dugald’s iron face twitched as he spoke, and he stooped over the
corpse.
“Can you find a pair of scissors, North? I must cut off a lock of his
hair for Lady Haigh to take to his mother, for I will not allow either
her or Miss Keeling to come over and see him like this. I must break
the news to them presently, but they shall know as little of the truth
as I can manage to tell them.”
Dick found a pair of scissors in the dead man’s medicine-chest, and
Sir Dugald cut off a lock of hair and placed it carefully in his
pocket-book. Then he went across to the Mission, returning in a short
time with two servants, whom he set to work at their mournful task,
and leaving Dick to superintend them, went back to break the news to
his wife and Georgia. Presently he was summoned again to the doctor’s
house to meet the official who had returned with Stratford from the
Palace, and who bore assurances of the grief and wrath felt by the
King on account of the crime which had been committed. Stratford
brought word that the monarch’s utterances seemed to be really
sincere, and that it was probable that even if the murder was justly
attributed to Fath-ud-Din, his master had no share in it. He had come
to the door of the Palace to meet Stratford, finding that he would not
enter, and to all appearance was struck with surprise and horror at
his news. The thought that the Queen of England might suspect that he
had plotted the murder of her officer seemed to impress him
particularly, and he was ready to order every possible step to be
taken that could lead to the detection of the criminals. At the same
time, he was persistent in fastening the guilt upon the runaway
servants, and refused to listen to the hint thrown out by Stratford
that they might have been instigated to their deed by some one higher
in position; and neither Sir Dugald nor his subordinates could resist
the conclusion, that although it was in all probability true that the
King knew nothing of the crime before it had taken place, yet he had
now no difficulty in assigning it to its true perpetrator, whom he
was, moreover, determined to shield.
Short of allowing any real inquiry into the manner of the doctor’s
death, however, the King was ready to do all he could in the painful
circumstances. The desired proclamation was already being published in
the different quarters of the town, and a price had been set on the
heads of the servants. With regard to the funeral, as there was no
Christian burial-ground anywhere in Ethiopia, Sir Dugald might choose
a spot in the royal gardens outside the city, and that spot should be
fenced off and held sacred. Deputations from the Ethiopian army and
council should be present at the ceremony, and Rustam Khan should also
attend it as his father’s representative. In the meantime, to show the
King’s deep regret for the misunderstanding which had existed during
the last few days between himself and Sir Dugald, the guard of
soldiers would be removed from the front of the Mission, and the
country-people informed that they might bring their produce to sell as
usual.
It was Stratford and Fitz to whom fell the task of riding out to the
King’s garden and selecting the site of the first Christian cemetery
in Ethiopia. They chose a spot on the border of the estate, which
could be easily marked off from the rest, and the official who had
accompanied them gave the necessary orders to the workmen. The funeral
was to take place in the late afternoon, and there was need for haste.
Fitz and Stratford had ridden out almost in silence; but as they
mounted their horses for the return journey to Kubbet-ul-Haj, Fitz
looked back at the garden and shuddered.
“I wonder how many of us will lie there before this business is over!”
he said, only to be annihilated by Stratford’s reply--
“Shut up, you young fool, and don’t croak. Your business is to obey
orders, and not to wonder.”
The boy relapsed into sulky silence at once, and brooded all the way
home over the disgusting state of Stratford’s temper, never guessing
that it was with this very end in view, of detaching his thoughts from
the tragedy of the morning, that the rebuke had been administered to
him. In the courtyard of the Mission they found Dick engaged in
superintending the preparations for the funeral, and Stratford noticed
at once that among the riding-horses, which were those presented by
the King a few days before, there were two hired mules carrying a
curtained litter.
“Surely the ladies are not going?” he said to Dick.
“They are, indeed. Lady Haigh declared that she could never face the
doctor’s mother if she was unable to tell her in what kind of place he
was buried, and what the funeral was like, and it struck the Chief
that it was just possible they might be safer with us than left behind
here under Kustendjian’s charge. Our force is none too large now, you
know.”
And thus it happened that Lady Haigh and Georgia formed part of the
mournful procession that accompanied the doctor’s rude coffin to its
resting-place in the King’s garden. The streets and house-tops were
crowded with people, who gazed eagerly and in silence at the British
flag which covered the remains, and at the little group of Englishmen,
sad-faced and stern, who followed. Many of those in the crowd owed
relief from disease, or even life itself, to Dr Headlam’s skill, yet
no sign of grief was exhibited by any one. But neither was there any
attempt at mockery or sign of unfriendliness; the people seemed to
watch the proceedings with intense and absorbing curiosity, much,
thought Georgia, as the inhabitants of Mexico might have contemplated
a religious ceremony performed by Cortes and his Spaniards. The same
interest was shown at the cemetery, where another crowd had assembled,
that listened expectantly to the unfamiliar accents as Sir Dugald read
the Burial Service, and pressed forward eagerly to see what was
happening when Lady Haigh and Georgia came to the grave-side and threw
their flowers upon the coffin. The party from the Mission remained
beside the grave until it was filled up and a rough wooden tablet
erected, bearing the doctor’s name and the date of his death, and then
returned sadly home, parting from Rustam Khan and his attendants as
soon as they reached the city gate.
Now that the last honours had been paid to the dead, it was time, as
Sir Dugald had said to Dick, to think of the living, and the four
Englishmen and Kustendjian met on the terrace to discuss the state of
affairs. The latest cause for anxiety arose from the fact that Rustam
Khan had shown a strong disposition to emphasise the truth that he
attended the funeral merely as the representative of his father. He
had declined to ride side by side with Sir Dugald after the coffin,
and had displayed a determination, which under less painful
circumstances would have been almost ludicrous, to avoid direct
communication with any of the party.
“The moral of which is,” said Sir Dugald, “that we are by no means out
of the wood yet, but rather deeper in it than before, if possible. If
Rustam Khan is afraid to be seen speaking to us, or even to show the
friendly feeling the occasion might seem to demand, it looks to my
mind as though he knew that he had been accused to his father of
plotting with us to deprive him of the throne, and wished to assert
his innocence.”
“It strikes one that such a very pointed change of manner would be
calculated to awaken suspicion rather than to lull it,” said
Stratford--“though, of course, Rustam Khan must be the best judge of
that. But we are singularly destitute of information to-day. Even
Hicks would be better than no one.”
“Mr Hicks came here after you had started,” said Kustendjian, who had
been left in charge of the Mission during the funeral. “He would have
wished to attend the ceremony at the grave, but he had only just heard
what had happened, since all the morning he was suffering from a fit
of indigestion, induced by the dishes at the Vizier’s dinner last
night.”
“Well, it’s evident that he was not poisoned,” said Dick, “for
Fath-ud-Din would have done his work more effectually, for one thing;
and again, I know that I have invariably had the same experience
myself after a big native dinner in India or Khemistan. But he seems
to be no better provided with news than we are. I wonder what has
become of Jahan Beg.”
“That is just the question that has occurred to me,” said Sir Dugald.
“It is possible that his house is watched, and that he does not dare
to come here. But I hope his silence may mean merely that he has found
a good opportunity for sending off his messenger, and that he did not
wait for despatches or further directions from me, but packed him off
at once.”
“But supposing you hear, in the course of the next two or three weeks,
that the force you want is awaiting your orders at Fort Rahmat-Ullah,
what action do you propose to take, sir?” asked Dick.
“Simply to inform the King that I am about to withdraw the Mission. If
he will send troops to escort us to the frontier, as he did when we
came, it will be all right; but, if not, I shall order a sufficient
force to march to our assistance. It would not be a military
expedition, of course--merely a baggage-train with an armed
escort--but the King could not refuse it passage without open war.
That would necessitate his throwing himself into the arms of Scythia,
which he is very shy of doing; and it is my impression that when he
discovers we have the help we need at no great distance, he will
change his mind, sign the treaty, and allow us to take back to
Khemistan peace with honour.”
“But he would naturally begin a war, if he did decide upon one, by
wiping out the Mission,” suggested Dick, “or he might provide us with
an escort which had instructions to murder us all on the way. It would
come to pretty much the same thing in either case, so far as we were
concerned.”
“Risks of that kind one must take in the course of business,” said Sir
Dugald. “We can’t very well remain permanently at Kubbet-ul-Haj on our
present footing, but we will do our best to avoid playing the part of
victims in another Kurd-Cabul disaster.”
“Do you think they will make any further attempts to induce us to
accept their treaty, Sir Dugald?” asked Stratford.
“I think it is fairly certain that they will, believing that we have
been thrown off our guard by their friendliness to-day. As soon as
Fath-ud-Din is about again, we shall probably have him here, trying
his old tricks once more; but I have a pleasant little surprise in
store for him. I shall make it clear that all negotiations are to be
carried on at this house, and that neither I nor any of you will go to
the Palace on any business whatever connected with the treaty. I am
not going to risk the loss of any more lives by dividing our force,
but I shall not tell him that. It will be a disagreeable shock to him
to find that we only become stiffer in our demands as our position
grows more precarious, and he will think we possess some sort of moral
support behind the scenes of which he is ignorant.”
“What a fire-eater the Chief is!” said Stratford later to Dick. “He
ought to have commanded one of Nelson’s line-of-battle ships, and
engaged a whole French fleet before he went down with guns
double-shotted and colours flying.”
“A regular old fighting-cock!” said Dick, affectionately. “If we
hadn’t had the ladies with us, we should have seen him bearding the
King in the Palace itself, and defying Fath-ud-Din and the whole
Ethiopian army to their faces, I’m convinced. As it is--well, our
prospects don’t look particularly brilliant just now, but I feel that
if there is a man on earth who can get us out of this fix, it’s the
Chief.”
They were superintending the removal of the collection from Dr
Headlam’s desolate house to the Mission, and gathering together such
poor scraps of personal property as the marauders had overlooked or
left behind as worthless, to take home to his mother. When the place
was cleared they locked the door and delivered the key to the
landlord, who received it with a gloomy face, remarking that he never
expected to be able to find another tenant. Dick thought that he was
attempting to gain an increase of the substantial rent (as things go
in Ethiopia), which had already been paid him, but the landlord had
gauged correctly the character of his fellow-citizens. The house stood
empty for a long time, gaining a bad reputation without any tangible
reason; but at last, for an ample remuneration, a man was found bold
enough to sleep there, in order to prove that there was nothing wrong
about the place. But that bold man let himself down over the wall into
the street in the middle of the night by means of his turban, leaving
his mattress behind him; and the next day he told his friends that he
had been awakened by hearing the well-known clink of a medicine-bottle
against the measuring-glass, and, cautiously uncovering his head, had
looked out to see the ghost of the English doctor standing at a
phantom table and mixing immaterial drugs. That was enough, and the
house was left desolate until it ultimately fell into decay.
But this is anticipating, and we must return to the days when the
presence of a British envoy was an abiding reality in Kubbet-ul-Haj,
and not the shadowy tradition which it has since become. For a day or
two the party at the Mission were left undisturbed, although the
absence of any message from Jahan Beg robbed their tranquillity of
some of its attractiveness. The enforced seclusion within the walls of
the house could not fail to tell on the spirits of most of them; but
it was a point of honour with all to maintain an appearance of
cheerfulness for the sake of the rest, and those who possessed hobbies
found them a great help in this endeavour. Stratford studied
Ethiopian, Dick laboured at the map of the country which he had begun
during the journey from the frontier to the city, and Fitz, who was
the unresisting victim of a camera which accompanied him wherever he
went, photographed everything and everybody. Georgia had an object of
interest peculiarly her own in the perplexing conduct of Dick, who had
changed his place at meals, and contrived always to secure a seat
between Lady Haigh and herself, so that he could appropriate the first
cup of tea or coffee poured out, which it was naturally his duty to
pass on to Miss Keeling. Georgia pondered over this behaviour of his
for some little time without gaining any light upon it, and at last
opened her mind to her usual confidante.
“Lady Haigh, have you noticed the queer way in which Major North
behaves at meals? He won’t pass things, and I am sure it isn’t through
absence of mind, for he apologises at the time, and looks so
dreadfully confused.”
“Well, my dear child, I am sure there is nothing in all this for which
to blame him. Certainly you ought to be the very last person to
complain.”
“I, Lady Haigh?”
“Is it possible that you don’t guess his reason, Georgie?”
“Really and truly I haven’t an idea what it can be.”
“Then I think you ought to be enlightened. You remember that paper
which the poor doctor left, in which he warned us that you would
probably be the next of us to be attacked? Well, Major North doesn’t
mean you to be poisoned if he can prevent it. That’s all, and it
explains his eccentric behaviour fully.”
“Oh!” Georgia sat silent, a vivid crimson spreading over her face.
“But it isn’t fair that he should be allowed to risk his life in that
way, Lady Haigh,” she said at last.
“Very well, my dear; tell him so.”
“But that would sound so ungrateful. Couldn’t you tell him?”
“I could say that you would prefer to be poisoned rather than to be
helped after him, certainly.”
“Oh, Lady Haigh, you are unkind; you know it isn’t that! It is that I
can’t bear him to be always running the risk of being poisoned instead
of me.”
“Well, if you want my opinion, I should say that was a matter for
Major North to decide for himself.”
“Excuse me--I think it is a thing for me to decide.”
“My dear Georgie, you are very persistent. I can only repeat--settle
it yourself with Major North.”
But as Lady Haigh had foreseen, Georgia decided that it was not
advisable to broach the subject to Dick, and the matter was therefore
left untouched.