The
Advanced-Guard
BY
SYDNEY C. GRIER
AUTHOR OF ‘HIS EXCELLENCY’S ENGLISH GOVERNESS,’
‘THE WARDEN OF THE MARCHES,’
ETC., ETC.
(_Third in the Modern East series_)
_SHILLING EDITION_
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMXII
_All Rights reserved_
CONTENTS.
I. LADY HAIGH’S KIND INTENTIONS
II. THE AUTOCRAT
III. A BLANK SHEET
IV. UNSTABLE
V. COLIN AS AMBASSADOR
VI. MOUNTING IN HOT HASTE
VII. EYE-WITNESS
VIII. SEEING AND BELIEVING
IX. COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION
X. ARRAIGNED
XI. JUSTIFIED
XII. WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
XIII. THE DIE IS CAST
XIV. INTO THE TERRIBLE LAND
XV. A LAND OF DARKNESS AND THE SHADOW OF DEATH
XVI. “ENGLAND’S FAR, AND HONOUR A NAME”
XVII. THE STRENGTH OF TEN
XVIII. THE ALLOTTED FIELD
XIX. A WOUNDED SPIRIT
XX. THE ISLE OF AVILION
XXI. FIRE AND SWORD
XXII. TAKEN BY SURPRISE
XXIII. PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
XXIV. RAHMAT-ULLAH
XXV. THE RIGHT PREVAILS
XXVI. “FOR THINE AND THEE”
XXVII. AFTER TOIL--TOIL STILL
FOOTNOTES
THE ADVANCED-GUARD.
CHAPTER I.
LADY HAIGH’S KIND INTENTIONS.
Fifty years ago the great port of Bab-us-Sahel was in its infancy.
The modern ranges of wharfs and breakwaters were represented by a
single half-finished pier, and vessels still discharged their
passengers and cargo a mile from shore, to the imminent peril of life
and property. The province of Khemistan had only recently come under
British rule, by an operation which was variously described as “the
most shameless piece of iniquity ever perpetrated,” and “the
inevitable working of the laws of right and justice”; and the
iron-willed, iron-handed old soldier who had perpetrated the iniquity
and superintended the working of the laws was determined to open up
the country from the river to the desert and beyond. His enemies were
numerous and loud-voiced and near at hand; his friends, with the
exception of his own subordinates, few and far away; but he had one
advantage more common in those days than these, a practically free
hand. Under “the execrable tyranny of a military despotism,” the
labour of pacification and the construction of public works went on
simultaneously, and although the Bombay papers shrieked themselves
hoarse in denouncing Sir Henry Lennox, and danced war-dances over his
presumably prostrate form, no one in Khemistan was a penny the
worse--a fact which did not tend to mollify the angry passions
concerned.
The wand of the Eastern enchanter was not in the possession of the
nineteenth-century empire-builder, even though he might be the great
little man whom the natives called the Padishah, and (under their
breath) the Brother of Satan; and despite the efforts of a small army
of engineers, the growth of the new seaport was but slow. Yet, though
the native town was still obnoxious to sight and smell, and the broad
roads of the symmetrically planned cantonments were ankle-deep in dust
and sometimes knee-deep in sand, there was one improvement to which
General Lennox had been obliged to postpone even his beloved
harbour-works, and this was the seaside drive, where his little colony
of exiles might meet and condole with one another in the cooler hours
of the day. Every one rode or drove there morning and evening,
exchanging the latest local gossip on ordinary occasions, and news
from home on the rare mail-days. It was most unusual to see a man not
in uniform in the drive, for mufti was a word which had no place in
the General’s vocabulary; and it was even whispered that his
well-known detestation of civilians sprang from the fact that he could
not arbitrarily clap them into scarlet tunics. As for the ladies,
their skirts were of a generous amplitude, although the crinoline
proper had not yet made its appearance; but instead of the close
bonnets universal in fashionable Europe, they wore lace and muslin
caps, as their ancestresses had done since the first Englishwoman
stepped ashore in India. The more thrifty-minded guarded their
complexions with native umbrellas of painted calico; but there were
few who did not exhibit one of the miniature parasols, very long in
the handle and very small in the circumference, which were usual at
home.
The one interest which all the promenaders had in common was the daily
recurring uncertainty whether General Lennox would take his ride late
or early. He never failed to put in an appearance and bestow paternal
greetings on his flock, who all knew him and each other, keeping a
vigilant eye open the while for any newly arrived subaltern who might
have broken his unwritten law; but when he was in good time he made a
kind of royal progress, saying a word or two to a man here and there,
and saluting each lady in turn with the noble courtesy which went out
with the last of the Peninsular heroes. He was specially early one
evening, able even to notice absentees, and he asked more than once
with some anxiety why Lady Haigh was not there--a question which
excited the wrathful contempt of ladies of higher official rank. Lady
Haigh was only a subaltern’s wife, in spite of her title; but she was
amusing, a quality which has its attractions for a grizzled warrior
burdened with many responsibilities. However, one lady was able to
tell him that Sir Dugald Haigh had only just come in with Major
Keeling from their trip up-country, and another added that she
believed a friend of Lady Haigh’s had arrived that morning by the
steamer,--there was only one steamer that plied between Bombay and
Bab-us-Sahel,--and the General was satisfied. Life and death were not
so widely separated in Bab-us-Sahel as in more favoured places; and it
happened not unfrequently that a man might be riding in the drive one
evening, and be carried to his grave the next.
The Haighs’ house stood on the outskirts of the cantonments. It was a
small white-washed bungalow, remarkable for the extreme neatness of
its compound, and the pathetic attempts at gardening which were
evident wherever any shade might be hoped for. Very widely did it
differ from its nearest neighbour, a rambling, tumble-down cluster of
buildings inhabited by a riotous colony of bachelors, who were
popularly alleged to ride all day and drink all night. In view of the
amount of work exacted by Sir Henry Lennox from all his subordinates,
this was obviously an exaggeration; but the patch of unreclaimed
desert which surrounded Bachelors’ Hall, its broken fences, and the
jagged heaps of empty bottles here and there, distinguished it
sufficiently from the little domain where Sir Dugald and Lady Haigh
were conducting what their friends considered a very risky matrimonial
experiment. The festive young gentlemen next door lavished a good deal
of wonder and pity (as upon a harmless lunatic) upon Sir Dugald. That
a man who was hampered by a title and an unproductive Scotch estate
should let the latter and carry the former into the Indian army, where
it would array all his superiors against him as one man, instead of
remaining at home and using title and estate as a bait for an heiress,
was strange enough. But that he should proceed further to defy the
opinion of those in authority by bringing out a wife--and a plain
wife, without money and with a tongue (the bachelors had learnt
through an indiscreet lady friend that the bride had dubbed their
cheerful establishment “Beer and Skittles”)--seemed to show that he
must be absolutely mad. Lady Haigh’s relations, on the other hand,
regarded her marriage with trembling joy. Girls with aspirations after
higher education were fewer in those days than these, and perplexed
families did not know how to deal with them. By sheer hard fighting
Elma Wargrave had won leave to study at the newly founded Queen’s
College, but her family breathed a sigh of relief when, after less
than a year’s work, she announced that she was going to marry Sir
Dugald Haigh, whom she had met on a vacation visit. Whatever Elma
might take it into her head to do in the future, her husband and not
her parents would be responsible, and it would happen at a distance of
some thousands of miles. The baronetcy was an undeniable fact, and
there was no need to obtrude on people’s attention the other fact that
the bridegroom was merely a subaltern in the Company’s artillery.
Hence, when the wedding had safely taken place, the parents allowed
themselves to rejoice more and tremble less, only hoping that poor Sir
Dugald would not find he had undertaken more than he could manage. It
would have surprised them a good deal to learn that never until this
particular evening had the Haighs known even the semblance of a
serious disagreement. Lady Haigh had taken her young husband’s
measure, and adapted herself to it with a cleverness which was really
heroic in the case of a high-spirited, quick-tempered girl; and since
her arrival in Khemistan had been wont to assure herself that “after
the voyage, one could be angelic anywhere.”
Perhaps she saw reason to repent of this hasty assurance just now, as
she sat facing her husband across a table littered with letters and
papers which had formed part of the mail brought that morning by the
steamer. Sir Dugald, a small fair man, with the colourless skin which
becomes parchment-like instead of red under the influence of an
Eastern sun, was still buttoned up in his uniform,--a fact of itself
not calculated to improve his temper,--and punctuated his remarks by
swinging one spurred heel rhythmically to and fro as he leaned back in
his chair. His wife had rushed out to welcome him and pour her story
into his ear in the same breath the moment that he dismounted after a
long and dusty march; and he could not but be conscious that her
muslin gown was tumbled and not of the freshest, her neck-ribbon awry,
and her ringlets in disorder. Those ringlets were in themselves a
cause for irritation. Elma Wargrave had worn her hair in severe bands
of unassuming hideousness, but soon after her marriage Elma Haigh had
horrified her husband by adopting ringlets, which were singularly
unbecoming to her pleasant, homely face, under the delusion that he
liked them. It cost Sir Dugald a good deal to refrain from proclaiming
his abhorrence of the change which had been made for his sake; but he
was a just man, and even at this moment of tension did his best not to
allow his mind to be prejudiced by the obnoxious curls.
“Surely you must see,” he was saying with studied moderation, “that
you have placed me in a most unpleasant position? What if Ferrers
should call me out?”
“I should like to see him do it!” was the uncompromising reply. “I
should just go and tell the General, and get him arrested.”
Sir Dugald sighed patiently. “But look at it for a moment from
Ferrers’ point of view, Elma. He is engaged to this friend of yours,
Miss Andromache--what’s her name? Penelope?--and waiting for her to
come out. She comes out quite ready to marry him,--trousseau and
wedding-cake and all,--and you meet her at the steamer and tell her
such things about him that she breaks off the whole thing on the spot,
without so much as giving him a chance to clear himself.”
“He drinks, he gambles, he is in the hands of the money-lenders,” said
Lady Haigh tersely. “Was she to marry him in ignorance?”
“I don’t for a moment say it isn’t true. But if a man had done such a
thing he would have been called a brute and a low cad. I suppose a
woman can go and dash all a poor girl’s hopes, and separate her from
her lover, and still be considered a friend to her?”
“But he wasn’t her lover, and it was her fears, not her hopes, that I
put an end to.”
“My dear Elma!” Sir Dugald’s eyebrows went up.
“She didn’t love him,” persisted Lady Haigh. “Of course it sounds
horrid as you put it, but when you know the circumstances you will say
that I couldn’t possibly have let it go on. Penelope and Colin used to
know Captain Ferrers when they were children. He lived near them, and
their father was very kind to him, and used to get him out of scrapes
about once a-week. Ferrers was fond of the children, and they adored
him. When he went to India, Penelope can’t have been more than
fourteen, but he asked her if she would marry him when he came home. I
can’t imagine that he took it seriously, but she did; at any rate, she
felt bound by it. A romantic child of that age, with a brother as
romantic as herself to keep her up to it--of course she dreamed of him
continually. But he scarcely ever wrote to her father, and never to
her, and as she grew older she left off thinking about him. Then her
father died, and she went to live with her uncle in London while Colin
was at Addiscombe. That was when I used to meet her at the College.
Why, she never even told me she was engaged! Of course, I didn’t know
her very well, but well enough to have heard that. And since we came
out her uncle died, and her aunt and cousins didn’t want her. She’s
too handsome, you know. And Colin wanted her to come out with him--did
I tell you they were twins, and absolutely devoted?--but the aunt said
it wasn’t proper, until Colin remembered that old foolishness with
Ferrers, and at once--oh, it was the most delightful and suitable and
convenient plan that could possibly be devised! They had the grace not
to thrust her on Ferrers unprepared, but Colin wrote to him to say he
was bringing her out by the Overland, and poor Pen wrote to me--and
both letters were lost when the _Nuncomar_ went down! It was only with
dreadful misgivings that Penelope had consented to the plan, and she
got more and more miserable when they found no letters at Alexandria
or Aden or Bombay. When they arrived here this morning, and still
there were no letters and no Ferrers, she made Colin come to me,
though he wanted to go and hunt up Ferrers, and I brought her up here
at once, and settled matters.”
“And may I ask how you managed that?”
“I told her the sort of reputation Ferrers bears here, and how, after
the way they were keeping it up next door last night, he could not
have been down at the steamer even if he had got the letter, and then
I sent to ask him to come and see me.”
“Slightly high-handed. But go on.”
“You needn’t pity him. I am sure in his heart he regards me as his
dearest friend. I never saw a man so horrified in my life as when I
told him that Miss Ross was here. He was positively relieved when I
said that from what Miss Ross had learnt of his circumstances, she was
sure he had no intention of claiming the promise she gave him in her
childhood, and she hoped they would meet as friends, nothing more. He
was really thankful, Dugald.”
Sir Dugald allowed himself the luxury of a smile. “Possibly. But
surely the right thing would have been to help the poor wretch to pull
himself together, and reform him generally, and let her marry him and
keep him straight? That would have been a triumph.”
“Let him reform first, and then get her to marry him if he can,”
snapped Lady Haigh. “Would you have let a sister of yours marry him?”
“Not if I could help it. But you will allow me to remark that a sister
of mine would have had a home open to her here, instead of being
thrown upon a brother as young as herself who knows nothing of the
place and its ways, and who is coming up-country with us next month.”
“Oh, of course I offered her a home with us,” said Lady Haigh, with
outward calmness, but inward trepidation.
Sir Dugald’s eyebrows were slowly raised again. “You offered her a
home with us? Then of course there is no more to be said.”
He drew his chair nearer the table, and from the mass of papers
selected a book-packet from the ends of which a familiar green wrapper
protruded. Opening the parcel carefully with the paper-knife, he threw
away the cover, and settled down with an anticipatory smile to enjoy
his monthly instalment of Dickens. But he had gone too far. Anger Lady
Haigh had expected, to his deliberate movements she was slowly growing
accustomed, but that smile was intolerable. She leaned across the
table, and snatched the serial from his hand.
“Dugald, I will not have you so rude! Of course I want to talk things
over with you.”
“My dear Elma, what is there to talk over? In some miraculous way you
have overcome the Chief’s objections to ladies on the frontier, and
got leave to bring Miss Ross up with you. Anything that I could say
would only spoil your excellent arrangements.”
“But I haven’t seen Major Keeling. How could I, when he only came back
with you? And I haven’t got his leave. I want you to do that.”
“No,” said Sir Dugald resolutely. “I had enough to do with getting
leave for you to come to Alibad, and I am not going to presume upon
it. The Chief will think I want to cry off.”
“Then I’ll ask him myself,” recklessly. “I’m not in abject terror of
your great Major Keeling. He’s only a good man spoilt for want of a
wife.”
Lady Haigh meant to be irritating, and she succeeded, for her husband
had told her over and over again that such a view was purely and
hopelessly feminine. Sir Dugald threw down the paper-knife with a
clatter, and drew back his chair as if to leave the room.
“If I can’t get him to do it,” she pursued meditatively, “I’ll--let me
see----”
“Appeal to Cæsar--otherwise the General, I suppose? That seems to be
your favourite plan.”
“Oh dear, no; certainly not. I shall make Penelope ask Major Keeling
herself.”
“Now, Elma!” Sir Dugald detected something dangerous in the tone of
his wife’s remark. “That’s no good. Just let the Chief alone. He isn’t
the man to give in to anything of the kind.”
Lady Haigh seemed impressed, though perhaps she was only thinking
deeply, and her husband, instead of resting on his prophetic laurels,
unwisely descended to argument.
“He’s not a marrying man; and to go throwing your friend at his head
is merely lowering her in his eyes. He would see it in a moment.”
“My dear Dugald!”--Lady Haigh awoke from a brown study--“what
extraordinary things you are saying! I haven’t the slightest intention
of throwing Penelope at any one’s head. It’s really vulgar to suspect
every woman that comes near him of designs on Major Keeling.”
“Then why do you want to take Miss Ross up with us?”
“Because I am her only friend in India, of course. I wish you wouldn’t
put such thoughts into my head, Dugald,” plaintively. “Now if anything
should come to pass, I shall always feel that I have helped in
bringing it on, and I do hate match-making.”
“But you said she was handsome,” objected the discomfited husband.
“Well, and is Major Keeling the only unmarried man in the world? Why,
Captain Ferrers is coming up to Alibad too.”
“So he is. By the bye, didn’t you say he hadn’t seen her since she was
a child? My word, Elma, he will have a crow to pluck with you when he
finds what you have robbed him of.”
“I haven’t robbed him,” said Lady Haigh serenely. “I have only kept
him from taking an unfair advantage of Penelope’s inexperience. He may
win her yet. He shall have a fair field and no favour. He is coming
here to-night.”
“Oh, that’s your idea of a fair field, is it? No favour, certainly.”
“Of course I want them to meet under my eye, until I see whether there
is any hope of his reforming.”
“Well, we shall be a nice little family party on the frontier.”
“Shan’t we? Let me see, Major Keeling is going because he is the
heaven-sent leader, and you because you fought your guns so well at
Umarganj, and I because you got leave for me. Colin Ross is going
because his father was an old friend of Major Keeling’s, Ferrers
because the General begged Major Keeling to take him as the only
chance of keeping him out of mischief, and Penelope is going because I
am going to ask leave for her.”
“Don’t you hope you may get it? Well, if you have no more thunderbolts
to launch, I’ll go and get into some cooler things.”