FIRE AND SWORD.
“Why, Dugald, where are you off to so early?” cried Lady Haigh,
coming out of her tent at breakfast-time, and finding her husband and
his boy busy selecting guns, filling powder-flasks, and laying in a
store of bullets, flints, percussion-caps, and other necessaries
unknown to the sportsman of to-day.
“After the man-eater. They’ve sent me _khubber_ of him at last. It’s
right out at Rajkot, so I shall be gone all day, even if I don’t have
to wait over to-night. You needn’t get nervous if I do.”
“You might just as well let us come,” she sighed argumentatively.
“I have far too much respect for your life--and mine. If you came you
wouldn’t be satisfied without a gun, which would go off of its own
accord, like poor Mr Winkle’s, and then--well, I would rather be the
tiger than any human being in your neighbourhood.”
“Isn’t he horribly rude, Pen? We don’t want to go pushing through
jungle-grass after an old mangy tiger, do we? We are going to engage
in light and elegant employments suited to our sex. He knows quite
well that if I can’t shoot straight it’s his fault for not having
taught me. If only I had had the sense to learn before I came out, I
would slip away and get to Rajkot before him, and the first thing he
saw when he got there would be a dead tiger.”
“More likely that I should find myself a sorrowing widower,” said Sir
Dugald, who was in high good humour at the prospect of getting a sixth
tiger. “No, no, stick to your weeds and straws, ladies, and don’t get
into mischief while I’m gone. You talked of going out to that dry
_jheel_ to the eastward, and you can’t do much harm there. Take
Murtiza Khan with you, of course.”
“He’s insufferably proud because he thinks he’s going to bag the
man-eater,” said Lady Haigh. “What he will be when he comes back I
really can’t imagine. I wish I could bewitch tigers, as that old man
in the village says he can. Then I would give this one something that
would keep it miles away from Dugald, however far he went.”
Sir Dugald laughed pleasantly over this uncharitable wish as he handed
his second gun to the _shikari_ who was to accompany him. The ponies
were already saddled, and he had only time for a mouthful of food
before starting, his last counsel to his wife being not to venture
farther from the camp than the _jheel_ he had mentioned, as the sky
was curiously hazy, and he thought the weather was going to break up.
The winter rains had been unusually slight this year, so that the
country was already beginning to look parched, and the forest foliage,
which should still have been soft and fresh, was becoming quite stiff,
and what Lady Haigh called “rattly,” though the heat was not yet too
great for camping. The climate of Khemistan is so uncertain that a
thunderstorm was at least possible; but after Sir Dugald had ridden
away to the southward, his wife decided that the haze portended heat
rather than thunder, and that it would be perfectly safe to undertake
the expedition to the _jheel_. She and Penelope started soon after
breakfast, attended only by their two grooms and Murtiza Khan, a
stalwart trooper who was Sir Dugald’s orderly on occasions like the
present, when he was in separate command. The _jheel_ proved a
disappointment, for it was so dry that the delicate bog-plants Lady
Haigh had hoped to secure were all dead, and the grasses were the
ordinary coarse varieties to be found all over the country. Lady Haigh
and Penelope soon tired of the fruitless search, and sat down to rest
on a bank pleasantly scented with sweet basil before taking to the
saddle again. They were conscious of a strong disinclination for the
ride back, the air was so hot, the track so dusty, and the forest so
shadeless.
“It really is more like smoke than cloud,” said Lady Haigh, looking up
at the lowering sky, “and whenever there is the least breeze one
almost seems to smell smoke. I wish it wasn’t coming from the
direction of the camp. It’s horrid to leave the clear sky behind, and
ride straight into twilight. I wonder how far Dugald has got--whether
he will be out of the storm. He is sure to have fever if he gets wet.
I think I will send one of the servants after him with fresh clothes.
They would keep dry if I packed them in a tin box----”
“What can that boy be saying?” interrupted Penelope, pointing across
the swamp to the belt of forest on the opposite side. A native boy,
unkempt and lightly clad, had appeared from among the trees, and
paused in apparent astonishment on catching sight of the two ladies
sitting in the shade, and the horses feeding quietly close at hand
under the charge of their grooms. Now he was shouting and
gesticulating wildly, and Murtiza Khan had hurried to the brink of the
reed-beds to hear what he was saying.
“He must be warning us that the storm is coming on,” said Lady Haigh,
as the boy pointed first at the darkening sky, and then back in the
direction of the camp. “Pen! I am sure I smelt smoke at that moment.
Did you notice it?”
Murtiza Khan turned his head for a second and shouted a sharp order to
the grooms, which made them bestir themselves to get the horses ready,
then asked some other question of the boy, who answered with more
frenzied gesticulations than ever. When the trooper seemed to persist,
he ran to a convenient tree and climbed up it like a monkey, and from
a lofty branch shouted and pointed wildly, then slid down, and
abandoning any further attempt at conversation, took to his heels and
ran at his utmost speed along the edge of the swamp towards the east,
where the sky was still clear.
“What is it, Murtiza Khan?” asked Lady Haigh breathlessly, as the
trooper hurried up the bank towards her.
“Highness, the forest is on fire. Will the Presences be graciously
pleased to mount at once? We must ride eastwards.”
“But the camp? the servants? We must warn them!” cried Lady Haigh.
“They will have seen the fire coming, Highness, for they are nearer it
than we. They will stand in the lake, and let the flames sweep over
them, and so save themselves. But we cannot go back, for we should
meet the fire before we reached the lake.”
“But the Sahib!” cried Lady Haigh frantically. “He will be cut off. I
will not go on and leave him. We must go back.”
“Highness, the Sahib is wise, and has with him the _shikari_
Baha-ud-Din, who knows the forest well. He will protect himself, but
the care of the Presences falls to me.”
“I tell you I won’t go,” cried Lady Haigh. “Take the Miss Sahib on,
and I will go back alone.”
“It must not be, Highness. The Sahib gave me a charge, and I swore to
carry it out at the risk of my own life. ‘Guard the Mem Sahib and the
Miss Sahib,’ he said; and I will do it. Be pleased to mount,
Highness,” as she still hesitated.
“Sir Dugald would tell you to come, Elma,” urged Penelope. “If we
could do anything, I would say go back at once; but we don’t even know
exactly where he is, and delay now will sacrifice the men’s lives as
well as ours.”
Lady Haigh looked round desperately, but found no remedy. Reluctantly
she allowed herself to be helped into the saddle, and the ponies
started off at once. For some time the grooms had found it difficult
to hold them, for they were turning their heads uneasily towards the
west, snuffing the air, and pricking their ears as though to listen
for sounds. Now they needed no urging to fly along the strip of sward
between the forest and the _jheel_; and it was with difficulty that
their riders pulled up sufficiently to allow Murtiza Khan to get in
front when the end of the swamp was reached, and a way had to be found
through the jungle. The trooper, on his heavier horse, rode first,
crashing through the underwood which had overgrown the almost
invisible track, then came the two ladies, and the grooms panted
behind, holding on to the ponies’ tails when the forest was
sufficiently open to allow of a canter. From time to time Murtiza Khan
looked back to urge his charges to greater speed, and on all sides the
voices of the forest proclaimed the imminence of the danger. Flights
of birds hovered distressfully over the riders’ heads, unwilling to
leave their homes, but taking the eastward course at last; and through
the undergrowth could be seen the timid heads of deer, all seeking
safety in the same direction. When a more open space was reached the
scene was very curious, for antelopes, wild pig, and jungle-rats,
regardless alike of the presence of human beings and of each other,
were all rushing eastwards, driven by the same panic. One of the
grooms even shrieked to Murtiza Khan that he saw a tiger, but the
trooper dismissed the information contemptuously. The tiger would have
enough to do to save himself, and would not pause in his flight to
attack his companions in misfortune.
By this time there was no mistaking the smoke-clouds which travelled
in advance of the fire, and brought with them the smell of burning
wood and a confusion of sounds. The roar of the advancing flames, the
crackling of branches, with an occasional crash when a large tree
fell, filled the air with noise. The dry jungle burned like tinder, so
that a solid wall of fire seemed to be sweeping over it. Underfoot
were the dry weeds and sedges and jungle-grass, then a tangled mass of
brushwood, above which reared themselves the taller trees, poplar or
mimosa or acacia, all of them parched from root to topmost twig, an
easy prey. Presently one of the grooms jerked out an inquiry whether
it would not be better to abandon the ponies and climb trees, but the
trooper flung back a contemptuous negative.
“There were three Sahibs did that,” he said, “and when the trees were
burnt through at the root, they fell down into the fire. Stay and be
roasted if ye will, sons of swine. The Memsahibs and I will go on.”
They went on, the roar of the flames coming nearer and nearer, the hot
breath of the fire on their necks, the crash of falling trees sounding
so close at hand that they bent forward involuntarily to escape being
crushed, the frenzied pack of wild creatures running beside and among
the horses, forgetting the lesser fear in the greater. Suddenly in
front of them loomed up a bare hillside, steep like a wall. Murtiza
Khan gave a shout.
“To the left! to the left!” he cried. “We cannot climb up here.”
They turned the horses, noticing now that the stream of wild animals
had already divided, part going to the left and part to the right. One
side of their faces was scorched by the hot air; a sudden leap, as it
seemed, of the flames seized a tamarisk standing in their very path.
Murtiza Khan caught the ladies’ bridles and dragged the ponies past
it, then lashed them on furiously. The fire was running along the
ground, licking up the parched grasses. He forced the ponies through
it, then pulled them sharply to the right. A barren nullah faced them,
with roughly sloping sides, bleak and dry, but it was salvation. On
those naked rocks there was no food for the flames. Murtiza Khan was
off his horse in a moment, and seizing Lady Haigh’s bridle, led her
pony up the steep slope to a bare ledge. His own horse followed him
like a dog, and one of the grooms summoned up sufficient presence of
mind, under the influence of the trooper’s angry shout, to lead up
Penelope’s pony. They spread a horsecloth on the ground, and Lady
Haigh and Penelope dropped thankfully out of their saddles. They were
trembling from head to foot, their hair and habits singed, but they
were safe. On a barren hillside, without food or water, in a desolate
region, but safe.
For some time they could do nothing but sit helplessly where they
were, watching with dull eyes what seemed the persistent efforts of
the fire to reach them. Tongues of flame shot out of the burning mass
and licked the bare hillside, then sank back thwarted, only to make a
further attempt to pursue the fugitives and drive them from their
refuge. The fire was no longer inanimate; it was a sentient and malign
creature, determined that its prey should not escape. Its efforts
ceased at last for lack of fuel, and the castaways on the ledge were
able to think of other things. Murtiza Khan began to improvise a sling
with a strip torn from his turban, and Lady Haigh, wondering what he
could intend to aim at, saw that a little higher up the nullah one of
the forest antelopes had taken refuge on a ledge similar to their own.
She turned on the trooper angrily--
“What, Murtiza Khan! so lately saved and so soon anxious to destroy?
Let the creature escape, as God has allowed us.”
“As the Presence wills,” said Murtiza Khan, with resignation, while
the antelope, catching the sound of human voices, took alarm and
bounded away. “I was but desirous of providing food, for we have here
only some broken _chapatis_. Is it the will of the Presence that we
should leave this place, and seek to find some dwelling of men in
these mountains?”
“No,” said Lady Haigh shortly, “we wait here for the Sahib. If he is
alive he will seek us; if not, we will seek him.”
The trooper did not venture to offer any opposition, and Lady Haigh
returned to her former attitude, gazing over the smoky waste, from
which the blackened trunk of a tall tree protruded here and there. She
had some biscuits in her plant-case, which she shared with Penelope,
and Murtiza Khan and the grooms made a meal of the fragments
discovered in the trooper’s saddle-bags, after which the three men
went to sleep, having duly asked and received permission. Lady Haigh
and Penelope scarcely spoke at all through the long hot thirsty hours
that followed. The sun beat down on them, reflected from the steep
walls of the nullah; but if they moved into the shade lower down, they
would lose the view. The fire had long burned itself out, and the
smoke-clouds lifted gradually, disclosing a gloomy expanse of black
ashes. The ground had been cleared so thoroughly that it seemed as if
it ought to be possible to see as far as the spot where the camp had
been, but the air was still too hazy, a dull grey taking the place of
the ordinary intense blue of the sky. There was no sign of life
anywhere on the plain which had been forest, but as the afternoon wore
on Penelope started suddenly.
“Did you see, Elma?” she cried. “I am sure I saw a man’s face. He was
looking at us over those rocks,” and she pointed to the crest of the
cliff on the opposite side of the nullah.
“It can’t be one of our men, for why should they want to hide?” said
Lady Haigh gloomily, returning to her watch. “I don’t see anything.”
“But it must be one of the tribesmen, then, and they will attack us.
Do wake up Murtiza Khan, and let him go and look. Elma! you don’t want
to be taken prisoner, do you?”
Thus adjured, Lady Haigh aroused the trooper, who descended into the
dry bed of the nullah and scaled the opposite height with due
precaution, but found no one, and reported that he could see nothing
but more rocks and barren hills. In returning, he ventured out on the
plain, at Lady Haigh’s order, that he might see whether it was yet
possible to traverse it. But when he turned up the black ashes with
the toe of his boot, they showed red and fiery underneath.
“It may not be, Highness,” he said. “Neither man nor horse can cross
the forest to-day. Is it permitted to us to leave this spot?” Lady
Haigh’s gesture of dissent was sufficient answer. “Then have I the
Presence’s leave to send the grooms, one each way, along the edge of
these cliffs? It may be that the Sahib is looking for us round about
the place of the fire, and one of them may meet him.”
To this Lady Haigh consented, and the two men started, rather
unwillingly, since both were afraid of going alone. The one who had
gone to the right returned very quickly, saying that he had seen a
man’s face in a bush, which turned out, however, to be perfectly
normal when he reconnoitred cautiously behind it, and that he was
going no farther, since the place was evidently the haunt of _afrit_.
The other was longer absent, and when he appeared he was accompanied
by another man, who was rapturously recognised by the fugitives as one
of the grass-cutters from the camp, who had gone with Sir Dugald to
Rajkot. Carefully hidden in his turban he bore a note, very dirty and
much crumpled, and evidently written on the upper margin of a piece of
newspaper which Sir Dugald had taken with him to provide wadding for
his guns. Lady Haigh read it eagerly, but as she did so her face
changed.
“What happened when the Sahib had given you this _chit_?” she asked
imperiously of the grass-cutter.
“The Sahib started with the _shikari_ Baha-ud-Din in the direction of
Alibad, Highness, leaving his groom behind to tell any of the servants
that might have escaped from the camp to follow him.”
“Bid them make ready the horses,” said Lady Haigh shortly to Murtiza
Khan, then read the note again with renewed disapproval.
“Elma, what is it?” asked Penelope anxiously.
“It’s nothing. I am a fool,” was the laconic answer. “Only--well, I
suppose one doesn’t care to have one’s heroism taken for granted,
however much one has tried to be heroic.”
“But Sir Dugald is safe? He must be, from what Jagro said.”
“Yes, I’m thankful for that. But this is what he says: ‘News just
brought by a villager that a Nullahpooree army under Govind Chund has
crossed the frontier through the mountains behind Sheykhgur, intending
to surprise Ulleebad from the south-west. They were guided by some one
who knows the country well, but must have fired the _shikargah_
accidentally in their march. I am sending this by Juggro, in the
earnest hope that he may fall in with you. I dare not delay; Ulleebad
must be warned. I join Keeling immediately; do you take refuge at
Sheykhgur. Moorteza Khaun knows where it is; he went there with the
Chief and me when Crayne was here. Tell the Sheykh of the invasion,
and ask him to give you shelter till I can come for you.’ Really
Dugald might be issuing general orders! The rest is to me--that he
feels it a mockery to write when he doesn’t know whether I am alive or
dead, and so on.”
“But if he durst not lose any time----?” hesitated Penelope.
“My dear, I know that perfectly well. If we were dead he could do
nothing more for us; if we were alive we could look after ourselves.
His attitude is absolutely common-sensible. But he might have asked me
whether I minded before levanting in this way. No, he couldn’t very
well have done that. It’s a fine thing to have a Roman husband, Pen.”
“Of course it is, and you are proud of him for doing it.”
“Well, perhaps I am; but all the same, I wish he hadn’t! There’s
consistency for you. And now to try and make Murtiza Khan understand
what is required of him.”
The task set before the trooper was not a light one. He could have
found his way to Sheikhgarh with tolerable ease from the direction of
Alibad, but from this side of the hills he had only the vaguest idea
of its position. It must lie somewhere in the maze of rocks and
ravines to the north-east, that was all he knew, and he led his party
up the nullah, which appeared to lead roughly in the desired
direction. It turned and twisted and wound in the most perplexing
manner, however, and it seemed a godsend when the figure of a man was
discernible for an instant on the summit of the cliff. He disappeared
as soon as he caught sight of the travellers; but the stentorian
shouts of Murtiza Khan, promising safety and reward, brought him out
of his hiding-place again, to peer timidly over the rocks. He belonged
to a distant village, he said, and was seeking among the hills for
three sheep that had been lost, and he could guide the party as far as
the Sheikh-ul-Jabal’s outposts, beyond which he durst not go. Even
with reward in view, he would not come down into the nullah, but took
his way along the top of the cliff, often lost to view, and guiding
the trooper by shouts. When at length he stopped short, demanding the
promised coin, evening was coming on, and still there was no sign of
human habitation to be seen, but only dry torrent-beds and frowning
rocks. It chanced that Lady Haigh had a rupee about her--a most
unusual thing in camp-life--and this was duly laid upon a rock
indicated by the guide, who would not come down to secure it while the
travellers were in sight.
It was not without some trepidation that Lady Haigh and Penelope saw
that their path now dipped down into a deep ravine, bordered by dark
overhanging cliffs; but they would not betray their fears before the
natives, and went on boldly. As soon as they had set foot in the
ravine, however, their ears were suddenly assailed by a tumult of
sound. Shouts ran from cliff to cliff, and were taken up and returned
and multiplied by the echoes until the air was filled with noise. Even
Murtiza Khan was startled, and the grooms seized the ponies’ bridles
and tried to turn them round. The ponies kicked and plunged, the
trooper stormed, and his subordinates jabbered, while Lady Haigh tried
in vain to make herself heard above the din. In vain did Murtiza Khan
assure the grooms that what they heard was only the voices of the
Sheikh’s sentinels, posted on the rocks above them; they swore that
the place was bewitched, and that legions of evil spirits were holding
revel there. Murtiza Khan was obliged to lay about him with the flat
of his tulwar before they would let go the reins, and allow the
ladies, whose position on the steep hillside had been precarious in
the extreme, to follow him farther into the darkness. They yielded
with the worst possible grace; and when the trooper, a few steps
farther on, shouted back some question to them, only the dispirited
voice of the grass-cutter answered him. The other two had fled. A
little later, and even the grass-cutter’s heart failed him, as the
twilight became more and more gloomy, and he slipped behind a
projecting rock until the cavalcade had passed on, then ran back to
the entrance of the ravine as fast as his legs could carry him. Lady
Haigh suggested going back to find the deserters, but the trooper
scouted the idea. The light was going fast, and to spend the night in
this wilderness of rocks was not to be thought of. They must press on
into the resounding gloom.