The way in which the two accepted the situation was characteristic of
both. Mervyn took it apparently as all in the day's work, though he had
reason to believe that his days were surely numbered. He conversed
equably with his captors--or escort, as though he were accompanying them
of his own free will, to pay a visit to their village for instance, for
any other pacific purpose. Yet he knew that in coming to this country
again he had deliberately--as Hussein Khan had put it--placed his head
between the tiger's jaws.
Even this, strange to say, did not perturb him, perhaps he had imbibed a
large proportion of Oriental fatalism during his lifelong acquaintance
with the strange peoples of the East. If his time had come--it had, and
there was no more to be said. It had nearly come, he knew full well,
when the cry through the winter midnight had led him to drag the
perishing man forth from the icy death. Now, if it really had come,
why--"it was written;" and in that case that he had returned to this
land at all, and of his own free will--was part of the scheme. Thus he
looked at it.
But--what of Melian? Had he not drawn her into peril? No--for he did
not believe they would harm her. For himself, if what he suspected
should prove true--why then his hours were certainly numbered. Well,
what then? Until she had come to Heath Hover he had not been in love
with life. He was often, in fact, honestly and genuinely sick of it.
The brightening which her coming had shed upon it could not be other
than temporary. In the due and ordinary course of things she was bound
to leave him again sooner or later--and then, how could he return to the
old solitude, the old depression of day in, night out? There was
nothing to look forward to, and precious little to look back upon. So
it mattered little enough now whatever happened to himself. All of
which of course, he did not impart to Melian.
She for her part, seemed infected with his unconcern, and looked upon
the whole affair as a decidedly interesting adventure. It had its
inconvenient side--for instance the commissariat department was to her
civilised tastes, abominable, and sleeping out among the rocks was
chilly of a night. But she was allowed to come and go as she liked. No
watch was set upon her, for in the first place she had volunteered to go
with them rather than separate from her relative, and in the next where
would she be in the midst of this craggy, and, to her, entirely unknown
wilderness, even if she did change her mind, and take it into her head
to try and escape. At night they would make her up a couch of mats in
some cleft or hollow among the rocks and shelter off the entrance, and
she would declare laughingly to her uncle that it was only an experience
of camping out, after all.
Yet there were times when her efforts at keeping up her spirits would
sorely fail her. Mervyn himself could not consistently find comfort in
cold fatalism, and she would read in the gloom of his knitted brows that
he was by no means so easy in his mind as he would have had her believe.
And as they journeyed on, through the awful wildness of this savage,
rock built region; threading gloomy gorges where the very light of the
sun would not penetrate, or traversing a drear waste of desert where the
friable soil rose and gyrated in "dust devils" and the sun blazed down
as from the reflection of an opened furnace; wending the while, whither
they knew not--her spirits began to droop. In short the situation was
getting upon her nerves--and that badly.
The shaggy, turbaned horsemen, whom at first she had found fascinating
in their picturesqueness, began to appear in her eyes more and more the
predatory, merciless beings they really were. The wild savagery of the
surroundings--which at first she had pronounced absolutely faultless in
their fantastic chaos of rock and crag and chasm, now took on a
Dantesque and hope-chilling aspect. Where would it all end?
Either Hussein Khan's estimate of the distance to be travelled to arrive
at the Gularzai chieftain's stronghold had been very much under-rated,
or they were bound for some other destination, for two nights had
passed, and they seemed no nearer to any fixed ending of their
journeyings. And then when her spirits had reached their lowest ebb,
came a thought to Melian's mind like the breaking of sunlight through a
thick mist.
Helston Varne was at Coates' camp, which had been their objective when
their plans had been thus roughly and suddenly deflected. She would
hardly own to herself how greatly she had been looking forward to
meeting him again, and now it seemed to her that he, of all human
agencies, would be the one to come to their aid and bring matters right.
How on earth he was going to do it she had not the ghost of an idea,
but that he would contrive to do it somehow, she felt assured--almost.
For the very name of Helston Varne seemed to her now as before, a tower
of refuge. And something of this she imparted to her uncle.
But he shook a gloomy head. A network was around him--around them
both--which even Helston Varne's acumen and infinite resource would be
powerless to rend asunder. This he knew, but she did not, and--he could
not tell her.
He had been very careful in his conversations with her, and had enjoined
upon her like caution. It was highly probable, but still not absolutely
safe to assume, that no one amid their captors understood English. She
suggested French, but then Mervyn's education, though excellent for
purposes of passing through a crammer's hands in his salad days,
comprised no working knowledge of that courtly and useful tongue, so
that fell through, and unless now and again, and then by dark hints,
they were compelled to avoid any reference to the motive of their
capture, and the ultimate chances of its satisfactory termination. And
then it befell that the merest chance--a piece of overheard
conversation--sufficed to throw him into the last stage of gloomy,
hopeless despair.
It was during one of their noontide halts. The routine of prayer and
prostration--which Melian had at first found so picturesque, even
admirable, but now had wearied of--was over, and the men were scattered
about in twos or threes, looking after the horses and other things. Two
of them were chatting together in a drowsy undertone, and Mervyn,
unnoticed by them, was just within earshot, and the substance of what
they were saying was this. He himself must die, his time had come.
That night they would reach the place--_the place_. Well, this as a
personal consideration troubled him not much, he had only expected it.
But the woman with the sun-tinged hair, they went on to say, she, unless
the _Sirkar_ at Mazaran paid the lakh of rupees which would be asked for
her restoration--or made any move against them because of what had been
done--why there were those over the Persian border who would give nearly
if not quite as much for such an addition to their _harim_.
In frozen horror he took in this, but it was essential to show no sign
that he had heard. Would such a sum be paid, and if it were, would not
official delay and official bungling be such as to render even
compliance of none effect? Moreover, could the authorities responsible
for the peace of the border allow so flagrant an act of dacoity to pass
without retaliative measures? In either case--Good Heavens! He knew
enough about the conditions of a vast tract of hardly penetrated
country, and its inscrutable inhabitants, to realise that once Melian
disappeared entirely she would be as completely swallowed up, as though
the whole Indian army, and the official mechanism, from the Viceroy
downwards, were not in existence. And this was the fate to which his
own foolhardiness had consigned her. And she was as much to him as ever
child of his own could have been!
He knew the two speakers as near kinsmen of Allah-din Khan, and that as
such that they were not talking at random. He himself was to die that
night, that was settled. That was nothing. "It was written." But how
to save Melian from the unutterable ghastliness of the fate mapped out
for her? That was everything. No amount of fatalism would come to his
aid there. In the hot swelter of noontide--for with all the keen chill
of the nights on these high lands, the sun at noonday threw off from the
rocks and arid ground in waves of glowing heat--his brain seemed to
bubble. One weltering thought seethed through it--that of taking her
life and his own at the same time, but as against this he remembered
that he was unarmed. They had insisted upon his giving up everything in
the shape of a weapon at the time of his surrender. Then again, she had
the one chance in her favour, what right had he to deprive her of it?
Well, there remained still some hours--_some hours only_--which he had
left to him, and yet his reason told him that they could bring nothing.
Of his own death, or even the manner of it, he did not think--so wrapped
up was he in the desperation of extremity as the situation affected her.
"Why, Uncle Seward, buck up. You are looking dreadfully down," she
remarked, as they resumed their journey. "And you were the one who was
always trying to hearten me."
"Yes darling, I was, but--perhaps I am not quite the thing. Got a touch
of the sun, or something. But I'll be all right when it gets cooler. A
tough old campaigner like me is never affected that way for long."
He noticed that she herself was far from cheerful, and that her spirits
were forced. But--great God! if she only knew what he had learned. In
sheer desperation he ranged his horse alongside that of Allah-din Khan,
and began to talk, haply in hope that the other might let fall some hint
which should give him an idea. It even seemed to him that he himself
was talking wildly and at random, for he surprised the chief looking at
him more than once in a restrained and curious manner. Yet they had
often talked together during their enforced march.
"I should not have consented to the Miss Sahib accompanying me," he
ventured. "I fear it has been too much for her. Could you not return
her to her people, brother? It would be of great advantage to all
concerned?"
He made the remark in sheer desperation, and emphasising the last words.
But nothing came of it.
"We have come far," replied Allah-din Khan, tranquilly, "but in time she
will return. The teachings of the Prophet enjoin patience, but women--
Feringhi women especially--have none of it. Let this one learn to
acquire it."
This was uncompromising, but Mervyn thought to see a loophole.
"In time she will return," he repeated. "That is the word of a Sirdar
of the Gularzai?"
To this the chief made no reply. He was looking straight in front of
him as he rode, and his dark, clear-cut face was as impassive as a mask.
He might, indeed, not have heard for all the sign he gave.
In the light of what he had overheard it was significant to Mervyn that
a glance at the sun showed that they were travelling due west. What
curious dash of wild hope was it that caused him to recall that this had
brought them a great deal nearer to Mazaran than they were when at the
point of their start? And yet, even if chance offered, there were
ranges of craggy, tooth-like crests between them and the garrison
station, and he himself was totally unacquainted with this part of the
country. But what chance could offer? None. Absolutely none.
An hour before sundown they halted at a small, squalid looking village--
and then the regulation performances of prayer were gone through. He
did notice that several strangers had joined with Allah-din Khan's band
in this--presumably people from the squalid, mud-walled village. That
one of them was a man of extra fine stature and presence, he also
noticed, but barely so. For instance he overlooked the fact that this
one was bowing down, and repeating the prescribed words with extra
fervour, and a fanatical ecstasy in his dark eyes and swarthy
countenance, and that the others were stealing at him glances of furtive
veneration.
As they resumed their march he ranged his horse alongside that of
Melian. No restriction was put upon such movements as this. The band
was riding anyhow and in open order now--straggling order would be the
better term for it, for some were quite far behind. In the first place
their captives were mounted on inferior steeds, in the next the Gularzai
were perfectly well aware that in such country as they now were in, any
attempt at escape would meet with not the ghost of a chance.
"My child, I have brought you into a dreadful corner," he said, and the
dead note of hopelessness in his tone struck a chill into his hearer.
"I ought never to have consented to your accompanying me, but now it's
too late. Listen. If anything should happen to me, you will still be
set free on a ransom. The Government will pay it, I have very little in
the world, but such as it is I have left it to you--and now but for me
being such a fool as to bring you here we might have gone on in our old
quiet, happy life; not necessarily at Heath Hover. Well, what I wanted
to say, and I must say it quickly, is this, If anything should happen to
me, ask to be taken to the Nawab Shere Dil Khan. He is the head chief
of the Gularzai, and this one is under him. I'll write the words down
for you in Hindustani, and you can learn them by heart--and keep on
asking--keep on asking." He felt in his pocket, and even wrote in his
pocket, on an envelope he found there. "And don't show any fear, keep
on steadfastly requiring the Nawab Shere Dil Khan--have you got the
name, well, I've put it down here, only it's not very distinct. Well
now, take the bit of paper--That was well done. And--there's another
thing."
Melian looked at the speaker and her eyes filled. Her nerves had begun
to go, and she was feeling utterly helpless and overwrought. Now this
strong foreboding of danger aggravated this.
"Darling Uncle Seward, what should be going to happen to you?" she
urged. "There now, you have been trying to keep me up; now I must try
and keep you up. Surely they won't harm you--us--if they expect to be
paid for letting us go?"
"Yes. That's right, little one. They won't harm--us," he answered.
"Still, it's best to be on the safe side. Once you get to the Nawab
you're safe. He's a straight and square man, but unfortunately, these
sub-tribal chiefs are virtually almost independent of the head, or it's
certain we should not be here."
"I'll remember," she answered. "But,"--as though a sudden and
illuminating idea had struck her. "Why don't _you_ appeal to him--now,
before we go any further. Why leave it to what--isn't going to happen--
and me?"
Here was a question which it was impossible for him to answer, though to
all appearances, nothing could have been more pertinent. He could not
tell her that in his case the head sirdar of the Gularzai would be every
whit as merciless as would Allah-din Khan and his followers. But her
case was different. And that ghastly plan which he had overheard had
resolved him to an even more hazardous course on her behalf--hazardous
because one of sheer sink or swim.
"`Why?'" he repeated. "`Why?' Always a woman's query--Why?" And he
looked at her with a very loving but very sad smile. "I can only tell
you this, child, that you must leave that part of it to me, and do
exactly as I tell you I _know_--and you don't. That must be sufficient.
This is the dim, mysterious East, remember, and I've spent the best
years of my life in it."
The sun was drooping now to the craggy, serrated ridge beyond the
valley, flaming in red gold upon the cliffs beneath which they were
riding. The figures of the wild, turbaned horsemen were picked out in
the clear glow--the strange, fierce East indeed. Melian thought it was
a picture that would remain stamped in her memory until her dying day.
There were signs too, that the said figures showed an inclination to
abandon their straggling order and to close up. Mervyn saw this--and at
the same time came the thought that this was the last sun whose setting
he would ever see.
"Quick, now, Melian," he said. "Take this, but carefully. Watch your
chance. No one must see. When you have it, hide it upon you. Don't
even look at it again. If you do, it must be at the very last
extremity. You are more than ordinarily quick witted, and will be able
to follow. If anything happens to me--no, don't interrupt--and after a
reasonable time has gone, say a month, and you are not restored, and
especially if Allah-din Khan should attempt to pass you on to
strangers--then produce it. Do you follow?"
"Yes--but--what--where--is _it_?" said the girl, her wide open, serious
eyes upon his face.
"Take my pouch and pipe, and fill it, as they have often seen you do,"
and he handed it to her. Wondering, she obeyed. Then as he reached
forth his hand to take it, he slipped something into hers. One look at
this, and she almost let it fall, but refrained, just in time.
For what she held in her hand was a tiny facsimile of the strange,
star-shaped disc, which she had picked up on the sluice path at Heath
Hover that lovely cloudless June morning, and the sight of which, in her
grasp, had struck her uncle with such a terror of trepidation.
And he knew that she was possessed of that which upon production would
entail upon her two alternatives--restoration, to liberty or death--the
latter, swift, painless, unconscious. But the other ghastly fate, to
which he had overheard allusion made, could now never be hers.
"Only in the very last extremity," he reminded her, in an earnest
undertone, for the band was now closing up around them. And she bent
her head in grave, silent comprehension, and assent.