BRIAN TO THE RESCUE.
/Visiting/ his various friends, and hearing all that had happened
since the battle and his wound, Brian passed a pleasant three days at
Khanpur. Nor was his enjoyment sensibly mitigated by the thunderstorm
on his third night there--when he should have been returning to
Qadirabad,--which kept him a prisoner for twenty-four hours more. In
fact, he assured himself comfortably that ’twas a good thing entirely
it had come, since it would show Evie the absurdity of her plan of
getting down to Bab-us-Sahel before the floods began. Another pleasant
idle day, rejoicing in the temporary coolness of the air after the
rain, and he started back with a column returning for supplies and
bringing a few sick to the base hospital. Great was his astonishment,
when he rode up to the Residency in the morning, to find the servants
smoking on the verandah in an undress which made it plain that no
master was at hand. Their astonishment equalled his own, but they were
past-masters in the art of keeping up appearances, and in an
incredibly short space of time hookahs had been huddled out of sight,
_pagris_ donned or properly twisted, and the garments of office
hurried on. The butler, as became his importance, was the first who
was in a position to greet the young Sahib. “Sahib and Beebee done
gone,” was the burden of his reply to every question asked him, and at
last Brian gave up the attempt to obtain further information; and
bidding his own servant get his things in, and see after breakfast and
a bath, rode round to the hospital to question the surgeon. The
surgeon received him with ill-timed jocularity.
“Ha, ha! so your sister has stole a march on you, young man--eh? No
nice lazy time for you this morning--find a boat and set off after
her; that’s about the ticket, ain’t it?”
“If the river is low enough. How in the world would she contrive to
start yesterday?”
“Man alive, not yesterday! They went three evenings ago--two days
after you left.”
“Three evenings ago? But that was before the storm! Will you tell me,
was she mad enough to start down the river with that coming on?”
“They would take shelter somewhere. They would have got a good way,
and it may not have been as bad lower down as it was here.” But the
doctor’s startled face belied his comforting words. “Upon my soul,
Delany, I hope they didn’t come in for it on the open river. The rain
was enough to swamp any boat.”
“And how would it be better if they were cot in a narrow channel--with
the water sweeping over banks and islands and everything? ’Twas a
great storm, I tell you. We have had to go miles and miles round
coming back here--with lakes and rivers where there was dry land on
our way out.”
“Well, don’t I know it was a great storm--with three of the hospital
tents blown away bodily, and the whole staff working all night in the
wet to get the sick under cover? You can see for yourself how the
river has risen--look at the trees there, standing in the water.”
Suddenly realising that he was not very consoling, he changed his
tone. “But it don’t follow it was as bad where they were. They had
good boats and strong crews, and an armed guard, so there were plenty
of hands if help was needed. Old Firozji from the Bazar was going
down, and offered them to share his boat, but they had one to
themselves after all.”
“That’s how my sister managed it, then. I wondered who had I to thank
for helping her play the fool in this style. I wouldn’t envy the
feelings of any man that helped her get away--now.”
“’Suppose you are alluding to me,” said the surgeon gruffly. “Well,
you know your sister as well as I do, and you can tell whether she’s
much inclined to listen to advice that don’t fall in with her wishes.
She was determined to get off, thinking you’d be following
immediately. And I confess, the weather had been so sultry for two or
three days, I never thought of a storm except as a relief--quickly
come and quickly gone, you know. But this one took a whole day to come
up, and lasted proportionately. But then, as I say, it may not have
been as bad where they were. At any rate, we have heard nothing of any
disaster, and you know how quickly the natives get wind of that sort
of thing.”
“But sure they must have been miles and miles away by that time!
Suppose they were wrecked on an uninhabited part of the shore, or one
of those desolate islands in the middle of the river--how would the
news possibly get about? Well, you were right when you said ’twas a
fast boat and an early start for me, for I must be off after ’em at
once. Think of it! Ambrose helpless, and my sister alone with those
blackguards of boatmen--for the old Parsee would be no good,--not to
mention the Codgers on one bank, and Kamal-ud-din’s people anywhere on
t’other.”
“I thought Kamal-ud-din was penned in at Umarganj?”
“Penned in he may have been, but he’s got out of the pen--broke back
somehow to the river again. The General was very anxious about it--and
he would be worse if he knew this. I was greatly displeased when he
bid me escort my sister to Bab-us-Sahel--unless she gave up the
thought of the journey of her own free will--before going back to
duty, but I’m thankful now! Not that the old lad would have been hard
on me for going off after her, but I wouldn’t like to have exceeded my
leave. Can you coax the right boat out of any one for me? If only
there’d be a steamer in just now!”
“Wait a minute. You can’t go rushing off like this. I’ll send a _chit_
to the Marine Superintendent to tell him what you want, and say we’ll
both be round there after breakfast. But before you start off, we’ll
call upon old Firozji’s brothers in the Bazar. They may have had news
from him, and then we shall know it’s all right. Your quad. is
tired--eh? I can lend you a tat--or there’s that little Arab of your
sister’s, just come down by boat from Sahar. Do him good to stretch
his legs gently a bit. She must have forgot the General said he might
come down with the cavalry horses when she went off in such a hurry.”
“We might find out something, I suppose,” said Brian wretchedly, “but
I don’t like losing a moment.”
“Of course we may. And what’s the good of going off without getting
hold of all the information you can? If I thought it was any good, I
should say stay and eat your breakfast quietly, and let me go to the
Bazar, but I know it wouldn’t be.”
“Not a scrap!” agreed Brian, and would barely consent to snatch a
mouthful of breakfast while Bajazet was being saddled and brought
round. As they rode to the Bazar, the surgeon was full of cheerful
anticipations. Of course Mr Firozji would have sent word to his
partners of his safety--he was a fool not to have thought of it
before--the Parsees were well known for their family affection. But
when Mr Firozji’s brother appeared, with many bows and smiles, to
enquire the pleasure of the honourable gentlemen, he had nothing to
tell. Certainly he had not expected any messenger--the boats would
have been far beyond the limits within which the storm was likely to
be dangerous. He was quite sure his brother was safe and well. Had it
been otherwise he would have felt it here, in the heart--slapping an
organ which was well protected by many layers of adipose tissue. He
did not look to hear anything until his brother had reached
Bab-us-Sahel--why should he? And the young Sahib was alarmed about his
sister--feared she might have been wrecked? That was natural, but--if
he might be pardoned the word--foolish. How could she possibly have
journeyed in greater safety than under the care of his brother and the
protection of his guard?
“Would it be a military guard?” asked Brian.
The Parsee was voluble in his disclaimer. No, no; the merchandise on
board the boats was immensely valuable to the poor merchants whose
means of livelihood it was, but of no importance to the Government, so
that a guard could not be asked for. Mr Firozji had hired a
dozen--er--respectable men, well known to him for their courage and
fidelity, and armed them with swords and shields for the journey.
“Not much good against the Codgers’ matchlocks,” remarked Brian, when
they had taken their leave. The surgeon was meditating, and did not
respond for a moment.
“Did it strike you there was anything queer about the business?” he
burst out suddenly. “Think!”
“It struck me the ‘er--respectable men’ would probably be some of our
late opponents. That was all.”
“Then you missed something far more fishy. Why was there no military
guard? It might not have been granted simply to protect Parsee
merchandise, but for an officer and his wife it would have been
forthcoming in a moment. The General would break any man that refused
it. Then why wasn’t it asked for?”
“How would I know? Because my sister refused to wait while the
application was made possibly.”
“Possibly, but why should old Fatty there not have said so? Of course
old Firozji may have thought his kind of guard would come cheaper, and
that Ambrose and his wife would be such valuable prizes for the
Codgers that he himself could slip away unnoticed if there was a
scrimmage. But this is all nonsense. It’s most unlikely there has been
any scrimmage at all.”
“Of course; why would there be?” asked Brian dreamily. “No doubt the
old sinner is sailing happily down the river, congratulating himself
on the money he’s saved. But all the same,” inconsequently, “I’m
certain something has happened. I have a feeling----”
“So have all of us when we are anxious, but ninety-nine times out of a
hundred it all ends in smoke, and we are precious proud afterwards to
think we never had a second’s doubt all along. But tell you what. You
take one of the General’s spies with you--to look out for things
generally and cross-question anybody you may meet. If old Puggy ain’t
out on duty, he’s the man you want. A bullet chipped a bit off his
heel at Mahighar--he was not on the field in the way of business, but
just looking on at the show--and he’s been laid up since. But I know
he is out again, and he’s an uncommonly downy old bird. I’ll hunt him
up while you get your traps together.”
The search was successful, and when Brian and his bearer arrived at
the boat the doctor was there in triumph with an undersized elderly
native of indeterminate features and an expression of guileless
simplicity. It was almost impossible to believe that this was one of
the General’s famous secret agents, of whom he boasted that several
were in each camp of his enemies, and not a few in their very
households, but there was his name to prove it. He possessed a
complicated and sonorous name of his own, but Sir Harry had a short
way with such luxuries. He dubbed the man Puggy [_Pagi_, tracker] as
his tracker _par excellence_, and from such august lips the
undignified appellation was accepted as an honour and flaunted with
pride. Colonel Welborne, whose permission had to be obtained for him
to accompany Brian, was interested in the young man’s journey, and
came down to see them off.
“Hope you’ll find everything all right,” he said, “but in case of
accidents I have given you a sergeant’s guard of sepoys in Hindustani
dress, [mufti] so that you won’t attract undue attention. If the
Codgers take you by surprise, they may come in useful. But look you
here: no fighting--unless you have to extricate yourself from an
ambuscade, that is. If you find your sister is in the hands of the
Codgers--even if she is in the camp which you are outside of, don’t
try to rescue her on your own account. You can’t do it, and it will
only lead to her being killed or carried off into the hills. And if
you get yourself killed, how are we ever to know what has happened to
her? Just let Puggy do the talking and manage things his own way. If
she is in the camp he will find out without their knowing it, and
he’ll bring you off peacefully to go back and rescue her another day.
D’ye understand me?”
“I do,” said Brian reluctantly; “and I’m greatly obliged to you for
sparing him, sir. But listen, now: if I find her marooned on an
island, it’s myself will take the business in hand, and Puggy may go
hang!”
No degree of anxiety could depress Brian’s tongue, though his heart
might be heavy, and the little group of friends on the
landing-stage--at the very foot of the cliff now--praised his
cheerfulness to one another as they sped him on his way with good
wishes. After all, nothing untoward might have happened; he would
catch up his sister and go down with her to Bab-us-Sahel, then return
by land with his guard--since by that time the river was fairly
certain to be impossible for small boats.
The first day and a half of the voyage was unimportant, as was only
natural, since whatever had happened must presumably have happened
lower down. After that, when they had arrived at the stretch of river
which the boats might be supposed to have reached on the night of the
storm, a close watch was kept on the right-hand bank--the scene of the
activities of the Kajias. Boats going down the river would be inclined
to keep more or less to this side, and there was no apparent reason
for crossing to the other, though it also must be searched in the
course of the return voyage if no traces had been found earlier. A
forlorn cluster of shrubs and low trees, rising again out of the water
which had almost submerged them, could tell no tale, for the floods
had washed away all signs of the boatmen’s evening meal on the island
in the shelter of which the boats had been moored. A day after it had
been passed, when Brian was beginning to fear that the whole flotilla
had been swamped without leaving a trace, a trace appeared at last,
though not a cheering one. On a sandy beach, below the flood-mark,
half in and half out of the water, lay a battered boat, its mast and
its cabin gone. Brian saw it first, and his inarticulate shout
summoned the tracker and the soldiers to his side. It seemed to him
ages before his boatmen, poling carefully, brought their craft as near
as it was safe to go, and he could let himself overboard and swim to
the derelict. He did not notice that Puggy lingered to say something
to the havildar in charge of the sepoys before joining him. There was
nothing to show whether the boat was that they sought, save that it
had evidently been fitted up for European use; but though supports and
hooks remained, all the fittings were gone. It might be that the water
had swept it nearly bare, or it might have been systematically
gutted--there was nothing to show which, save a large dark stain on
the deck. Brian bent down to look at this, touched it, and turned
mutely to the tracker for his opinion. As he lifted his head a slight
movement among the bushes fringing the beach attracted his attention,
and he realised that he and his companion were the target for a dozen
or more matchlocks with fierce faces behind them. He was
thunder-struck, but Puggy smiled triumphantly, and Brian saw why. The
seeming peaceful passengers in their own boat had suddenly produced
muskets, and were lining the gunwale in warlike guise. It struck Brian
that if shooting began, they two were infallibly doomed, but the
tracker was so proud of his precaution that he had not the heart to
spoil his pleasure. The moral effect was certainly all that could be
desired, for a wild-looking elderly man, with a red-dyed beard, stood
up in the bushes, and demanded with righteous indignation--
“Why does the Sahib seek to steal what Allah and the river have given
us?”
“Suffer me to answer, Sahib,” said the tracker hurriedly; then to the
chief, “The Sahib seeks news of his sister, who embarked with her
husband before the storm in such a boat as this. Is there word of
her?”
“Nay,” was the reply. “The boat drifted ashore as ye see it--broken
and empty. Of any Sahib or Beebee we know nothing.”
“Nor of whose blood this is on the deck?”
“Nothing. How should we? Water has washed it, sun has dried it, maybe
many times over. There was no dead body on board--that at least we
know.”
“Here is a bullet sticking in the woodwork and another stain of blood.
Are any of your men wounded?”
“Have I not said there was no one on board, dead or alive?” The
chief’s tone betrayed his contempt for the very palpable trap set for
him. “How then could they fire on my men?”
“Yet this bullet belongs to a Farangi pistol, and the Sahib’s guns are
all gone. Here is the rack in which they were placed, ready to his
hand if he desired to shoot at a pelican or a crocodile, after the
manner of sahibs; but it is empty. The guns could not be washed away
and the rack left.”
“Nay, but”--triumphantly--“this Sahib was sick, and his guns were not
set out in the rack. They were----” sudden confusion as he realised
how hopelessly he had given himself away, then a show of violent
indignation to cover it. “They were washed away, I say. Who are you, O
base-born one, to cast doubt upon my words?”
With extraordinary self-command for a native, Puggy ignored the
attempt to lead him aside into personalities--ignored also the chief’s
self-betrayal, and spoke sadly and meekly. “Truly I am nothing--the
meanest of the attendants on the great and rich Sahib here, who seeks
news of his sister. So much wealth would he pour out on any camp that
had received her and shown her kindness that the poorest man in it
would wear silk and kincob thereafter.”
The chief was interested--dangerously interested. His eyes wandered to
the line of sepoys, then to his own men, very visible now in the
bushes in the excitement of listening to what was going on. Clearly he
was calculating whether the greater numbers on his side would
counterbalance the weight of the soldiers’ superior weapons if he made
a sudden dash. The matter was difficult to decide. “I perceive that
this Sahib is one of the Bahadar Jang’s young men--so handsome and
noble of aspect is he,” he temporised. “Is it true that he is also
rich?”
“He could take up the riches of Delhi in one hand,” was the boastful
answer. “And to his wealth he adds a yet more admirable prudence. All
his possessions he confided, before starting on this journey, to a
virtuous friend of his father’s, who has sworn upon the Gospel not to
part with so much as an anna unless the Sahib presents himself to ask
for it in person.”
“There are messages to be sent--letters.”
“The friend is pledged to pay no attention to them. After the lapse of
a certain time, he will employ the riches in building tombs--greater
and more magnificent than the wonder of Agra--to the memory of the
Sahib and his sister, where women desiring sons may come and entreat
the lady’s favour.”
“To my mind it is better to enrich the living than build tombs for the
dead,” said the baffled chief sourly.
“It is the Sahib’s pleasure, and who shall gainsay it? But far more
gladly would he bestow of his wealth on any who could restore to him
his sister living, or even tell him where she may be found.”
“The rain of riches passes over the field of the poverty-stricken, and
leaves on it not a single drop. Since we have nothing to sell that you
and your Sahib desire to buy, leave us our poor wreck that the waters
have brought us, and go your way--unless,” with a fresh gleam of hope
and covetousness, “the wealthy and high-born Sahib will deign to visit
our tents?”
“Nay, he is bent on an errand of life and death. He has no time to
pass the coolness of sherbet over his tongue, nor to exchange sweet
phrases with a host,” was the answer, much to Brian’s disappointment.
He remonstrated vigorously with the tracker when they had left the
derelict--which was far too much damaged for them to think of salving
it--and returned to their own boat. It was quite certain that this
little knot of Kajias knew more than they would tell; what was more
likely than that the passengers from the stranded boat were at hand in
their very camp? Puggy answered patiently and reprovingly.
“Surely the eyes of the presence are blinded by his grief, or he would
see that the Beebee cannot be in this camp. For see the chief, that
son of Iblis with whom we have just spoken--whose meat is covetousness
and his drink extortion--did he not desire to bring the presence
thither, in the hope of falling treacherously upon him and holding him
to ransom? And if the Beebee were there already, would the chief not
show, for a lure to the presence, some writing from her hand, were it
but a scrawl with a blackened stick upon a broken board from the
boat?--or if she were dead, then some jewel from her body, or even a
tress of her hair, that the presence might recognise his truth? But he
brings forward nothing; therefore it is certain she is not there. Yet
he knows more than he pretends, as the presence says.”
“That he does! ’Twas a bad slip when he admitted he knew the Major
Sahib was sick.”
“Was that all the presence noticed? Nay,” as Brian turned and looked
at him, “did he not note the _kurti_ [long coat] worn by the chief,
that it was of rich silk such as the Parsees wear, and that it had
been washed? Or that one of the men who stood up in the bushes had in
his girdle such a knife as the Farangis use at table, with a haft of
ivory nearly as long as the blade? There was more in the boat when it
came ashore than there is now.”
“Then what do you make out?”
“Nay, Sahib, how can I speak with certainty? All I can say is that if
the Beebee was on board, and was saved when the boat ran aground, she
must have been carried away quickly to the hills. But it is not clear
to my mind that she was there at all. It is possible, but I have seen
nothing to prove it.”
“But if not,” cried Brian quickly, “she must have been washed
overboard before the boat came ashore--and that I won’t believe. No;
they have carried her off into the hills, and Heaven only knows what
has happened the poor Major. Sick and helpless--I fear the unfortunate
fellow must have been drowned, and she would be left without a
defender. Good heavens!”
“Let not the presence grieve so sadly. If he will, let him put this
humble one ashore a day’s journey up the river, and he will make his
way in disguise into the hills, to the dwellings of the Kajias, and
sojourn among them until he has made certain either that the Beebee is
there or that she has never been there. Then he will bring word to the
presence.”
“And what will I be doing all that time?” cried Brian. “And what will
be happening her if she has been carried some other way? No, we’ll
make all speed back to Qadirabad, and I’ll get the General to give me
a column strong enough to overawe the Kajias and force the truth out
of ’em. Then we’ll know what we’re doing.”
“As the presence pleases,” said Puggy politely, but offering no
opinion as to the wisdom of Brian’s plan. While they were talking the
boatmen had been poling their vessel out into the stream again, and
now Brian called for the headman, and promised lavish rewards for
every hour gained on the time usually taken up-stream. The men did
their best, but the current was strong and the wind generally in the
wrong direction, and Brian chafed grievously at the slow progress
made. But at last the round tower of Qadirabad came in sight again,
and to his great joy he learned from the first officer he met that the
General had returned from Khanpur and taken up his quarters in the
Fort, Lord Maryport having now definitely appointed him Governor of
Khemistan. But the General, when Brian presented himself, was worried,
even testy.
“You should have let Puggy do as he proposed,” he said sharply. “Send
a column to stir up that wasps’ nest in the hills? Not a bit of it! No
man esteems and admires your sister more than I do, but I can’t
sacrifice the army to her. Here is Kamal-ud-din playing about in every
direction, just beyond my reach. Now he has started a brother--only
just out of the nursery, they say,--and the two young rascals are
kicking up a fine dust between them. All the bad elements in the
country are rallying to ’em, of course--whether they have submitted to
us or not. The thing is beginning to spread to this side of the river,
too--there’s a very pretty plot brewing in Qadirabad itself. I have my
spies, happily, and can stamp it out when I want to, so as long as we
are on the watch, the disaffected may as well be plotting as anything
else--keep ’em out of mischief. But I give you the credit of being
able to see for yourself that this ain’t a time for detaching columns
on private adventures.”
“If you could extend my leave, sir--let me go with Puggy and do what I
could, I mean?”
“And be recognised in no time, and give me another set of murderers to
hunt up and hang? No, my good fellow; when you joined the army it was
to serve her Majesty--not to go off on wild-goose chases after your
own female relatives,--and while I am above ground you’ll do it. It
may not be long. Over and over again of late I have thought I was on
the march. I can walk again now--but still groggy on my pins, as you
see. Incessant labour in this heat is killing to sixty and over, and
no doubt Welborne will give you all the leave you want.”
He turned abruptly to his papers again in a spasm of self-pity, and
Brian could not but capitulate unconditionally. “Don’t,
General--don’t, for Heaven’s sake, be talking like that! What in the
world would we all do without you? Sure Khemistan would be lost, and
the army with it.”
“It’s that already, according to the Bombay papers,” gruffly. “Now
that Bayard’s experienced wisdom is withdrawn, the army is as good as
sacrificed to the incapable old ruffian at its head. Believe me if you
can, Delany, those fellows are making pets of the Khans--calling ’em
‘fallen Princes’ and setting ’em up as saints--and blackguarding me
and my glorious soldiers high and low. Bayard is in it, of course--not
behind it, for he’s a decent chap, though weak, weak as water--but
when the _journalistic gentlemen_ get round him and play upon his
vanity he’ll say anything, and end by believing it himself. The
fellows are positively gloating over Kamal-ud-din and his proceedings,
I tell you. They butter him up as a heaven-taught commander, adored by
his people, the inspirer of a sacred war to expel the invaders, who
have the misfortune to be led by a disreputable old lunatic who threw
away his last chance of success when jealousy induced him to rid
himself of his good genius, Colonel Bayard! They recount my
dispositions and suggest how he ought to meet ’em, and all their
articles are translated and sent up here for the edification of
Kamal-ud-din and his fellow-plotters. But I’ll knock the chap out yet,
no matter who his treacherous backers may be, if only this old carcase
of mine will hold out for one more month!”
“Of course it will, General, and for many years to come! You have
shown me where my duty lies--though it breaks my heart to leave my
sister to all the trouble she may be in. I cannot forget”--half
apologetically--“what she’d be to me as a little child. No mother
could have been more tender--and she only a bit of a girl herself.”
“That only shows you never knew what it means to have a mother. No
tenderness can replace hers, though I am sure your sister did her
best.”
“She did, indeed. And do you tell me now I must leave her out of my
mind entirely? Ah, General, y’have a better heart than that!”
“Who talked about putting her out of your mind, pray? Because I
decline to hand over my troops to you to fritter away on this bank
when every man is wanted on t’other, is there any need to talk like a
fool? Puggy shall go after her, with a free hand and as much cash as
he wants at call. If he finds her he may be able to negotiate for her
ransom, or even help her to escape. That--what-d’ye-call-it?--sheet
with a grating in it--which these women wear”--“_burqa_,” murmured
Brian apologetically--“would disguise anybody first-rate--hide those
tell-tale eyes, and we may find her waiting for us when we get back.
Master Kamal-ud-din thinks he’s going to surround me, but it’s t’other
way about. I am going to surround him, and we march out to-morrow to
do it.”
“March out? Ah, General, not you! To take the field in this heat! We
can’t afford to lose you.”
“Precious little loss, according to the Bombay fellows. Yes, I am
going myself; it is necessary. Why, if they give us the slip now, it
means a ruinous delay, for the river will rise and cut us off from
Qadirabad till the cold weather. Provisions for five months! how could
we carry ’em? and yet without ’em we must perish. This inundation is
the most plaguy unaccountable thing! the old officers here tell me
they have known it complete six weeks before this; when the river rose
after that storm, everybody assured me it was here, yet the water has
gone down again, and I mean to take advantage of it. We have to march
against the enemy from all sides, and then strike hard, and you know
as well as I do that if I ain’t there my concentration will fail, and
some soft-hearted or white-livered chap will let the game out of the
net.”
Brian was to remember the prophecy a week later, when he rode one
morning into the desert camp where the General’s force was sweltering
in such heat as even the natives had rarely known, and the Europeans
had never even dreamt of. He had ridden all night on a self-imposed
mission, and after his strenuous forty miles dropped limply from his
horse more dead than alive. He had accompanied, as the General’s
representative, one of the other columns--that which was detailed to
prevent Kamal-ud-din from breaking away southwards between Umarganj
and the river, and getting down into the Delta, where he might evade
pursuit indefinitely. Colonel Bleackley was one of those officers
whose moral support and aim in life is exact obedience to orders, and
when news came that the river was rising again, his first impulse was
to remember that he had been told on no account to let himself be cut
off by the floods, but to retire upon the main body, and this he
prepared to do. Brian opposed his decision with might and main. The
column marching down from Sahar had turned back Kamal-ud-din’s
brother, Jamal-ud-din, and driven him towards the General, who had
dispersed his force and taken him prisoner. Kamal-ud-din himself, who
had been hurrying to the boy’s support, quailed under the unexpected
blow, and turned back into the desert. By advancing upon Umarganj,
Colonel Bleackley would catch the Khan in a trap, since the only wells
adequate to the needs of a mounted force were on the route he was
following. To retire now would be to destroy the General’s hopes, and
leave Kamal-ud-din free to be a thorn in his side for the future.
After much expostulation, a compromise was agreed upon. Brian might go
and ascertain Sir Harry’s wishes, and until he returned Colonel
Bleackley would hold his ground. Sir Harry’s wishes were expressed in
no uncertain voice.
“Tell the fellow to go on, go on, go on--no matter what’s in his way.
If he is caught by the water, let him get into Umarganj and maintain
himself there, and when Kamal-ud-din is tired of dancing about
outside, he’ll come in and surrender. Heaven only grant he don’t slip
through during this insane halt. What’s the good of our capturing
Jamal-ud-din if t’other one escapes? Nice young villain Jamal-ud-din
is too. Offered to make away with his brother and bring all his chiefs
to submit, if I would let him go, and recognise him as successor. But
that sort of thing don’t go down with me, as he knows now, and I am
sending off one of the Arabits captured with him to find Kamal and
warn him what a dear affectionate brother he’s got. Go and take a rest
now--if you can--while I concoct a despatch, with a dash of pepper in
it, for Bleackley. You’ll find your own tent cooler than this--only
have to simmer there, while we’re boiling alive here.”
There was a reason for this, since Sir Harry, unable to bear the sight
of his beloved Black Prince’s sufferings in the heat outside, had
taken him into his tent, where the charger lay on the ground exhausted
and gasping, and making the place, if possible, hotter than it would
otherwise have been. Brian retired thankfully, with a glance of
commiseration at Stewart, who durst not affront the General’s eyes
with shirt-sleeves, and was suffocating in his scarlet coat. In his
own tent he did as most of the Europeans in the force were doing--lay
down with wet cloths about his head, and bade a servant pour water
over him. The heat lay above him like a heavy pall, impeding his
breath, sucking away his strength, and from the tents near he heard
the repressed groans of men in torment like himself, while every now
and then a horrible stertorous sound--a kind of choking
screech--showed that some sufferer had succumbed to the appalling
oppression. Brian was listlessly counting the seizures within his
hearing, and speculating from which side the next gulp of agony would
come, when he was startled by a suffocating gasp from Sir Harry’s
tent.
“The General or Black Prince?” he asked himself, and staggering to his
feet, caught up his hat and reeled blindly across the few yards of
glaring sand between one semi-darkness and another. Sir Harry lay
prone across the table--a dreadful inarticulate noise coming from his
lips. Brian ran to lift him up, shouting for help as he did so, and in
a moment the camp was in a turmoil. Stewart, who had been sent to find
out something from the Brigade-Major, ran back, surgeons rushed up,
and volunteer helpers crowded to the tent in such numbers that they
had to be summarily dispersed. The General was bled, of course--people
were bled for every thing in those days,--and while he demanded
angrily but drowsily to be let alone and allowed to sleep, cold water
was applied to his head and hot to his feet, and he was vigorously
rubbed and slapped back to consciousness. He was the forty-fourth
victim of the heat that forenoon, and of the forty-three others not
one was alive three hours later.
The next morning he sent for Brian, who found him in bed--if his
narrow charpoy could be called a bed,--looking very ill and haggard
and by no means comfortable--under a dirty sheet which was more like a
tent-cloth. He spoke fast and eagerly.
“You must start--this afternoon. Must get to Bleackley by to-morrow
morning--rest in the worst of the heat. Despatch is ready. Have you a
horse?”
“I rode my sister’s little Bajazet, sir. He carried me well, but ’twas
bad going for him. He’d carry me back, I believe, but I’d be sorry to
kill him--such a game little beast.”
“I won’t have any horse ridden to death. Take Dick Turpin--he’ll carry
you. No more biting and kicking from him for a week or two!” with a
cackling laugh. “You won’t spare yourself, I know. Don’t spare him.”
“I won’t, General. Then I’ll be starting as soon as he can stand the
sun,” said Brian.