IN THE GULF OF PERSIA.
The secret of his past life, or of the position he had lost, Gillian
entrusted to none--not even to Colin, who, suspecting that he had
some such secret, advised him to keep it from all non-commissioned
officers especially, lest the jealousy of some might be roused, if he
were noticed by their superiors or promoted before his time; but
Gillian was never thrown off his guard, or nearly so, save once, by a
lady-passenger, the wife of a staff-officer.
The evening was a lovely one; the _Indus_ under easy steam was some
miles distant from the isle of Socotora; the Highlanders on the
main-deck had been dancing reels to the sound of the pipes, the
player of which had perched himself on the after-capstan, and several
officers, with one or two ladies, were clustered at the back of the
poop to see them enjoying themselves, and looked on approvingly and
applaudingly, as all Highlanders dance, and moreover dance well.
But from this amusement Gillian withdrew, as he became conscious that
a young lady was closely observing him, and more than once drew the
attention of others upon him especially. Apart from his handsome
figure and attractive face, doubtless in his air and bearing she
detected something that marked him out from the rest, and this was a
distinction from which he then shrunk.
About an hour after this, while the pile of mountains which forms the
isle of Socotora had risen higher from the sea, and the sun that was
setting far away beyond the Arabian shore, was tipping as if with red
fire the mighty granite peaks that are high as Ben Nevis or Ben More,
the same young lady had betaken her to her sketch-book, and under the
shelter of the break of the poop was busy with her pencil in
transferring to paper the bold and striking outline of the hills,
which, at the distance they were then, seemed to start abruptly from
the sea, while an officer of the 64th lounged close by, and
laughingly criticised her progress.
"Oh, I shall never get my sketch made in time--we shall be past it,"
she exclaimed, with a pretty air of impatience, "and I make all my
sketches for the journal which I promised to send home to mamma."
"And the captain won't stop the engines even for you, I fear," said
the officer who hovered near her, in his mess jacket and forage cap.
"Do put your cigar away, or don't stand on that side of me."
The officer threw his cigar overboard.
"I should so wish to achieve this drawing--the outlines are changing
fast," she added, for already the flat plain from which the mountains
start had risen from the sea, and her pretty white hand had to add it
to the foreground; "could you assist me, Captain Jones?"
"Can't draw a line," replied the officer; "have drawn a bill,
though--a deuced sight too often."
"A few corks too, I suppose?"
Here her eye fell on Gillian, who was loitering near the stair that
led to the poop, and who, in truth, had been watching her with an
interest that made her colour slightly. She belonged to that "set"
in which he could move no more. The hoop on her finger showed that
she was married--indeed Gillian knew that she was the wife of Captain
Hartley, a staff-officer, though but a young girl, and she was more
than merely beautiful.
"Do you draw?" she asked, suddenly.
"A little," said Gillian, colouring in turn, as he raised his hand in
salute, "and if you will do me the honour of permitting me"----
"To finish the sketch?"
"If you please?"
"Oh, thanks very much!" she exclaimed, tendering her book and pencils
with a bright smile.
"By Jove!" muttered Captain Jones, as by force of habit he proceeded
to manipulate another cigar, while Gillian placing the book upon the
gunnel rapidly filled in and shaded the drawing, boldly and freely.
"I saw you dancing with your comrades some time ago," said Mrs.
Hartley; "it was very picturesque, and awfully jolly!--but those
terrible pipes do pierce one's ears so!"
(But a few months after this the same fair girl at Lucknow was fated
to hear that piercing sound ascending amid the musketry of the
Secunderbagh, as the voice of a delivering angel!)
Gillian laughed at her remark, handed her the finished sketch, for
the execution of which she thanked him very sweetly, and he was about
to retire, for he felt conscious that the officer was eying him with
cool scrutiny, when Mrs. Hartley said, with something of soft
interest in her girlish face:
"How long have you been in the Highlanders?"
"Four months."
His voice trembled, for now as the sunshine fell on her hair, it was
the identical hue of Dove's, and she was about the stature and age,
too, of Dove, and--it might be fancy--with the same sweet and tender
form of mouth.
"A mere recruit," said Captain Jones, curtly, as he thought the time
had come for the private to withdraw.
"What is this you have written in the corner of my sketch?" she asked.
"_Dioscorades._"
"Is that your name?" she asked, with surprise.
"No," replied Gillian, laughing quite merrily, "it is the classic
name of the island, and was so called by Ptolemy, when it belonged to
the Kings of the Incense Country."
"How did you learn all this?"
"By reading, madam."
"I know that even the humblest of your countrymen are usually well
educated; but you must have studied--where?"
It was impossible to equivocate with such lovely eyes as hers bent
upon him, so Gillian said, reluctantly--
"At the University of Edinburgh."
"Indeed!" and as she spoke her eyes wandered to the coarse white
Highland jacket he wore.
"You are a musician, perhaps, as well as an artist," said Captain
Jones, with something of a sneer.
"I have a taste, at least, for music, sir, and greatly was I
gratified, when last night I heard Mrs. Hartley sing that song of
Leonora's from Il Trovatore to your own accompaniment on the
piano--she did it, indeed, divinely!"
He was forgetting the gulf between them.
"And you," she asked, "where were you?"
"On sentry at the poop door," replied Gillian, at once remembering
himself, and with a salute, he was about to retire, when she said,--
"I beg your pardon, soldier--but you will lose that ring, and it
seems a valuable one."
"What ring?"
"The one now dangling at the end of blue ribbon from the breast of
your jacket."
It was Dove's engagement-ring, which he hastened to replace or
conceal, and hurried forward to mingle with the crowd of soldiers,
while the young girl looked after him with sympathy and interest.
"That is a lady's ring," said she, "and thereby hangs a tale! That
poor lad has a history, which he keeps locked in his own breast."
"Very likely--most men have until they are under the influence of
tobacco and brandy-pawnee, then out it comes hand-over-hand, as the
sailors say; but as a rule, Scotsmen are always devilish close about
their own affairs."
"Poor--poor fellow!"
"My dear Mrs. Hartley, he is no doubt some fast sprig of anatomy who
has come to grief, so your sympathy is quite thrown away--but there
goes the drum for mess."
Whether the Captain's remarks affected her, it is impossible to say;
but the next time she saw Gillian, she affected to stare intently
seaward; so he ventured in the vicinity of the poop no more.
"If not happy, I thought I had at least become content or reconciled
to my lot, as poor La Vallière said in her convent," thought he; but
despite this, the petty episode made him sigh as he thought of the
past, and all that had vanished with it.
As the _Indus_, hugging the Arabian coast, bore on her way, it was
impossible for those who had been a reader like Gillian, not to view
with deep and growing interest the shore on which they were now
looking for the first time, every foot of which was rendered famous
by the records of religious and classical antiquity; and, as the
headlands and islands came in sight, it seemed strange to him that he
should actually be looking on Arabia; that yonder promontory should
be Has al Hhad, where terminates the mighty desert that lies between
Mecca and Oman; that these rocks should be the Sohar Isles, and that
the coast which anon began to rise on the starboard bow was
Beloochistan, and that those mighty peaks which are visible for more
than a hundred miles at sea were western Kohistan, the home of the
Kurds; that ere long the waters cleft by the steamer were those of
the Gulf of Ormus, as her course was altered again, and she headed
more directly north-westward for the Gulf of Persia, and left the
high basaltic isles of Cape Mussunndom astern.
Some of these natural features were of great grandeur, vastness, and
solemnity, but Gillian found, to his own great amusement, that his
comrade, MacKenzie, always drew comparisons that were somewhat
invidious, between the land of the Great Cyrus, of Darius, even of
Ishmael, and Kintail-of-the-Cows; and declared the Gulf of Ormus was
no more to be compared to Loch Alsh or Loch Duich, than sherbet was
to a good dram of Farintosh.
But, anon, they began to fall in with other ships and transports
forming part of the great expedition, and all bearing on to one point
of rendezvous; and now it may not be unnecessary to inform the reader
of the cause that brought a British army, of which our hero formed a
unit, into this remote and remarkable part of the globe for the first
time.
It had become apparent to our Government for two years before, that
Nasser-ed-Deen, the Shah of Persia, son of the late Mahomet Shah and
Queen Velliat, of the Kadjar tribe, was resolved on having a war with
us; and to this end had despatched an army, under Prince Sultan
Moorad Mirza, into north-western Afghanistan, to act against our
interests at Herat. The Governor-General of India remonstrated with
the Shah on this hostile demonstration, and, meanwhile, many gross
insults were offered to British officials at the Persian capital,
where our envoy, the Honourable Charles Murray, had ultimately to
strike his flag and retire.
The fall of Kars had been circulated over all Asia, with the most
exaggerated stories and rumours, during the Crimean war; while the
Russians took especial care that the fall of Sebastopol should not be
known in the same remote quarters till long after that event was
accomplished. The secret agents of the ever-aggressive Czar had thus
the most ample means for producing a double result or effect, the
sequel of which was, that, impressed by some vague but pleasing ideas
that Britain had been beaten, weakened, and humiliated, the
effeminate Persians, like the Zemindars of Oude, that kingdom but
recently annexed by the Marquis of Dalhousie, thought that now or
never was the time to make war on us, and in defiance of all rights
and treaties, to conquer and annex Herat. As every attempt to obtain
redress from the Shah--though a prince well acquainted with history,
and tolerably correct in his ideas of the relations in which he stood
to us and other European powers--proved unavailing, an expedition
sailed from Bombay early in January for the Gulf of Persia.
Major-General Sir James Outram, K.C.B., "the Bayard of India," to
whom the command was assigned, hastening from London, found that the
first division of "the army of Persia," had already sailed, under
Major-General Stalker, on which he placed himself at the head of the
second, which he reserved for his old Indian comrade, Brigadier
Havelock, who arrived soon after.
On entering the Gulf of Persia, Outram received the rank of
Lieutenant-General. Colonels Wilson and Houssen were the brigadiers
of the first division; Colonels Hamilton (of the Ross-shire Buffs)
and Hale were brigadiers of the second. Brigadiers Tapp and Stuart
led the cavalry; Hill, the artillery; and there was a numerous staff.
The strength of the whole force destined to invade and to humble the
land of that Cyrus who was lord of Babylon, Media, and Persia, was
singularly small; for, even when joined by the detachments on board
the _Indus_, it only mustered as follows: 419 sabres, including the
3rd Bombay cavalry and Poonah horse; 4,653 bayonets, including H.M.
64th Foot; the Ross-shire Buffs, 2nd Bombay Europeans, a battalion of
Beloochees, and three of native infantry, with thirty-two pieces of
cannon, some European artillery, and 1,842 camp followers.
The 78th Highlanders, when joined by Captain Roderick MacAra's
detachment, mustered only 739 bayonets.
The general rendezvous of the land and sea forces was at Ma'mer, on
the Gulf of Persia, and towards that point all the transports and
ships of war were speeding, under sail and steam, on the evening in
the end of January.