Herbert Raynier ran lightly up the steps of his verandah, feeling
intensely satisfied with himself and things in general.
Though summer, the air was delightfully balmy, and the glow of the
sunset reddening the heads of the mountains surrounding the basin in
which lay Mazaran, was soothing and grateful to the eye. The bungalow
was roomy and commodious, and stood in the midst of a pleasant garden,
where closing flowers distilled fragrant scents upon the evening air--
all this sent his mind back in thankful contrast to hot, steaming,
languid Baghnagar, its brassy skies and feverish exhalations, where even
at this late hour the very crows lining the roof would be open-billed
and gasping. And thus contrasting the new with the old order of things
he decided for the fiftieth time that the luckiest moment of his life
was when he opened the official letter--which met him on landing at
Bombay--appointing him Political Agent at Mazaran.
Hardly less in contrast between the climate of his new station and the
last, were the people with whom he now had to deal. There was nothing
whatever in common between the meek subservient native he had hitherto
ruled and the stalwart independence of these wild mountain tribes, whose
turbulent and predatory instincts needed nice handling to keep in
efficient control. But all this appealed to him vividly, and he threw
himself into his new duties with an eager zest which caused those who
had known his predecessor to smile. He recognised that here at least
was a chance; here he might find scope for such latent ability which the
stagnant routine of his old Department had been in danger of stifling
altogether. In fact, he was inclined to regret the abnormally tranquil
state of things, when Jelson, his predecessor, had congratulated him
upon the fact that Mushim Khan, the chief of the powerful, and often
turbulent, Gularzai tribe, had become so amenable since the Government
had created him a Nawab that the meanest _bunniah_ might almost walk
through the Gularzai country alone and with his pockets bulging with
rupees, in perfect safety.
Herbert Raynier flung himself into a comfortable chair on the verandah
and lighted a cheroot. He had half an hour to spare before it should be
time to dress and go out to dinner, and how should such be better spent
than in a restful smoke: yet, while enjoying this, his thoughts were
active enough. His prospects, rosy as the afterglow which dwelt upon
the surrounding peaks, kept him busy for a time, and over all was a
sense of great relief. If he had saved the life of an unknown Oriental
at the hands of a particularly brutal mob, assuredly he had been repaid
to the full, for, but for that circumstance, matters would never have
come to a head with Cynthia. He would still be bound hard and fast by a
chain of which he only realised the full weight since he had broken it.
For he had broken it--finally, irrevocably, unmistakably, he told
himself. Since that last scene in the Vicarage garden he and Cynthia
had exchanged no word. The remainder of that day had not been of a
pleasant nature, and he had left by an early train on the following
morning, to return three days later to India. No letter, either of
farewell, or reproach or recrimination--as he had half feared--reached
him at the last, and it was with feelings of genuine relief that he
watched the shores of the mother country fade into the invisible.
Tarleton, the Civil Surgeon, at whose bungalow Raynier was dining, was
somewhat of a trying social unit, in that he was never even by chance
known to agree with any remark or proposition, weighty or trivial, put
forward by anybody, or if there was no conceivable room for gainsaying
such, why then he would append some brisk aggressive comment in rider
fashion. As thus,--
"How do, Raynier? How did you come over? Didn't walk, did you?"
"No. Biked."
"Ho! Bicycle's not much use up here, I can tell you."
Raynier remarked that he found the machine useful for getting about the
station with, and that the roads in and immediately around the same were
rather good.
"Well, you didn't expect to find them all rocks and stones, did you?"
came the prompt rejoinder.
Tarleton was white-haired and red-faced, which caused him to look older
than his actual years. Another of his peculiarities was that he was
continually altering his facial appearance. Now he would grow a beard;
then suddenly, without a word to anybody, would trim it down to what
they call in Transatlantic a "chin-whisker," or shave it altogether.
Or, one day he would appear with a long, carefully-waxed moustache, and
the next with that appendage clipped to the consistency of a toothbrush.
And so on.
Just at this stage, however, Raynier, recognising that he was on the
high road to cordially detesting the man, had laid himself out to be
extra long-suffering.
"Wonder if those women ever mean to come in?" went on Tarleton, with a
fidgety glance at the clock, for the two were alone in the drawing-room
just before dinner.
"Oh, one has to give the ornamental sex a little `law,'" said the other,
good-humouredly.
"Well, you can't expect them to put on their clothes and all that as
quickly as we can," was the rejoinder to this accommodating speech. And
just then "those women," in the shape of Mrs Tarleton and a guest,
entered. The first was a good-humoured, pleasant-looking little
Irishwoman, the second--
"How d'you do, Miss Clive? Why, this is a surprise," began Raynier,
without waiting for an introduction.
"I like surprises," laughed the hostess. "They're great fun. We
thought we'd give you one, Mr Raynier."
"They are, if, as now, they are pleasant ones," he answered.
"Why, Mr Raynier, I didn't think that kind of speech-making was at all
in your line," said the "Surprise," demurely.
She was a tallish girl, rather slight, with refined and regular
features, which nineteen out of twenty pronounced "cold." She had a
great deal of dark brown hair, and very uncommon eyes; in fact, they
were unequivocally and unmistakably green. Yet framed in their dark,
abundant lashes, they might be capable of throwing as complete an
attraction, a fascination, as the more regulation blue or hazel ones.
She was not popular with men. Not enough "go" in her, they declared.
Seemed more cut out for a blue-stocking.
She and Raynier had been fellow-passengers out; but had had little to
say to each other on board. He had danced with her three or four times,
which was rather remarkable in view of that being a form of exercise
which he favoured but little. Both had this in common, that they held
aloof from the usual 'board-ship amusements, yet they had not come
together at all. It was only when they landed at Bombay, and the
friends she had expected to meet her had not arrived, that Raynier,
noticing the look of intense consternation, of bewilderment even, upon
the girl's face, as she realised how she was stranded, a total stranger
in a very strange land, had come to the rescue--had even foregone his
train and remained over until the next day to be of service to her.
This he had done out of sheer kindness--the other passengers having gone
their respective ways without giving her a thought--and having handed
her over to her friends who had been unavoidably delayed, had bidden her
good-bye and had gone his own--he, too, scarcely giving her another
thought.
"Hilda says you were so kind to her at Bombay, Mr Raynier," went on his
hostess.
"Oh, no--that's nothing, Mrs Tarleton. Glad to have been of any
service, of course," he replied, in that hurried, half-confused way to
be expected of a man of his disposition under the circumstances.
"But it isn't nothing," struck in the girl, decidedly. "Do you know,
Mrs Tarleton, Mr Raynier even waited till the next day to look after me.
And it's odd, because we hardly knew each other on the ship."
"Oh, well," mumbled Raynier, jerkily, "you can't see anybody stranded
like that--a lady especially--in a totally strange place without doing
something to straighten things out for them."
Hilda Clive smiled.
"None of the others seemed to be of that opinion, at any rate," she
said.
Snapped Tarleton, "Well, you can't expect a lot of people just landed
from a voyage to think about anything but themselves and their own
belongings."
For once Raynier felt frankly grateful to the contentious one--if only
that it was sufficient for Tarleton to lay down a statement on any given
subject to cause his ordinary hearers to drop that subject like a
red-hot bar. Wherefore these promptly turned to another.
Sunt Singh and Kaur Singh, chuprassis, were aroused from the drowsy
enjoyment of their hubble-bubbles by a very unwonted intruder in the
Political Agent's compound late at night, and were well-nigh speechless
with supercilious amazement. The fat trader they had left on the road!
See the _Huzoor_! At that time of night! It was the Police Station the
fool wanted. Something of the highest importance? Let him come in the
morning. It would keep until then. Besides, the _Huzoor_ was out
dining.
In a direful state of fear and perplexity Chand Lall, thus rebuffed, got
out into the road again, and with a scared look over each shoulder, took
his way as quickly as he could from the gate. But this was not quick,
for even in the darkness it might have been seen that he walked with a
painful limp. In the darkness too, something else might have been
seen--two figures stealing along in the deeper shade of the tamarisk
hedge. He whom they shadowed saw them not--at first--then having chosen
their spot, they quickened their pace, and darting forward flung
themselves upon him.
The yell which the assailed man opened his mouth to utter died in his
throat as the white light of a long knife blade streaked before his
eyes.
"Silence or thou art dead," snarled a harsh voice. "So, dog, thou
wouldst betray us?"
In the dirty-white turbans and hairy, hook-nosed faces, Chand Lall knew
only too well who were these. Already they had begun to drag him
swiftly along. Then in his frenzy of terror at the recollection of the
fate he had escaped from and which certainly waited him now, even the
fear of instant death did not avail. A loud, quavering shriek for aid
rang from his lips.
But it died in a choking gasp. The white knife blade disappeared, to
emerge again red--and this not once only. A corpse lay wallowing in the
road, and two loosely-clad figures vanished into the darkness, even as
they had come out of it.