At Mazaran Hilda Clive was the heroine of the hour, and the station did
not know which to do most--admire her pluck and resolution, or marvel
how it could have regarded her all this while as of no account. She had
done a wonderful thing, this quiet, retiring girl, on whom the popular
verdict had been "Oh, so-so." She had ventured alone into the
stronghold of one of the fierce, fanatical tribes then engaged in the
border war, and had brought back their prisoner, the man whom they had
doomed to death. She had saved his life.
But Hilda declared emphatically that she had done nothing of the kind--
on the contrary, her errand had failed signally. He had been released
by a different and unexpected agency altogether, and it was only by
accident that they had travelled back together. To this side of the
story not much attention was given. The fact remained that she had set
out to effect his release, and had returned with him, and not without
him. And now the station metaphorically winked, and pronounced Raynier
a lucky fellow indeed.
Yes, but what about that other time when it had so pronounced him, and
the reason thereof? Well, on that head it had seen cause to change its
mind. For Cynthia Daintree had not been careful to keep up her part.
She had flirted outrageously with Captain Beecher what time the man to
whom she declared herself engaged was in daily peril of his life, and
had incidentally offended more than one whose good word was worth
having. Yet how would Raynier dispose of her, she having come all the
way out from home; moreover, she would be rather a difficult subject to
negotiate? Clearly there were complications ahead, and the station
looked forward to no end of fun.
It was disappointed, however. Raynier, with a promptitude and decision
for which she had not given him credit gave Cynthia to understand that
he did not consider himself in the very least bound to her, nor had he
since that last interview in the Vicarage garden. As for her action in
coming out there to claim him, under the circumstances, he preferred not
to express an opinion, for fear he might say too much.
He had anticipated a wild and stormy scene. To his surprise she seemed
to acquiesce. The only thing was that if he repudiated her after what
she had given out, what sort of a figure would she cut? She had better
let it be known that she had discovered they were not suited to each
other, and so had better part, she suggested.
There was something in this. He could hardly show her up--for every
reason. He was intensely annoyed, but finally agreed; resolving,
however, that there was one person at any rate who should know the
truth.
But now official business claimed Raynier's time and attention to the
exclusion of all else. Reinforcements arrived at Mazaran, and field
operations were to be opened immediately against the Gularzai, and on
the eve of these, Raynier had the good fortune to capture, with the aid
of Mehrab Khan and a few Levy Sowars, the _mullah_ Hadji Haroun, he
having obtained secret information that that pestilent agitator was
travelling in disguise and almost unguarded. This was a stroke of luck
indeed. There was no question at headquarters of superseding him now,
the more so that immediately afterwards he succeeded, through his
friendship with Shere Dil Khan, in opening up communications with the
Nawab. The Gularzai chief had been drawn into the war unwillingly, as
we have seen. The tribes further along the border had suffered
severely, and more reinforcements were moving up to reduce him. He had
entered upon it mainly as an opportunity of wreaking his vengeance upon
Raynier, only to find that the latter had saved the life of his son and
successor. Shere Dil Khan, too, had cast doubts on the genuineness of
the document used by the _mullah_ to secure the adherence of the
Gularzai--in fact, believed it to be a downright forgery.
Raynier was an important personage at that juncture, and, in truth, he
deserved any prestige he may have earned. For, again trusting to Mushim
Khan's safe conduct, he had placed himself alone in the power of the
Gularzai chief, with the result that he returned having obtained the
Nawab's submission. The Gularzai had taken no very active part as yet
in the rising, and the Government were only too glad to receive the
submission of so important and powerful a chief as Mushim Khan,
wherefore there was peace, and Raynier was marked out for recognition;
albeit the military element cursed him roundly among themselves as one
of those infernal meddling Politicals who had done them out of a nice
little campaign.
Hilda Clive seemed to have become quieter and more retiring than ever,
and the station--whose attempt to lionise her she had resolutely
evaded--decided that anxiety about Raynier was her motive, for it was
universally opined that "that would be a _bundobust_" once the border
trouble was over.
One day she said to the Tarletons,--"Do you remember how scared you all
were for fear I should go through the Syyed's _tangi_ with Mr Raynier?"
"Rather," said Haslam, who was there, helping Tarleton to reduce Mushim
Khan--in theory.
"How long ago was that?"
They fell to discussion; deciding that it was quite two months.
"Well, then, I ought to be dead by now. The tradition says before the
end of the second moon. And even when we were talking about the place,
I had already been through it once. I have been through it twice since.
The third time it saved our lives, as you know."
The story of this latter event in its completeness they had agreed to
keep to themselves, only giving out that the Gularzai had shrunk from
following them into the _tangi_ from superstitious motives.
"I told you I'd prove that superstition nonsensical," she went on, her
eyes dancing with fun. "Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?"
"You'd already been through it before that night, Miss Clive?" said
Haslam. "Well, I'm jiggered!"
"Yes. But what about the rule?" she persisted. "I'm not dead yet."
Snapped Tarleton, "Well, you can't expect there to be no exception to
every rule, can you?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hilda had been giving herself over to business of late, for each mail
brought her enclosures, bulky and blue, and of unequivocally legal
aspect. With such documents she would shut herself up in Tarleton's
den, which he had made over to her for the purpose, and she was so
engaged one morning, when Raynier was announced. He had returned to
Mazaran the day before, and they had met--in public; but this visit was
one of arrangement--of her arrangement.
Hilda looked up from the papers she had been busy with as he entered--in
fact made a guilty and trepidatious attempt at sweeping them out of
sight, which suggested a weakness entirely foreign to her.
"Well, how are things going?" she asked gaily.
"Things are going quite right. We have that pestiferous _mullah_, Hadji
Haroun, safe by the heels, and Mushim Khan has cut out of all further
part in the _jihad_. That's good enough to begin with."
"Yes--and you? You know, you must get removed from here. The blood
feud will overtake you sooner or later."
"No, I think not. I believe Mushim Khan was wound up by that sweep of a
_mullah_. Now he only remembers what I did for his son. And he has
done nothing beyond what he did to me individually, and Murad Afzul is
dead, so the Government will not be hard on him, and things will be as
they were."
"Yes. And who has he--who have we all got to thank for that? Herbert,
had you no thought for me, when you put yourself into their power again?
If I could not get you out of it before, could I again, do you think?"
"Darling, it was because I had every thought for you that I worried
along at the official business for all I knew how. I wanted to
straighten out the muddle they'd be sure to put down to me. And now I
believe I have."
"Yes, indeed, you have."
"And the stir and work knocked me together again, and all that fever has
cleared out of my system. I can never forget what an abject invalid I
was, just when I ought to have been taking care of you."
"Can't you? But I can, and have."
She was standing beside him now, one hand toying absently with a button
on his coat, a half-absent, half-serious expression in her large eyes
that was very sweet. Her mind went back to the period to which he
referred, when he was ill and fevered and fainting on the cloud-swept
hill side. What a contrast! She saw him now, dominant, restored in
every way, having ended the disturbance here in his own jurisdiction by
sheer personal intrepidity and weight of influence--the calm, strong,
cool-headed official, to whom all looked up.
"Tell me about Cynthia Daintree," she said.
"Just the very thing I've wanted to do. By the way, incidentally, she
has hooked that young ass, Beecher. Whether she'll land him is another
matter."
"I know. I know, too, what you wanted to tell me that day we went to
visit Sarbaland Khan. Well, we met with a very uncommon interruption
then."
"Hilda, Hilda. What a witch you are. Is there anything you don't
know?"
"Yes, plenty. But I won't bother you to go over all that again, because
I know it already. In fact, I knew it on that very day, though not
through you. Remember the _dak_ may bring me momentous communications
as well as you. Oh, by the way, I have a little present here for you.
Will you take it?"
"Will I? Will I value anything from you! Darling, how can you ask?"
She did not return his kiss. Her manner was constrained--almost
awkward. Turning to the table she placed in his hands a document--
large, parchmenty, legal-looking. Then she turned away.
"Why, what on earth is this?" he said as he read through it, and at
length mastered how it set forth, amid infinite legal terminology, how
shares and property and cash to the amount of thirty-seven thousand
pounds was conveyed to "the said Herbert Raynier by his said cousin, the
said Hilda Clive."
"Great Scott! What does it all mean?"
"What it says, dear," she answered, still somewhat constrained. "I
always thought you had been hardly treated in Cousin Jervis's will. You
were much nearer to him than I was, and a Raynier to boot. So I made up
my mind to go halves with you--until--until--well, lately. Then I
thought you ought to have the whole. I was always reckoned rather
eccentric, you know. But I kept a little, just a little for myself.
You won't mind that, will you?"
He was staring blankly at her, then at the document.
"I don't quite understand. What is this thing?"
"Well, it's a restoration of what ought to have gone to you. The
lawyers call it a deed of gift. It has to be put that way, you know,"
she added shyly, apologetically.
Still Raynier was staring at her as though he had taken leave of his
senses. For there suddenly rushed in upon his mind a scrap of a certain
conversation with Mr Daintree in the Vicarage garden. This, then, was
the distant cousin, Hilda Clive! He had not even known her name--and
then he remembered how he would have learned it then and there but for
the younger girl's boisterous interruption. He remembered, too, the
Vicar's remark. "She's bound to marry, and then where do you come in?"
and his own answer, lightly, banteringly given, "Nowhere, unless I were
to marry her myself," and then--
There was a harsh, staccato sound of tearing. The parchment lay upon
the floor, crumpled, and torn in several pieces. But she who had handed
it to him seemed to share its violent treatment, for she was crushed to
him in a close embrace.
"Hilda, darling, I wonder if you have anything approaching a parallel in
the world. I never heard of such an act of magnificent generosity.
But, unfortunately, it is all thrown away. I don't want that," pointing
to the tattered deed. "I want you. I would rather be back in Mushim
Khan's prison, with all it involved, and you as you were then, than take
what you wanted me to there--without you. The only deed of gift I will
accept is yourself. Yourself, do you hear? Am I to have it?"
She was thinking. Almost the spirit of her clairvoyance was in the
vivid picture of the dread prison in the Gularzai stronghold that rose
before her mind. Then she had stood with him on the brink of his grave,
and soul had met soul undisguised. Then it was death--now life--life
and such happiness! Her cheek was against his, her lips at his ear.
She whispered,--
"Yes. You know you are."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End.