with the current. Two men held the rope to check its speed in the more
rapid reaches of the river. The man upon it used his pole to fend it
off rocks and snags. The others fetched their horses from the wood in
which they had been tethered. On one of these Lawrence was mounted,
with his hands still tied. Black Jack rode alongside, firmly grasping
the bridle. Thus, when the afternoon was already far advanced, they
began the march in the direction of the mine.
Lawrence had not looked on without expostulation at the handling of the
aeroplane, but Nurla Bai ignored his protests. When he saw it swaying
and jolting on the raft, he expected it to be irretrievably ruined
before it had gone many miles on its course. The river, everywhere
rapid, became a torrent in the gorges; and at these narrow places
Lawrence anticipated that the raft would be whirled and cast about
utterly beyond control, driven on one bank or the other, or smashed on
some rock in mid-stream. But he discovered that the Kalmucks had been
as much alive to the risks as he was himself, and his opinion of Nurla
Bai rose. Just before coming to a gorge, they drew the raft to the
bank, lifted the aeroplane, and carried it overland until the river
broadened again. The man with the pole remained by the raft until his
comrades were a long way in advance; then he let it race down the gorge
unchecked and followed it along the bank, to find that it had been
recovered at the further end.
The party had been marching for about an hour when they were met by
three other Kalmucks, tramping wearily up the track on foot. Lawrence
recognized them as miners. They had either not been furnished with
horses by the advanced guard beyond the mine, or had had their steeds
shot under them during the scamper in the darkness. Nurla Bai gave
these hungry men a portion of the provisions that were still left, and
they turned about and marched with the rest down-stream. The journey
was continued until the growing darkness rendered further advance
impossible. Mooring the raft to a tree on the bank, the men prepared to
camp for the night, on a moss-covered space just above. Lawrence was
lifted from the horse; his feet were again tied; and he was laid in the
centre of the encampment. The horses were tethered in a copse hard by,
and when a fire had been lighted a few yards northward of the bivouac,
the men disposed themselves in a wide circle about their prisoner, and
devoted themselves to the remnants of the provisions. No one offered
Lawrence a share--a lack of courtesy which did not trouble him. No one
spoke to him; but there was no charm in their conversation. They
scarcely even looked at him; he suffered nothing from their neglect. He
wished they would not eat so noisily; and when, having gobbled the last
scraps of the food intended for Major Endicott and his party, they sat
with their knees up, and chattered across him in their rasping voices,
he felt that no one could be said to have a complete experience of the
minor troubles of life who had not been an enforced companion of
Kalmucks.
A great deal of what they said was incomprehensible to him, but he
caught a phrase now and then that interested him in spite of himself.
One concerned his uncle. Nurla Bai was apparently relating, for the
benefit of the strangers from the north, the doughty deeds he had
recently performed. Among them he ranked the shooting of the Englishman
who had been his employer. From what he said, Lawrence gathered that
the disappearance of Mr. Appleton was as great a disappointment to the
miners as to himself. They joked about it, however; Nurla Bai became
facetious as he described the consternation of the fishes as they beheld
the body of an Englishman, strange monster, sinking into their midst.
It was fortunate that Lawrence did not understand the idiomatic
beastliness with which the man depicted the gruesome feast then
celebrated on the stony bottom of the river.
Another flight of the Kalmuck's fancy afforded him much amusement.
Nurla Bai gave rein to his eloquence in picturing the scenes that Delhi
was soon to witness: Ubacha Khan sitting in state on the ancient throne
of the Moguls, withering with his frown the throng of cowed and
shivering Englishmen who grovelled at his feet, and beslobbered them
with tears as they pleaded vainly for mercy. Lawrence heard for the
first time of the exquisite tortures which Mongol ingenuity could devise
for helpless prisoners; and while he was amused at the picture conjured
up of British officers suing a new Mogul emperor for pardon, he was
horrified at the mere imagination of the cruelties which these wretches
discussed with such gloating inhumanity.
Lying on his back, he could see half the ring of his captors, their
squat forms silhouetted against the glow of the camp-fire, their yellow
faces blanched by the moonlight now flooding the valley. He raised his
eyes to the hills beyond, watching the magical play of the silvery
radiance upon the peaks and promontories, making the snow sparkle;
searching, as it were, the black crannies and caverns. But he soon
found his interest in this wonderful illumination yield to his sense of
cold. This region was one of extremes of temperature: the torrid heat
of day being succeeded by Arctic cold at night. The Kalmucks did not
appear conscious of it; they were inured to the climate; but to
Lawrence, compelled to lie motionless, the chilliness became painful,
and the warm glow of the camp-fire mocked him tantalizingly.
He was to prove, this night, the contrariness of fate. Twice before,
when he had wished above all things to keep awake, drowsiness had
overcome him; now, when he would have given anything for the oblivion of
sleep, physical discomfort and the burden of his thoughts banished sleep
from his eyes. The Kalmucks became less talkative as the night wore on;
presently their voices ceased altogether, and they slept. Lawrence
preferred their snores to their conversation; they formed a descant to
the unvarying ground bass of the river droning below. Every now and then
the cry of a night-bird in the mountains added its shrill treble to the
harmony.
The moon sank behind the crest of the hills; black darkness stole over
the valley; and the untended watch-fire sank lower and lower, until its
glow was too faint even to show up the slumbering forms of the Kalmucks.
Lawrence might have wondered that they had not set a watch but for his
knowledge that they were quite unsuspicious of the enemy higher up the
stream, and that his bonds were only too firm. His thoughts flitted to
Major Endicott and his little band; where were they now? How did they
regard his failure to return to them? Had they, too, encamped for the
night? Was there the least possibility that the hours spent in stalking
him and in constructing the raft would have given them time to draw so
near that with morning light they would come upon the encampment, or
overtake the Kalmucks during the ensuing day? And what was to be the
final issue of all these strange events? Would he, or Bob, ever come
out of the entanglement in which they had been so suddenly involved?
His anxious meditation was broken short by a slight sound behind him.
He turned his head--it was the only part of his body that he could
move--and stretched his ear towards the spot whence the sound had seemed
to come. Perhaps it was one of the Kalmucks stirring in his
sleep--rising, possibly, to cast fuel upon the dying fire. He could see
nothing. Twisting his neck until it ached, he tried to pierce the
blackness, listening keenly for a repetition of the sound. He heard
only the regular snores of the men sleeping nine or ten feet away.
But there seemed to be something moving between him and them--a
something darker than the night itself, creeping along the ground. It
could not be a wild animal; no ibex, nor even a bear unless pressed by
hunger, would have come within the scent of him; there were no tigers or
leopards in these regions; could it be a man?--one of his own people?
Tingling with a flush of hope, he lay perfectly still, fearful lest even
the beating of his heart should betray his excitement to the enemy.
There was a rustling movement near him; it seemed to come nearer; then
he shuddered involuntarily as he felt something touch him. It flashed
upon him that one of the Kalmucks was going to murder him, and for a
moment he had to exercise stern control over his nerves to repress a
cry. A cold shiver trickled down his back, and he broke out in a clammy
sweat as he felt a rough hand pass over him--over his face, aside to his
arms, down to his feet. He durst not utter a sound, hope and fear
jostling in his brain.
The hand left him. There was a moment of suspense. Then in his ear
breathed a whisper.
"Sahib, lie still!"
He felt the hand again, then a pressure upon his arm--a pressure that
increased and diminished in rapid alternation. He throbbed with joy.
Some one--was it Fazl?--was sawing at his bonds. The sound made by the
knife or sword was scarcely perceptible; yet to his feverish
apprehension it seemed loud enough to waken the heaviest sleeper. Soon
he was conscious that his arms were free, and he ventured to move them
stealthily to ease them of their numbness. The pressure was transferred
to his feet, and after some moments of quivering anxiety he felt that
these also were released from their bonds. Then cold metal touched his
hand, and his eager fingers clasped over a grooved hilt.
"Sahib, a minute to rest, then follow me," whispered the voice.
He could hardly endure the waiting, though he knew it was intended to
give him command of his limbs.
"Sahib, now!"
He raised himself on all fours, and began to creep after his deliverer,
a black form crawling towards the ring of sleeping Kalmucks.
The Gurkha--for it was he--had almost passed between and beyond the two
men who lay stretched towards the track, when a hand shot out and
gripped him by the ankle. At the same moment the owner of the hand gave
a shout, his companions started up, and Bob leapt to his feet. As soon
as he felt the touch upon him, Fazl wriggled like a snake, his right
hand groping towards the dark form beneath him. There was a groan, and
he stood free.
A foot or two behind him, Bob came to a halt when he dimly saw the two
figures writhing on the ground. When one of them sprang up, he was not
sure for the moment whether it was friend or foe. A murmured word
reassured him, and he was ready to go on. But his way was blocked.
Roused by their comrade's cry, the Kalmucks hurled themselves in a
shouting mass across the open space. One of them kicked up the embers
of the expiring fire, and a dull glow illuminated the scene. It lent
aid to the fugitives, who were themselves in shadow. But for his
sprained ankle Lawrence could have sprinted away into the darkness; Fazl
might by this time have been out of harm's way, but the little man,
perplexed and anxious at his master's dilatoriness, turned to his
assistance. Lawrence had been checked by a man who sprang at him from
the left. He had no time to swing round and bring into play the right
hand clutching Fazl's knife; but, instinctively shooting out his left
hand, by good luck he got home upon his opponent's chin. There was
little 'body' in the blow, delivered so rapidly and at such close
quarters; yet his muscles were hard, and the man staggered and fell in a
heap.
At this moment Fazl rushed to his side, in time to engage a group of the
enemy who had now got their bearings and were rushing towards him. That
moss-carpeted enclosure was the scene of a struggle as extraordinary as
it was short. The little Gurkha twirled and twisted, sprang high, bent
low, legs and arms gyrating with a rapidity that the eye of a spectator
could scarcely have followed. It was as though some infuriated gnome
had sprung out of the bowels of the earth, and was executing a fantastic
dance among men bewildered by his demoniacal antics. But it was a dance
of death. The red glow of the newly rekindled fire flashed upon a
terrible kukuri, which whirled in circles, ovals, parabolas, and fifty
unnamed curves, carving intricate luminous patterns on the night. Nor
were these evolutions purposeless: every stroke of the keen nimble blade
was directed by the keener mind of the man wielding it. Here it struck
up a knife, there a rifle; now it pierced a shoulder, now grazed a head;
so swift in its darting movements that it seemed multiplied into a dozen
weapons each barbed with fire.
While the Gurkha was thus in the ecstasy of sword-play, keeping half the
party of Kalmucks urgently engaged, Lawrence was in difficulties. The
knife given him by Fazl was no doubt sharp and deadly, but it was a
weapon to whose use no Englishman is bred, and demanded, though not so
much free space as a sword, yet a certain amount of elbow room for its
effective employment. Lawrence had only just felled his first assailant
when he was himself beset by two or three at once. Half conscious of
stinging sensations in arm and thigh he lashed out with left fist and
right hand grasping the knife, but lost his footing, stumbled, and fell
to the ground with his aggressors on top of him, snarling like wolves.
He found himself with his left hand gripping one of them by the throat:
his own right wrist was held as in a vice. Struggling to wrench himself
free, he rolled over, dragging the panting enemy with him, their
movements carrying them nearer and nearer to the camp-fire; and in a
sudden flicker of light he recognized the savage features of Black Jack.
In sheer muscular strength he was no match for the Kalmuck dwarf. Under
the crushing pressure of Black Jack's fierce grip his hold on the knife
was relaxing: the weapon was slipping from him. His hold upon the man's
throat weakened; the Kalmuck was digging his nails into his left arm.
As the under dog he was not able to cope with the man pressing him down.
The knife dropped to the ground; his wrist was suddenly released; he
felt a bony hand at his own throat, and had given himself up for lost,
when a wild discordant clamour broke out close by, drowning all other
sounds. For an instant Black Jack was perfectly still: then, wrenching
himself away, he sprang to his feet and leapt into the darkness.
Lawrence got up more slowly, every muscle and nerve quivering. He had
just seen that the space around was empty of living men, when a film
seemed to fall upon his eyes. He tottered, and sank fainting upon the
ground.
When he reopened his eyes, the flush of morning lay upon the valley. He
raised his head.
"That's right," said Major Endicott, stepping from behind him. "How do
you feel?"
"Rather groggy, Major," replied Lawrence. "Those fellows struck me, I
think."
"A gash or two: nothing to speak of. What bowled you over was hunger
and fatigue, I suspect. We've got a few scraps left, which will keep
you going until we reach your mine."
"Is Fazl all right?"
"As jolly as a sandboy, though rather dilapidated. It's lucky I carry a
case of sticking plaster with me; he's pretty considerably patched--much
more than you are. You slept pretty soundly through my amateur
surgery."
"And the Kalmucks?"
"Gone elsewhere--all that were left of them. That machine of yours
played you false then?"
"Yes, the engine failed, and I had to come down. I was rather bothered
with getting rid of my bombs and controlling the thing at the same time,
and made a hash of it--sprained my ankle, too. I was waiting for you,
and the beggars stalked me. I was a silly ass to let them take me
unawares."
"What were they going to do with you?"
"Offer me and the aeroplane in exchange for the mine--as if Bob would
listen to any rot like that!
"Well, the aeroplane isn't worth much now, I suspect, but I fancy Bob
might be disposed to think you good value for the mine. However, that's
all off. The aeroplane's done for, of course?"
"Not a bit of it. We can put it to rights in a day."
"Warrant it?"
"Yes. Our bargain holds if you'll risk it. I'm more than sorry this
happened, if it's going to dish your plan, Major."
"It shan't do that. Taking risks is part of my job--and yours too, as
it happens."
"I'm jolly glad you came up when you did. In another minute you would
have been too late."
"You've got to thank your Gurkha for that. We were marching up pretty
briskly--had no trouble from the Afghans--and the Gurkha declared he
heard the sound of your bombs far ahead. None of us had heard anything,
but the little chap was so positive that I thought we'd be on the safe
side and hurry up. Judging by the march we made, the sound must have
travelled nearly ten miles--not impossible in this air, I suppose; I
confess I was sceptical at first, and only began to feel anxious when
you didn't return within the time stated.
"We came upon the tracks of the aeroplane some miles up; there was
litter of all sorts about--scraps of food, broken branches and what not,
and I feared you'd smashed yourself and your machine, only we couldn't
find any pieces of it. But we found your rifle and field-glass in a
little hollow, and the Gurkha guessed that you had tumbled among the
Kalmucks. An hour after dark we caught sight of the camp-fire. The
Gurkha volunteered to creep up and reconnoitre, so the rest of us
halted, waiting for his report.
"He's a clever little chap, with a double dose of Gurkha courage. He
came back very soon and told me he'd seen you tied up among them, and
about the raft and so on. My sowars wanted to rush the place, but it
struck me that that might be the end of you. The first instinct of such
barbarians would be to knife their prisoner. It was a bit of a
quandary--and the Gurkha came out strong again. It was his suggestion
that he should creep into the camp and release you before we moved."
"Plucky little chap!" said Lawrence warmly.
"A treasure! The noise of the scuffle brought us up hot-foot, and the
only thing I regret is that, as the Gurkha informed me, the ringleaders,
those rascally miners of yours, got away.... Now the sooner we get to
your mine the better. You had better sit my horse. As all our food is
gone, we shall have a strong motive for hurry, so we ought to get home
before night. Of course if you think you can't stand it we'll take our
time."
"No: I'm fit enough. Your men will look after the raft?"
He explained the method by which the aeroplane had been taken safely
past the gorges, and the Major went off to instruct his men.
Lawrence summoned Fazl, who was resting on a grassy knoll overlooking
the river.
"I owe you my life; you're a brave fellow, and I thank you," he said.
Fazl's plastered face broadened in a grin.
"Wah! sahib, the Kalmucks are pigs, and their hearts melt like butter.
The sahib's servant is unworthy of praise. It is a small thing to do
for the heaven-born."
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
THE FRONTIER HOUSE
Some ninety miles southward of the tower in which Major Endicott had
been besieged, on the bare summit of a low hill, stood a solitary
building of stone, known to the British officers of the borderland as a
frontier house. It had no pretentions to architectural excellence,
consisting of a square tower, somewhat resembling a truncated
chimney-stack, crowned by a small turret on a platform, which looked
like a square straight-brimmed Quaker hat. Adjoining the tower was a
sloping wall twenty feet high, that formed one side of an enclosure,
within which were a number of rudely built huts, set up against the
inward side of the wall. Neither tower nor wall had any windows, but in
the latter a doorway gave entrance to the interior.
One day Dafadar Narrain Khan was squatting with a few of his sowars on
the wall of the enclosure, looking out over the country before him. The
building commanded a prospect extending for many miles. Its immediate
vicinity was barren, stony ground; one scraggy tree raised its wizened
branches at the angle of the wall. A narrow track wound through this
wilderness from the doorway down the hill to the plain below, meandering
northward among boulders and patches of sparse vegetation until it was
lost to sight amid the dark pine-trees that covered the lower slopes of
the distant hills. Beyond, as far as the eye could reach, these hills
stretched, an endless series of scarps and eminences, cleft by tortuous
ravines and breaking away here and there into sheer precipices. In the
remote distance, a jagged snow-clad ridge flashed with purple and gold
in the rays of the sun. In the opposite direction, southward, the
country was rugged but less hilly. A metalled road wound away into the
distance. At regular intervals on one side of it stood tall posts,
carrying a telegraph wire that emerged from a hole in the tower wall.
As the troopers sat there chatting, with their rifles in the hollow of
their arms, there was a sudden cry from the sentinel posted alone on the
top of the tower.
"Hai, dafadar! I see a speck moving in the sky far away," he shouted.
"How far away, Coja?" called the dafadar.
"Seven kos at least," was the reply.
"The speck is in your own eye, my son," cried the dafadar, and the men
about him laughed: Coja was always seeing something!
The sentinel shouted a word of expostulation, then was silent, and the
others resumed the conversation he had interrupted.
Half an hour passed away. The time came for changing the guard. One of
the men rose, sauntered along the wall, disappeared through a narrow
opening in the tower, and presently emerged on the summit. Apparently
he had a brief altercation with the man he had relieved. In five minutes
Coja came from the tower along the wall.
"Wah! you may mock, dafadar," he said; "but I declare by the beard of my
father I saw a speck--a black speck moving."
"You have chewed too much betel, Coja," said the dafadar with composure.
"I too have seen dancing specks when my stomach was out of order."
"Yes, but do those motes in the eye grow larger? Do they swell from the
size of a pinpoint to the size of a little bird, and then to a great
one? I thought at first it was peradventure an eagle of the mountains,
but, inshallah! no eagle could look so large such a great way off. Is
there a bird bigger than an eagle? Speak out of your great knowledge,
dafadar."
"There is none, foolish one--none that flies, though I have heard of a
great bird that runs upon the ground swifter than the iron horse that
runs on rails; the mem-sahibs wear its feathers in their hats."
"Hai! what was this great thing, then? I saw it, and rubbed my eyes,
and lo! when I looked again, it wheeled about, and soared away towards
the Afghan country, and passed behind a crag yonder, and I saw it no
more."
"Wonderful eyes you have, Coja, and a wonderful tongue! Do we not know
your tales? What of the tiger with two heads you saw once in a tree? and
the elephant that caught you up and put you on his head? and that time
when you swallowed a cherry-stone, and leaves began to sprout among your
hair? Wah! we know his stories, my children; we know how the lies flow
out of his mouth like water from a spring."
"Mashallah! Do I not speak truth?" cried the man indignantly. He was a
by-word for romancing among his fellows, and, like all liars, resented
any imputation on his veracity. "There is no wisdom in you. Many a
great thing that I have told you you have believed: now when I tell you
a little thing, you say 'Wah! he is a liar.'"
"But it was a great thing you saw, Coja-ji--bigger than an eagle, said
you, when we know there is nothing bigger than an eagle that flies. Wah!
at least when you are on duty, you must resist these promptings of the
Evil One, else it will end in Jehannum. And look you, Coja, when your
turn for watching comes again, keep your eyes on the ground, my friend;
do not look for the stars in daylight."
Highly offended, the man walked away, descended the steps within the
wall, and retired to sulk, like Achilles, in his tent.
About an hour later the dafadar and his men, who had scarcely changed
their position, were again hailed from the roof.
"A speck on the track, dafadar," cried the sentinel; "moving this way,
like a fly crawling, very far off."
"Hai! that is news," said the dafadar, slowly rising to his feet. "A
speck on the ground is worth looking at; in the sky it proceeds from
overeating." Raising his voice, he called to the sentinel: "Hai, Selim,
I come to see."
Followed by several of the troopers, he mounted to the roof, and taking
the telescope from Selim's hand, examined the track, tracing it back for
miles until he discerned the moving object. So remote was it that even
with the telescope he could distinguish it only as a human being:
whether shepherd, mendicant, or fakir he could not tell, and a single
pedestrian must, he thought, be one of these three.