It was a walled garden full of blossoming peach-trees, and chequered
with little rills of running water beside which grew fragrant clumps
of golden-eyed narcissus. In the centre was a slender-shafted,
twelve-arched garden-house, with overhanging eaves, and elaborate
fret-work, like wooden lace, between the pillars. On the sides of the
stone daïs on which the building stood trailed creepers bright with
flowers, and in front of the open archway serving as a door lay the
harmonious puzzle of a Persian carpet rich in deep reds and yellows.
Easy-chairs, with a fox-terrier curled up on one of them, and a low
gipsy table ominously ringed with marks of tumblers, showed the
presence of incongruous civilisation.
From within bursts of merriment and the clatter of plates and dishes,
without which civilisation cannot eat in comfort, bore witness that
dinner was going on. Then, while the birds were beginning to say
good-night to each other, the guests came trooping out in high
spirits, ready for coffee and cigars. All, with one exception, were in
the _khâki_ uniform which repeated washing renders, and always will
render, skewbald, despite the efforts of martial experts towards a
permanent dye. Most of the party were young and deeply engrossed by
the prospect of some sky-races, which, coming off next day, were to
bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant close. One, a
lanky boy with pretensions to both money and brains, was drawing down
on himself merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former stables he
had owned.
"Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dearest friend. "I give
you my word they were all screws. Stable, indeed! Call it your
tool-chest, Samuel, my boy."
Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, whose real name of Algernon, bestowed on
him by his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, had been voted
far too magnificent for everyday use, blinked his white eyelashes in
evident enjoyment of his own wit as he retorted: "Well, if they were
screws I turned 'em myself. You buy yours ready made."
"Well done, Samivel! Well done! You're improving," chorused the others
with a laugh.
"You might lend me that old jest-book, Sam, now that you've got
a new one," replied his opponent calmly. "I'm running short of
repartees,--and of cigars, too, bad cess to the Post! By Jove! I wish
I had the driving of those runners; I'd hurry them up!"
"Man does not live by cigars alone. I'm dead broke for boots,"
interrupted another, looking disconsolately at the soles and uppers
which not all the shameless patching of an amateur artist could keep
together.
"I have the best of you there," remarked some one else. "I got these
at Tom Turton's sale. They wouldn't fit any one else."
"Yes, poor Tom had small feet."
There was a pause among the light-hearted youngsters as if the grim
Shadow which surrounded that blossoming garden had crept a bit nearer.
"This is delightful," said John Raby, the only civilian present, as he
lay back in his easy-chair which was placed beyond the noisy circle.
His remark was addressed to Philip Marsden, who leaned against one of
the octagonal turrets which like miniature bastions flanked the
platform. "I shall be quite sorry to leave the place," continued Raby.
"It's a perfect paradise."
In truth it was very beautiful. The pink and white glory of the peach
blossoms blent softly into the snow-clad peaks, now flushed by the
setting sun; while a level beam of light, streaming in through a
breach in the wall, lit up the undergrowth of the garden, making the
narcissus shine like stars against the dark green shadows.
"Doubtless," remarked Philip, "--for a Political who comes with the
swallows and summer. You should have seen it in January,--shouldn't
he, boys?"
"Bah! the usual 'last Toosday' of 'Punch!' The hardships of
campaigning indeed! _Perdrix aux choux_ and cold gooseberry tart for
dinner; an idyllic mess-house in a peach-garden; coffee and iced pegs
to follow."
"Well, sir," cried a youngster cheerfully, "if you had favoured us in
winter we would have given you stewed Tom in addition. It was an
excellent cat; we all enjoyed it, except Samuel. You see it was his
favourite _miaow_, so he is going to give the stuffed skin to an aged
aunt, from whom he expects money, in order to show that he belongs to
the Anti-Vivisection League."
"A certain faint regard for the verities is essential to a jest,"
began Samuel, affecting the style of his illustrious namesake.
"I wish some one would remove the mess-dictionary," interrupted the
other. "The child will hurt himself with those long words some day."
"Bad for you, if they did," grinned a third. "D'ye know he actually
asked me last mail-day if there were two f's in affection. _Whoo
hoop!_" Closely pursued by the avenger he leapt the low balustrade,
and the garden resounded to much boyish laughter, as one by one the
youngsters joined the chase.
"Remarkably high spirits," yawned John Raby, "but a trifle reminiscent
of a young gentleman's academy. They jar on the _dolce far niente_ of
the surroundings."
"We were glad enough of the spirits a few months ago," replied Philip
significantly. "The _dolce far niente_ of semi-starvation requires
some stimulant."
"That was very nearly a _fiasco_, sending you over the Pass so late.
Lucky for you the Politicals put the drag on the Military in time."
"Lucky, you mean, that poor Dick Smith managed to send that telegram.
I've often wondered how he did it. The story would be worth hearing;
he was one in a thousand."
"You always had a leaning towards that red-headed boy; now I thought
him most offensive. He--"
"_De mortuis_," quoted the Major with a frown.
"Those are the ethics of eternity combined with a sneaking belief in
ghosts. But I mean nothing personal. He was simply a disconcerting
sport, as the biologists say, from the neutral-tinted Eurasian, and I
distrust a man who doesn't look his parentage; he is generally a fraud
or a monstrosity."
"That theory of yours is rather hard on development, isn't it?" said
Philip with a smile.
"Only a stand in favour of decency and order. What right has a man to
be above his generation? It is extremely inconvenient to the rest of
us. If he is successful, he disturbs our actions; if he uses us as a
brick wall whereon to dash out his brains, he disturbs our feelings.
To return to Dick Smith; the whole affair was foolhardy and
ridiculous. If I had been Political then I should certainly have
refused to allow that camping-out on the Pass; and so he would
probably have been enjoying all that money, instead of dying miserably
just when life became worth having."
"What money?" asked Philip Marsden hastily.
"Didn't you hear? It was in the papers last week,--haven't seen them
yet perhaps? Some distant relation of his father's died in England,
leaving everything to Smith senior or his direct male heirs; failing
them, or their assigns, to charity. So as no one had made a
will,--paupers don't generally--some dozens of wretched children will
be clothed in knee-breeches or poke-bonnets till Time is no more."
In the pause which ensued Philip Marsden felt, as most of us do at
times, that he would have given all he possessed to put Time's dial
back a space, and to be standing once more on the northern slope of
the Peirâk with Dick's hand in his. "_There's the will, Major; it
doesn't make any difference, you know_." The words came back to him
clearly, and with them the mingled feeling of proud irritation and
resentful self-respect which had made him set the blue envelope aside,
and advise a more worldly caution. Temper, nothing but temper, it
seemed to him now. "There was a will," he said at last, in a low
voice. "Dick spoke to me of one when we came over the Pass together.
You see there was a chance of his getting a few rupees from old
Desouza."
John Raby threw away the end of his cigarette with an exclamation. "By
George, that's funny! To make a will in hopes of something from a man
who died insolvent, and come in for thirty thousand pounds you knew
nothing about! But where is the will? It was not among his papers, for
strangely enough the people had not looted much when the Pass opened
and we went over to search. Perhaps he sent it somewhere for safe
custody. It would make a difference to Belle Stuart, I expect, for
he--well, he was another victim."
"I think,--in fact I am almost sure,"--the words came reluctantly as
if the speaker was loth to face the truth,--"that he had the will with
him when he died. He showed it me--and--Raby, was every search made
for the body?"
His hearer shrugged his shoulders. "As much as could be done in a
place like that. For myself I should have been surprised at success.
Think of the drifts, the vultures and hyenas, the floods in spring. Of
course it may turn up still ere summer is over, but I doubt it. What a
fool the boy was to carry the will about with him! Why didn't he give
it to some one else who was less heroic?"
"He could easily have done that, for I tell you, Raby, he was worth a
dozen of us who remain," said Philip bitterly, as he stood looking
over the peach-blossom to the lingering snows where Dick had died.
"Well, good-night. I think I shall turn in. After all there is no fool
like an old fool."
The civilian followed his retreating figure with a good-natured smile.
"He really was fond of that youngster," he said to himself. "The mere
thought of it all has made him throw away half of the best cigar on
this side the Peirâk. By Jove! I won't give him another; it is too
extravagant."
The next morning Philip Marsden came over to the Political quarters,
and with a remark that last night's conversation had borne in on him
the necessity for leaving one's affairs in strict business order,
asked John Raby to look over the rough draft of a will.
"Leave it with me," was the reply, given with the usual easy
good-nature. "It appears to me too legal, the common fault of
amateurs. I'll make it unimpeachable as Cæsar's wife, get one of my
_bâbus_ to engross it, and bring it over ready for you to fill up the
names and sign this afternoon. No thanks required; that sort of thing
amuses me."
He kept his promise, finding Philip writing in the summer-house. "If
you will crown one kindness by another and can wait a moment, I will
ask you to witness it," said the latter. "I shall not be a moment
filling it in."
"The advantage of not cutting up good money into too many pieces,"
replied his friend smiling.
"The disadvantage perhaps of being somewhat alone in the world. There,
will you sign?"
"Two witnesses, please; but I saw Carruthers in his quarters as I came
by; he will do."
John Raby, waiting to perform a kindly act somewhat to the prejudice
of his own leisure, for he was very busy, amused himself during Major
Marsden's temporary absence by watching a pair of doves with pink-grey
plumage among the pink-grey blossom. Everything was still and silent
in the garden, though outside the row of silvery poplar trees swayed
and rustled in the fitful gusts of the wind. Suddenly a kite soaring
above swooped slightly, the startled doves fled scattering the petals,
and the wind, winning a way through the breach in the wall, blew them
about like snowflakes. It caught the paper too that was lying still
wet with ink, and whirled it off the table to John Raby's feet. "I
hope it is not blotted," he thought carelessly, as he stooped to pick
it up and replace it.
A minute after Major Marsden, coming in alone, found him, as he had
left him, at the door, with rather a contemptuous smile on his face.
"Carruthers is not to be had, and I really have not the conscience to
ask you to wait any longer," said the Major.
John Raby was conscious of a curious sense of relief. In after years
he felt that the chance which prevented him from signing Philip
Marsden's will as a witness came nearer to a special providence than
any other event in his career. Yet he replied carelessly: "I wish I
could, my dear fellow, but any other person will do as well. I have to
see the Mukdoom at five, and I start at seven to prepare your way
before you in true Political style. Can I do anything else for you?"
"Put the will into the Political post-bag for safety when I send it
over," laughed Philip as they shook hands. "Good-bye. You will be a
lion at Simla while we are still doing duty as sand-bags on the
scientific frontier; diplomacy wins nowadays."
"Not a bit of it. In twenty years, when we have invented a gun that
will shoot round a corner, the nation which hasn't forgotten the use
of the bayonet will whip creation, and we shall return to the belief
that the man who will face his fellow, and lick him, is the best
animal."
"In the meantime, Simla for you and service for us."
"Not a bit of that, either. Why, the British Lion has been on the
war-trail for a year already. It's time now for repentance and a
transformation-scene; troops recalled, _durbar_ at Peshawar, the Amir
harlequin to Foreign Office columbine, Skobeloff as clown playing
tricks on the British public as pantaloon."
"And the nameless graves?"
"Principle, my dear fellow," replied John Raby with a shrug of his
shoulders, "is our modern Moloch. We sacrifice most things to it,--on
principle. By the bye, I have mislaid that original of the will
somehow; possibly my boy packed it up by mistake, but if I come across
it I'll return it."
"Don't bother,--burn it. 'Tis no good to any one now."
"Nor harm, either,--so good-bye, warrior!"
"Good-bye, diplomatist!"
They parted gaily, as men who are neither friends nor foes do part
even when danger lies ahead.
That same evening the homeward bound post-runner carried with him over
the Peirâk Major Marsden's will leaving thirty thousand pounds to
Belle Stuart unconditionally. It was addressed to an eminently
respectable London firm of solicitors, who, not having to deal with
the chances of war, would doubtless hold it in safe custody until it
was wanted. The testator, as he rode the first march on the Cabul
road, felt, a little bitterly, that once more he had done his best to
stand between her and care. Yet it must be confessed that this feeling
was but as the vein of gold running through the quartz, for pride and
a resentful determination that no shadow of blame should be his,
whatever happened, were the chief factors in his action. Nor did he in
any way regard it as final. The odds on his life were even, and if he
returned safe from the campaign he meant to leave no stone unturned in
the search for Dick Smith's body. Then, if he failed to find the will,
it would be time enough to confess he had been in the wrong.
John Raby, as he put the bulky letter in the Political bag according
to promise, felt also a little bitter as he realised that Belle with
thirty thousand pounds would come as near perfection in his eyes as
any woman could. And then he smiled at the queer chance which had put
him in possession of Major Marsden's intention; finally dismissing the
subject with the cynical remark that perhaps a woman who was
sufficiently fascinating to make two people leave her money ere she
was out of her teens might not be a very safe possession.