Belle, recovering from the shock healthily, looked for a like
forgetfulness in her husband, but she was disappointed. "There is
nothing to make such a fuss about, John," she said, when a few days
brought no cessation of his regret at her having been mixed up in such
a scene. "It hasn't hurt me, you see; and as for the notoriety, people
will soon forget all about it."
"At any rate it shows you that I was right in saying that the
philanthropical dodge doesn't do in the wife of an official," he
replied moodily. "A thing like that might do a man a lot of harm."
"I can't see how; besides, there isn't much philanthropy in watching
men--Oh, John! don't let us talk of it any more. It makes me feel ill;
I want to forget all about it."
"But you can't. I don't want to be disagreeable, Belle; but have you
ever considered that there must be a trial, and that you, as an
eye-witness, must--"
She turned pale, and clutched the arm of her chair nervously.
"No! I see you haven't,--that's always the way with women. They want
all the fun of the fair without the responsibility. The ring-leaders
will be tried for their lives of course; eight of the poor beggars
were killed, and two more are dying, so they must hang some one. You
had a box-seat, so to speak, and are bound to give your evidence."
"But I could only see the tops of their heads. I couldn't possibly
recognise--"
"You must have seen and heard that fool of a preacher, my dear child.
That's the worst of it; if you hadn't studied the language it would
have been different. As I said before, it all comes of taking what you
call an interest in the people. I don't see how you are to get out of
being called on for evidence, and I tell you honestly I'd have given
pounds to prevent you putting yourself in such a position. It may mean
more than you think."
"But I couldn't give evidence against that boy," said Belle in a very
low voice. "I told you, John, I thought it was he who,--who--"
"It doesn't matter a straw if he did help you. The question is, if he
excited the crowd. Of course he did, and with your predilection for
abstract truth, you would say so, I suppose, even if it was,--well,
unwise."
"What,--what would the punishment be?" she asked after a pause.
He looked at her with unfeigned surprise. "Really, Belle! you surely
see that some one must be hanged? The question is, who?"
"But he used such long words."
He had been quarrelling with a cigarette during the conversation, and
now threw it away impatiently. "You are certainly a very ingenuous
person, Belle. On the whole, perhaps you _had_ better stick to the
truth. You couldn't manage anything else satisfactorily."
"Of course I shall stick to the truth, John," she replied hotly.
"Well, I don't want to be disagreeable, you know; but in your place I
shouldn't, and that's a fact."
"Why?" she asked, in a startled voice.
"For many reasons. To begin with, the boy comes of decent folk;
Marsden used to swear by the father. There were three brothers in the
regiment, and one of them saved the Major's life, or something of that
sort. Why, Belle, what's the matter?"
She had risen, and was now fain to catch at his outstretched hand to
steady herself. Why, she scarcely knew; finding the only explanation
in an assertion, made as much for her own edification as his, that her
nerves must be out of order.
"Nerves!" he echoed, as he placed her with half contemptuous kindness
in his chair, and brought her a scent-bottle. "I'll tell you what it
is, dear, no woman should have both nerves and conscience. It's too
much for one frail human being. It is no use my advising you to forget
all about this wretched business, or to suppress the disagreeable
parts; and yet, in your place, I should do both."
"Oh, John!"
"Yes, I should, from a sense of duty,--to myself first, and then to
society. What will be gained by hanging that blatant windbag of a
boy?"
Murghub Ahmad, who, in his cell awaiting trial, was meanwhile
comforting himself with the belief that the fate of nations depended
on his life or death, would no doubt have resented this opinion
bitterly. Yet it was all too true. The evil lay much further back than
the utterance of the half-realised words which had poured from his
lips like oil on the flame. He had said things as wild, as subversive
of the law, dozens of times before, and nothing had happened; no one
had taken any notice of it. And now! The boy buried his face in his
hands, and tried to think if he was glad or sorry for martyrdom.
Mahomed Lateef, stern and indignant, hurried from far Faizapore to see
his Benjamin, and in the sight of the pale half-starved face forgot
his anger, and pledged his last remaining credit to engage an English
lawyer for his son's defence. And then he girt his old sword about
him, counted over the precious parchments of olden days, and the still
more precious scraps of modern note-paper, which were all that was
left to his honour, and thus armed set off to see the big Lord _sahib_
at Simla. He came back looking years older, to await, as they bade
him, the usual course of law and order.
So it came to pass that as her husband had foretold, Belle found
herself one day saying in a low voice: "I heard him call on the people
to fight. I saw him wave his hand towards the Hindus."
"You mean,--pray be careful Mrs. Raby, for it is a point of great
importance--that, as the butchers were coming up, you saw the prisoner
wave them on to the conflict?"
"I cannot say if that was his intention. I saw him wave his hand."
"As they were passing?"
"As they were passing."
"Should you say,--I mean, did it give you the impression that he was
encouraging them, urging them on?"
Belle Raby, before she answered, looked across the court at the boy,
then at her husband, who with a slight frown, sat twiddling a pen at
the Government Advocate's table. "It did. I think it would have given
that impression to any one who saw it." And with these words every one
knew the case was virtually at an end so far as Murghub Ahmad was
concerned.
"Roman matrons are not in it," thought John Raby as he flung the pen
from him impatiently; "and yet she will regret it all her life, and
wonder if she didn't make a mistake, or tell an untruth, to the end of
her days. O Lord, I'm glad I wasn't born a woman! They won't hang him,
if that's any consolation to you, my dear," he said as they drove
home; "though upon my word, it isn't your fault if they don't. I'm
beginning to be a bit afraid of you, Belle. Your conscientiousness
would run me out of that commodity in a week; but I suppose some
people are born that way."
The fresh wind blew in her face, the sun was shining, the little
squirrels skipping over the road. The memory of that drive to her
father's funeral returned to her, sharply, with a sort of dim
consciousness that something else in her life was dying, and would
have to be buried away decently ere long. "Why didn't you tell me
before that he would not be hanged?" she asked in a dull voice.
"Why? For many reasons. For one, I thought you might be more merciful,
and,--but there's an end of it! They'll give him fourteen years over
in the Andamans. By George, the boy will learn that the tongue is a
two-edged sword! Pity he wasn't taught it before."
Perhaps it was. At all events Mahomed Lateef, his father, went back to
his sonless house with a vague sense of injustice not to be lost this
side the grave, and a palsied shake of his head only to be stilled by
death. Not to stay there long, however, for he was ousted even from
that dull refuge by the necessity for selling it in order to redeem
his pledges. So he flitted drearily to his last hold on life. A scrap
of land between the Indus and the sand-hills, where, if the river ran
high, the flooding water raised a crop, and if not the tiller must
starve,--or go elsewhere; if only to the six feet of earth all men may
claim whereon to sow the seed for a glorious resurrection.
About a month after the trial John Raby came home from office, not
exactly in a bad temper, but in that cynical, contemptuously-patient
frame of mind which Belle began to see meant mischief to the
hero-worship she still insisted on yielding to her husband.
"I've brought you something to read," he said coolly, laying a
newspaper on the table and taking up the cup of tea she had poured out
for him. "As that unfortunate trial has led to this premature
disclosure, I think it only fair to ask you what you would rather I
did in the matter. Honestly, I don't much care. Of course I would
rather have had a little more time; but as the native papers have got
hold of the business I'm quite ready, if you prefer it, to throw up
my appointment to-morrow. However, read it,--on the second page I
think--and skip the adjectives."
"Well?" he asked, as after a time she laid down the newspaper, and
stared at him in a bewildered sort of way. "The main facts are true,
if that is what you mean. I was lucky enough to hit on that indigo
business; it will pay cent per cent if properly worked."
"I thought," she replied in a toneless voice, "that it was
against,--the rules."
"Exactly so; but you see I haven't the slightest intention of
remaining in the service. I never had, if once I got an opportunity,
and I've got it."
"But the rules?"
"Bother the rules! I am not going to buy a pig in a poke to please
propriety. That part of it is done, and I think it is always best to
let by-gones be by-gones. If you like me to send in my papers to-day,
I'll do it; if not I shall hang on for a time, and defy them. Why
should one lose twelve hundred a month for an idea? I do my work quite
as well as I did, and there won't be any necessity for personal
supervision down in Saudaghur till next spring. But as I said before,
if you have scruples,--why, you brought the money, and I'm deeply
grateful, I assure you. Don't look scared, my dear; I'll insure my
life if you are thinking of the pension of a civilian's widow!"
"Don't laugh, John; I can't stand it. Have any more of the native
papers been writing,--things like that?" And she shivered a little as
she spoke.
"No, that's the first; but the others will follow suit. They were
desperately indignant about the Mohurrim riot. That is why I wanted--"
Belle stood up, and stretched her hands out appealingly to her
husband, "Don't say it. Oh, please don't say it! You don't,--you can't
mean it!"
He came across to her, taking her hands in his. "That's not
consistent, Belle; you're always for having the truth. I do mean it.
What harm would you have done to anybody by toning down what you saw?
For the matter of that, what harm have I done to any one by investing
money in indigo? None, absolutely none! However, it is no use talking
about it; we should never agree; people seldom do on these points. But
you ought to know by this time that I never mean to hurt your feelings
in any way. So which is it to be,--dignity or impudence?"
And Belle, as he kissed her, felt helpless. It was like being
smothered in a feather bed, all softness and suffocation.
"Well, I'm waiting. Am I not a model husband? Now don't begin to cry
when it's all over; perhaps it is best as it is, for I shall have to
build you a house, Belle. Think of that; a house of your very own! And
look here! you can go in for doing good to your heart's content when
you are no longer the wife of an official. Cheer up! There's a good
time coming, and you have to decide if it's to come now, or next
spring."
"How can you ask?" she said, breaking from him hurriedly, to walk up
and down the room, twisting her fingers nervously. "We must go,--go at
once."
"Very well. It's a little hasty; but remember it's your doing, not
mine; and for goodness' sake, you poor, little, conscience-stricken
soul, don't cry at getting your own way."