Jem Agar was thought very highly of by almost all concerned, except himself, and it had not occurred to him to devote much thought to this matter. He was one of the very few men to whom a senior officer or a pretty girl could say, "You are a nice man and a clever fellow," without doing the least harm. Men who thought such things of themselves laughed at him behind his back, and wondered vaguely why he got promotion. It never occurred to them to reflect that "old Jem" invariably acquitted himself well in each new position thrust upon him by a persistently kind fortune; they contented themselves with an indefinite conviction that each severally could have done better, as is the way of clever young men.
One of the many mysteries, by the way, which will have to be cleared up in a busy hereafter is that appertaining to brilliant boys, clever undergraduates, and gifted young men. What becomes of them? There are hundreds at school at this moment--we have it from their own parents; hundreds more at Oxford and Cambridge--we have it from themselves. In a few years they will be absorbed in a world of men very much inferior to themselves (by their own showing), and will be no more seen.
Jem Agar had never been a clever boy. He was not a clever man. But--and mark ye this--he knew it. The result of this knowledge was that he did what he could in the present with the present, and did not indefinitely postpone astonishing the universe, as most of us do, until some future date.
At this time he was banished, as some would take it. Banished to the top of a pa.s.s which was nought else than a footway between two empires. Forty miles from men of his own race, this man was one of those who either have no thoughts or no wish to impart them; for this racial solitude, which is an emotion fully explored by many in India, in no way affected his nerves. Some say that they get jumpy, others aver that they begin to lose their national characteristics and develop barbarous proclivities, while one Woods-and-Forests man known to some of us resigned because he had a buzzing in the head during the long solitary, silent evenings.
Major Agar made no statements on this point, though he listened with sympathy to the a.s.sertions of others. If the sympathy were subtly mingled with non-comprehensive wonder, the seeker after a purer form of commiseration attributed the alloy to natural density, and turned elsewhere.
Accompanied by a handful of Goorkhas, Major J. E. M. Agar had occupied the key to this narrow pa.s.s for more than a week, vaguely admiring the scenery, ill.u.s.trating upon living "running deer" in turbans his views upon quick firing to his diminutive soldiers, who worshipped him as second only to the G.o.ds, and possessing his soul with that trustful patience which is rapidly becoming old-fashioned and effete.
During that same week the newspapers at home had been very busy with his name. Some had gone so far as to lay before a greedy public a short and succinct account of his life, compiled from the Army List and a journalistic imagination, finishing the record on the Monday, six days previously, with the usual three-line regret that England should in future be compelled to limp along the path to glory without the a.s.sistance of so brilliant a young officer.
Such a word as brilliant had never been coupled with the name of Jem even by his best friend in earnest or his worst enemy in irony. Such sarcasm were too shallow to be worth sounding even in disparagement. But we never know what an obituary notice may bring. Not only had he been endowed with many virtues, manly qualities, and the record of n.o.ble deeds, but more substantial honours had been heaped upon his fallen crest or pinned upon his breathless bosom. To some of his distant countrymen he was the proud possessor of the Victoria Cross, awarded him post-mortem in the heat of obituary enthusiasm by more than one local paper. To others he was held up by what is called a Representative Press as a second Crichton. And all this because he was dead. Such is glory.
All unconscious of these honours, honest Jem Agar sat in his little tent, nibbling the end of his penholder--the gift, by the way, of his father--and wishing that he had bought a Letts"s diary with six days in a page instead of three.
CHAPTER VIII
RELIEVED
Well waited is well done.
"Here--hi!"
This time some one heard him, and that small, silent man, Ben Abdi, stood in the doorway of the tent at attention.
"Are you keeping a good look-out down the valley?" asked Major Agar.
"Ee yess, sar."
"No signs of any one?"
"No, sar."
Agar shut up the diary, which book Ben Abdi had been taught to regard as strictly official, laid it aside, and pa.s.sed out of the tent, the little Goorkha following close upon his heels with a quick intelligent interest in his every movement which somehow suggested a dusky and faithful little dog.
For some moments they stood thus on the edge of the small plateau, the big man in front, the little one behind--alert, with twinkling, beady eyes. Behind them towered a bleak grey slope of bare rock, like a cliff set back at a slight angle, so treeless, so smooth was the face of it. In front the great blue-shadowed valley lay beneath them, stretching away to the south, until in a distant haze the sharp hills seemed to close in and cut it short.
Perched thus, as it were, upon the roof of the world, these two men looked down upon it all with a calm sense of possession, and to him of the dominant race standing there some thousands of miles from his native land--alone--master of this great stretch of an alien sh.o.r.e, there must have come some pa.s.sing thought of the strangeness of it all.
There was something wrong--he knew that. His orders had been to press forward and occupy this little ridge, which was vaguely marked on the service maps as Mistley"s Plateau, named after an adventurous soul, its discoverer. He had been instructed to hold this against all comers, and if possible to prevent communication between the two valleys, connected only by this narrow pa.s.s. All this Agar had carried out to the letter; but some one else had failed somewhere.
"It will be three days at the most," his chief had said, "and the main body of the advance guard will join you!"
Jem Agar had been in occupation a week, and it seemed that he and his little band of men were forgotten of the world. Still this soldier held on, saying nothing to his men, writing his intensely practical diary, and trusting as a soldier should to the _Deus ex machina_ who finally allows discipline to triumph. He looked down into the valley, piercing the shimmer of its hazes with his gentle blue eyes, looking to his chief, who had said, "In three days I will join you."
It was not the first time that Agar and the little non-commissioned native officer, Ben Abdi, had stood thus together. They had taken their stand in this same spot in the keen air of the early morning, with the white frost crystallising the stones around them; in the glow of midday; and when the moon, hanging over the sharp-pointed hills, cast the valley into an opaque shade dark and fathomless as the valley of death.
Scanning the distant hills, Agar presently raised his eyes, noting the position of the sun in the heavens.
"Have you tried the heliograph a second time this morning?" he asked without looking round, which informality of manner warmed the little soldier"s heart.
"Yes, sar. Three times since breakfast."
It was the first time that Ben Abdi had found himself in a position of some responsibility, in immediate touch with one of the white-skinned warriors from over seas whose methods of making war had for him all the mystery and the infinite possibilities of a religion. This silent looking out for relief partook in some small degree of the nature of a council of war. Jem Sahib and himself were undoubtedly the chiefs of this expeditionary force, and to whom else than himself, Ben Abdi, should the Major turn for counsel and a.s.sistance? The little Goorkha preferred, however, that it should be thus; that Agar Sahib should say nothing, merely allowing him to stand silent three paces behind. He was a modest little man, this Goorkha, and knew the limit of his own capabilities, which knowledge, by the way, is not always to be found in the hearts of some of us boasting a fairer skin. He knew that for hard fighting, snugly concealed behind a rock at two hundred yards, or in the open, with cunning bayonet or swinging kookery, he was as good as his fellows; but for strategy, for the larger responsibilities of warfare, he was well pleased that his superior officer should manage these affairs in his quiet way unaided.
During a luncheon more remarkable for heartiness of despatch than delicacy of viand, James Edward Makerstone Agar devoted much thought to the affairs of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of India. After luncheon he lighted a cheroot, threw himself on his bed, and there reflected further. Then he called to him Ben Abdi.
"No more promiscuous shooting," he said to him. "No more volley firing at a single Ghilzai or a stray Bhutari. It seems that they do not know we are here, as we are left undisturbed. I do not want them to know--understand? If you see any one going along the valley, send two men after him; no shooting, Ben Abdi."
And he pointed with his cheroot towards the evil-looking curved knife which hung at the Goorkha"s side.
Ben Abdi grinned. He understood that sort of business thoroughly.
Then followed many technical instructions--not only technical in good honest English, but interlarded with words from a language which cannot be written with our alphabet for the benefit of such as love details of a realistic nature.
The result of this council was that sundry little dusky warriors were busy clambering about the rocky slope all that day and well into the short hill-country evening, working in twos and threes with the _alacrity_ of ants.
Jem Agar, in his own good time, was proceeding to further fortify, as well as circ.u.mstances allowed, the position he had been told to hold until relief should come. In addition to the magic of the master"s eye he lent the a.s.sistance of his strong right arm, laying his lithe weight against many a rock which his men could not move unaided. By the evening the position was in a fairly fortified state, and, after a copious dinner in the chill breeze that rushed from the mountain down to the valley after sunset, he walked placidly up and down at the edge of the plateau, watching, ever watching, but with calmness and no sign of anxiety.
Such it is to be an Englishman--the product of an English public school and country life. Thick-limbed, very quiet; thick-headed if you will!--that is as may be--but with a nerve of iron, ready to face the last foe of all--Death, without so much as a wink.
To his ear came at times the low cautious cry of some night-bird sailing with heavy wing down to the haunt of mouse or mole; otherwise the night was still as only mountain night-seasons are. Far down below him, the jungle and forest were rustling with game and beasts of prey seeking their meat from G.o.d, but the larger beasts of India, unlike their African brethren, move in silence, stealthy yet courageous; and the distance was too great for the quickly stifled cry of the victim of panther or tiger to reach him.
When the moon rose he made the round of his pickets--a matter of ten minutes--and then to bed.
On the morning of the ninth day he thought he detected signs of uneasiness in the faces of the men. He found their keen little visages ever turned towards him, watching his every movement, noting the play of every feature. So in his simplicity he practised a simple diplomacy. He hummed to himself as he went his rounds and while he sat over his diary.
He only knew one song--"A Warrior Bold"--which every mess in India a.s.sociated with old Jem Agar, for no evening was considered complete without the Major"s one ditty if he were present. He had stood up and roared it in many strange places, quite without sentiment, without self-consciousness, without afterthought. He never thought it a matter of apology that he should have failed to learn another song. The smile with which many ladies of his acquaintance sat down to play the accompaniment _by heart_ conveyed nothing to him. He did not pretend to be a singer--he knew that one song, and if they liked it he would sing it. Moreover, they did like it, and that was why they asked for it. It did some of them good to see honest Jem get on his legs and shout out, in a very musical voice, with perfect truth to air, what seemed to be a plain statement of his creed of life.
So, far up on Mistley Plateau, nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, Jem Agar advised his little dark-visaged fighters, _sotto voce_, while he puzzled over his diary, that his love had golden hair, with eyes so blue and heart so true, that none with her compared; moreover, that he didn"t care if death were nigh, because he had fought for love, and for love would die.
It was not very deep or very subtle, but it served the purpose. It kept up the hearts of his handful of warriors, who, in common with their chief, had something child-like and simple in their honest, sporting souls.
Shortly after tiffin Ben Abdi came to the Major"s tent, speaking hurriedly in his own tongue.
One of the men had seen the sunlight gleam on white steel far down in the valley. He had seen it several times--a long spiral flash, such as the sun would make on a fixed bayonet carried over the shoulder. Such a flash as this will carry twenty miles through a clear atmosphere; the spot pointed out by the sharp-eyed Goorkha was not more than ten miles distant. They stood in a group, this isolated little band, and gazed down into the depth below them. They gazed in vain for some time, then a little murmur of excitement told that the sun had glinted again on burnished steel. This time there were several flashes close together.
These were men marching with fixed bayonets through an enemy"s country.
"Heliograph," said Agar quietly, without taking his eyes from the spot far down in the valley; and soon the little mirror was flashing out its question over the vale. After a few anxious moments the answering gleam sprang to life among the trees far below. Agar gave a quick little sigh of relief--that was all.
Then followed a short conversation flickered over ten miles of s.p.a.ce.
"Are you beset?" asked the Valley,