He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery--called by him "my quarters," Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit.
"I"m under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie, mournfully, "and I didn"t ought to speak to you."
Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house--that was not forbidden--and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride.
"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie.
"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward.
Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by a river--dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy--the almost almighty Coppy--had never set foot beyond it. Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess and the Goblins--a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie.
Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce"s big girl, Coppy"s property, preparing to venture into their borders! What would Coppy say if anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie"s Princess? She must at all hazards be turned back.
The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the very terrible wrath of his father; and then--broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny.
The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-borders.
The devastating track of the pony"s feet was the last misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity, He turned into the road, leaned forward; and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in the direction of the river.
But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had pa.s.sed through the crops, beyond the Police-post when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-a.s.sumed authority, had told her over night, that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson.
Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony.
"Are you badly, badly hurted?" shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. "You didn"t ought to be here."
"I don"t know," said Miss Allardyce, ruefully, ignoring the reproof. "Good gracious, child, what are _you_ doing here?"
"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. "And n.o.body--not even Coppy--must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn"t stop, and now you"ve hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and--I"ve bwoken my awwest! I"ve bwoken my awwest!"
The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved.
"Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?"
"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed Wee Willie Winkie, disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back.
You didn"t ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I"ve bwoken my awwest."
"I can"t move, Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. "I"ve hurt my foot. What shall I do?"
She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down,
"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you"ve rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully."
The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony"s neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed toward the cantonments.
"Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?"
"Hush!" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere"s a man coming--one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a man must _always_ look after a girl.
Jack will go home, and ven vey"ll come and look for us. Vat"s why I let him go."
Not one man but two or three had appeared from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie"s soul. Thus had they played in Curdie"s garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess"s nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father"s grooms lately dismissed. People who spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They were only natives after all.
They came up to the bowlders on which Miss Allardyce"s horse had blundered.
Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "_Jao!_"
The pony had crossed the river-bed.
The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty strong, Miss Allardyce screamed.
"Who are you?" said one of the men.
"I am the Colonel Sahib"s son, and my order is that you go at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into cantonments and take the news that Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel"s son is here with her."
"Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. "Hear this boy"s speech!"
"Say that I sent you--I, the Colonel"s son. They will give you money."
"What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the heights," said a voice in the background.
These _were_ the Bad Men--worse than Goblins--and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie"s training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother"s _ayah_, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back.
"Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and uncomfortable.
"Yes, my little _Sahib Bahadur_," said the tallest of the men, "and eat you afterward."
"That is child"s talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. "Men do not eat men."
A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly,--"And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib?"
Speech in any vernacular--and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with three--was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his "r"s" and "th"s" aright.
Another man joined the conference, crying:--"O foolish men! What this babe says is true. He is the heart"s heart of those white troops. For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut the valley. _Our_ villages are in the valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar"s breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains.
Better to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I say that this child is their G.o.d, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him."
It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment,"
his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his extremity.
The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel"s household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon.
Devlin, the Color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as he pa.s.sed. "Up, ye beggars! There"s something happened to the Colonel"s son,"
he shouted.
"He couldn"t fall off! S"elp me, "e _couldn"t_ fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy, "Go an" hunt acrost the river. He"s over there if he"s anywhere, an" maybe those Pathans have got "im. For the love o" Gawd don"t look for "im in the nullahs! Let"s go over the river."
"There"s sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to the river--sharp!"