"From you, _Huzoor_." A statement so irredeemably fict.i.tious that it made d.i.c.k thoughtful.
"You"re sharp enough, Heaven knows; but I don"t understand why you wanted to learn signalling. Are you going to give up your _jezail_ and become a _babu?_"
Afzul Khan fingered the matchlock which lay beside him. "I have changed my mind," he said shortly. "I will leave it to the Presence to bring down fire from Heaven; _I_ bring it from this flash-in-the-pan."
"Now what can you know about Prometheus?"
He shook his head. "The Presence speaks riddles. The fire comes to some folk, to many of the _sahibs_--to you, perhaps. G.o.d knows! The Pathans are different. Our work is fighting."
d.i.c.k, looking at his companion"s sinewy strength, thought it not unlikely. "While we are waiting, Afzul," he said idly, "tell me the finest fight you ever were in. Don"t be modest; out with it!"
"Wherefore not? Victory is Fate, and only women hang their heads over success. The best fight, you say? "Twas over yonder to the north.
There is a dip; but one way up and down. Twenty of us Barakzais and they were fifteen; but they were ahead of us in count, for, by Allah!
their wives were so ugly that we didn"t care to carry them off."
"Why should you?"
""Twas a feud. Once, G.o.d knows when, a Budakshan Nurzai carried off one of ours and began it. If the women ran out, we killed the men instead. So it was a moonlight night, and the fifteen were fast asleep, snoring like hogs. By Allah! my heart beat as we crept behind the rocks on our bellies, knowing that a rolling stone might waken them. But G.o.d was good, and _chk!_ they bled to death, like the pigs they were, before their eyes were wide open."
d.i.c.k Smith stared incredulously. "You call that the best fight you ever were in? I call it--" The epithet remained unspoken as he started to his feet with a shout. "By George! I see the glitter. Yonder, Afzul! by the turn. Hurrah! hurrah!"
He was off at long swinging strides, careless of the fact that the Pathan never moved. The latter"s keen eyes followed the lad with a certain regret, and then turned to the straggling file of soldiers now plainly visible.
"Marsden _sahib_ with the advance guard," he muttered. "Why did I give in to those cursed hawk"s eyes when my bullet was all but in his heart! _Wah-illah!_ his bravery made me a coward, and now my life is his. But I will return it, and then we shall cry quits. Yonder"s the _subadar_. By G.o.d! my knife will be in his big belly ere long, and some of those gibing Punjabis shall jest no more."
So he watched them keenly with a fierce joy, while d.i.c.k tore down the hill, to be brought, by an ominous rattle among the rifles below, to a remembrance of his dress. Then he waited, hands down, in the open, until the advance guard came within hail of his friendly voice; when he received the whole regiment with open arms, as if the Peirak were his special property. Perhaps he had some right to consider it so, seeing that he was the only Englishman who had ever attempted to make those barren heights his head-quarters. But, as he explained to Philip Marsden, while they climbed the narrow gully hemmed in by perpendicular rocks which led to the summit, the breaks in communication from storms and other causes had been so constant, that he had cut himself adrift from head-quarters at Jumwar in order to be on the spot, and so avoid the constant worry of small expeditions with an escort; without which he was not allowed to traverse the unsettled country on either side.
"Here I am safe enough," he said with a laugh; "and if I could only get my a.s.sistant, a Bengali _babu_, to live at the other hut I have built on the northern descent, we could defy all difficulties. But he is in such a blind funk that if I go out he retires to bed and locks the door. The only time he is happy is when a regiment is on the road."
"Then his happiness is doomed for this year,--unless you use discretion and come on with us to Jumwar. I doubt your being safe here much longer."
d.i.c.k shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps not, and of course I shall have to cut and run before the snow; but I like the life, and it gives me time. I"ve been at work on a field-instrument--" here his eyes lit up, and his tongue ran away with him over insulators and circuits.
Major Marsden looked at the lad approvingly, thinking how different he was from the slouching sullen boy of six months back. "I"m afraid I don"t understand, d.i.c.k," he said with a half-smile; "but I"ve no doubt it will be very useful, if, as you say, it enables you to tap the wires anywhere with speed and certainty."
d.i.c.k gave a fine blush. "I beg your pardon, but these things get into my head. It will work though, I"m sure of it. I"d show you if it was here, but I left it at the other shanty. There"s a stretch of low level line across the Pa.s.s where I was testing it."
The half-aggrieved eagerness in his voice made Philip smile. They were sitting together under the lee of a rock on the summit while a halt was called, in order to give time for the long caravan-like file, enc.u.mbered by baggage ponies, to reach the top and so ensure an unbroken line during the descent. For in these mountain marches the least breach of continuity is almost certain to bring down on the detached portion an attack from the robbers who are always on the watch for such an opportunity.
"You had best come with us, d.i.c.k," said Philip, returning to the point after a pause.
"No! The fact is I want to be certain of the communication until you are safe in Jumwar. Those two marches, between your next camp and the city, are risky. I have my doubts of the people."
"Doubts shared by head-quarters apparently, for the chief got a telegram yesterday to await orders at Jusraoli. I expect they are going to send to meet us from Jumwar."
"I wish I"d known in time," replied d.i.c.k lightly; "in that case there is not much reason for staying. Yet I don"t know; I"d rather stick on till I am forced to quit."
"That won"t be long; the snow"s due already, and you are coming on with us so far in any case, aren"t you?"
d.i.c.k sat idly chucking stones and watching them leap from point to point of the cliffs below him. "I don"t think I shall, if you are to be in camp Jusraoli for some days. You see, my _babu_ is no use, and something might turn up. I"ll see you across the Pa.s.s and come back. I could join you later on if I made up my mind to cut." He lay back with his arms under his head and looked up into the brilliant blue cloudless sky. "Major," he said suddenly, after a pause, "do you know that you have never asked after Belle?"
"Haven"t I? The fact is I had news of her lately. Raby wrote to me a few days ago."
"I wouldn"t trust Raby if I were you. Did he tell you that Belle hadn"t a penny and was trying to be independent of charity by teaching?"
"I am very sorry to hear it."
d.i.c.k sat up with quite a scared look on his honest face. "I thought there must be something wrong between you two by her letters," he said in a low voice; "but I didn"t think it was so bad as that. What is it?"
"Really, my dear boy, I don"t feel called upon to answer that question."
"It"s beastly impertinent, of course," allowed d.i.c.k; "but see here, Major, you are the best friend I have, and she,--why, I love her more dearly every day. So you see there must be a mistake."
The logic was doubtful, but the faith touched Philip"s heart. "And so you love her more than ever?" he asked evasively.
"Why not? I seem somehow nearer to her now, not so hopelessly beneath her in every way. And I can help her a little by sending money to Aunt Lucilla. _She_ wouldn"t take a penny, of course. But they tell me that when my grandfather,--I mean my mother"s father--dies I might come in for a few rupees; so I have made my will leaving anything in your charge for Belle. You don"t mind, do you?"
Philip Marsden felt distinctly annoyed. Here was fate once again meddling with his freedom. "I"m afraid I do. To begin with, I may be lying with a bullet through me before the week"s out."
"So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. I"d sooner trust you than any one in the wide world. You would be certain to do what I would like."
"Should I? I"m not so sure of myself. Look here, d.i.c.k! I didn"t mean to tell you, but perhaps it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. The fact is we are rivals." He laughed cynically at his hearer"s blank look of surprise. "Yes,--don"t be downcast, my dear fellow; you"ve a better chance than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively; and upon my word, I believe I"m glad of it. Let"s talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes the bugle."
He started to his feet, leaving d.i.c.k a prey to very mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was too perfect for anything else; and she? Something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So nothing further was said between them till on the northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good-bye. Then d.i.c.k with some solemnity put a blue official envelope into his friend"s hand. "It"s the will, Major. I think it"s all right; I got the _babu_ to witness it. And of course the--the other--doesn"t make any difference. You see I shall write and tell her it is all a mistake."
The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt indescribably mean.
"Don"t be in a hurry, d.i.c.k," he said slowly. "You can think it over and give it me when you join us, for join us you must. I won"t take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as you call it, the mistake would be to have it changed. Whatever happens she will never get anything better than what you give her, d.i.c.k--never!--never!
Good-bye; take care of yourself."
As he watched the young fellow go swinging along the path with his head up, he told himself that others beside Belle would be the losers if anything happened to d.i.c.k Smith; who, for all the world had cared, might at that moment have been lying dead-drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is something," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with the freshness of extreme youth. It has gone from me hopelessly, and I am so much the worse for it." And d.i.c.k, meanwhile, was telling himself with a pang at his heart that no girl, Belle least of all, could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his hero.
CHAPTER XI.
The sun had set ere d.i.c.k reached the narrowest part of the defile where, even at midday, the shadows lay dark; and now, with the clouds which had been creeping up from the eastward all the afternoon obscuring the moon, it looked grim and threatening. He was standing at an open turn, surprised at the warmth of the wind that came hurrying down the gully, when the low whistling cry of the marmot rang through the valley and died away among the rocks. A second afterwards the whizz of a bullet, followed by the distant crack of a rifle, made him drop in his tracks and seek the shelter of a neighbouring boulder.
Once again the marmot"s cry arose, this time comparatively close at hand. To answer it was the result of a second"s thought, and the silence which ensued convinced d.i.c.k that he had done the right thing.
But what was the next step? Whistling was easy work, but how if he met some of these musical sentries face to face? Perhaps it would be wiser to go back. He had almost made up his mind to this course when the thought that these robbers, for so he deemed them, might out of pure mischief have tampered with his beloved wires came to turn the balance in favour of going on. A disused path leading by a _detour_ to the southern side branched off about a mile further up; if he could reach that safely he might manage to get home without much delay. Only a mile; he would risk it. Creeping from his shelter cautiously he resumed his way, adopting the easy lounging gait of the hill-people; rather a difficult task with the inward knowledge that some one may be taking deliberate aim at you from behind a rock. More than once, as he went steadily onwards, the cry of a bird or beast rose out of the twilight, prompting his instant reply. "If they would only crow like a c.o.c.k," he thought, with the idle triviality which so often accompanies grave anxiety, "I could do that first-cla.s.s."
Yet he was fain to pause and wipe the sweat from his face when he found himself safely in the disused track, and knew by the silence that he was beyond the line of sentries. A rough road lay before him, but he traversed it rapidly, being anxious to get the worst of it over before the lingering light deserted the peaks. As he stood on the summit he was startled at the lurid look of the vast ma.s.ses of cloud which, rolling up to his very feet, obscured all view beyond. They were in for a big storm, he thought, as he hurried down the slopes at a break-neck pace; with all his haste barely reaching the shanty in time, for a low growl of thunder greeted his arrival, and as he pulled the latch a faint gleam of light showed him the empty room. He called loudly; darkness and silence: again, as he struck a match; light, but still silence. Quick as thought, d.i.c.k was at the signaller, and the electric bell rang out incongruously. _Tink-a-tink-a-tink_ was echoed from the eastward. But westward? He waited breathlessly, while not a sound returned to him. Communication was broken; the wires had possibly been cut, and d.i.c.k stood up with a curiously personal sense of injury. His wires tampered with out of sheer mischief! Yet stay!
Might it not be something more? Where the devil had the _babu_ hidden himself? After fruitless search an idea struck him, and he signalled eastward once more. "Repeat your last message, giving time at which sent." With ears attuned to tragedy d.i.c.k awaited the reply. "6 P.M. To north side. "Will send cocoa-nut oil and curry stuff by next mail.""
The echo of d.i.c.k"s laughter, as he realised that but an hour or so before the _babu_ had been putting the telegraph to commissariat uses, was the last human sound the shanty was to hear for many a long day.
For the next moment"s thought roused a sudden fear. The _babu_ had doubtless gone over the Pa.s.s with the troops for the sake of company; that was natural enough, but if he was still in the north shanty awaiting d.i.c.k"s return, why had he not answered the signal sent westward? It could not be due to any break in the wire, unless the damage had been done after dark, for he had been able to telegraph eastward not so long ago. Was there more afoot than mere mischief?
It was not a night for a dog to be out in, and as d.i.c.k stood at the door he could see nothing but ma.s.ses of cloud hurrying past, softly, silently. Then suddenly a shudder of light zig-zagged hither and thither, revealing only more cloud pierced by a few pinnacles of rock.