So Mahomed Lateef covered a sheet of flimsy German note-paper, bought in the bazaar, with crabbed Arabic lettering, and the women rejoiced because the light of their eyes was coming back. And after all the lad refused stoutly to return. He wrote his father a letter, full of the most trite and beautiful sentiments, informing his aged parent that times had changed, the old order given place to the new, and that he intended to raise the banner of _jehad_ (religious war) against the infidel. The women cried _Bismillah_, and Mahomed Lateef, despite his annoyance at the disobedience, could not help, as it were, c.o.c.king his ears like an old war-horse. Yet he wrote the lad a warning after his lights, which ran thus:
G.o.d and His prophet forbid, oh son of my heart, that I should keep thee back, if, as thou sayest, thou wouldst raise the banner of _jehad_. If a sword be needed, I will send thee mine own friend; but remember always what the mullah taught thee, nor confound the three great things,--the Dur-ul-Islam, the Dur-ul-Husub, and the Dur-ul-Ummun.[2] Have at the Hindu pigs, especially any that bear kindred to Shunker"s fat carcase; he hath cheated me rascally, and built a window overlooking my yard for which I shall have the law of him. But listen for the cry of the muezzin, and put thy sword in the scabbard when its sound falls on thine ear, remembering "tis the House of Protection, and not the House of the Foe. If thou goest to China, as perhaps may befall, seeing the _sahibs_ fight the infidel there, remember to cool thy brother"s grave with tears. Meanwhile, play singlestick with Shahbaz Khan the Mogul, and if thou canst get the old Meean _sahib_, his father, on his legs, put the foils into his hand, rap him over the knuckles once, and he will teach thee more in one minute than his son in five.
Then the old Syyed lay down on his bed under the _nim_ tree, and Fatma Bi fanned the mosquitoes from him with a tinsel fan, and talked in whispers to Nasibun, the childless wife, of the deeds their boy was to do, while Haiyat Bi, the young bride, busy as usual, found time to dry her tears unseen. A fire burning dim in one corner of the courtyard was almost eclipsed by the moon riding gloriously in the purple-black sky overhead. From the other side of the high part.i.tion wall came the dull throbbing of the _dholki_ (little drum) and an occasional wild skirling of pipes. The marriage festivities in Shunker Das"s house had begun, and every day some ceremony or other had to be gone through, bringing an excuse for having the _maransunis_ (female musicians) in to play and sing. High up near the roof of the sugar-cake house with its white filigree mouldings gleamed the objectionable window. Within sat the usurer himself conferring with his jackal, one Ram Lal, a man of small estate but infinite cunning. It was from no desire of overlooking Mahomed Lateef"s women that Shunker Das frequented the upper chamber. He had other and far more important business on hand, necessitating quiet and the impossibility of being overheard. Even up there the two talked in whispers, and chuckled under their breath; while in the courtyard below the delicate child who stood between Shunker and d.a.m.nation ate sweetmeats and turned night into day with weary, yet sleepless, eyes.
The moon, shining in on the two courtyards, shone also on the church garden, as Major Marsden after going his rounds turned his horse into its winding paths. A curious garden it was, guiltless of flowers and planted for the most part with tombstones. Modern sanitation, stepping in like Aaron"s rod to divide the dead from the living, had ceased to use it as a cemetery; but the records of long forgotten sorrows remained, looking ghostly in the moonlight. The branch of a rose-tree encroaching on the walk caught in the ta.s.sel of Major Marsden"s bridle, and he stooped to disentangle it. Straightening himself again, he paused to look on the peaceful scene around him and perceived that some one, a belated soldier most likely, was lying not far off on a tombstone. The horse picked its way among many a nameless grave to draw up beside a figure lying still as if carved in stone.
"Now, my man, what"s up?" said Major Marsden dismounting to lay a heavy hand on its shoulder. The sleeper rose almost automatically, and stood before him alert and yet confused. "d.i.c.k Smith! What on earth brings you here?"
The boy could scarcely remember at first, so far had sleep taken him from his troubles. Then he hung his head before memory. "I"m leaving Faizapore, and came here--to wait for daylight; that"s all."
But the moonlight on the tombstone showed its inscription, "Sacred to the memory of John Smith"; and Philip Marsden judged instantly that there was trouble afoot; boys do not go to sleep on their father"s graves without due cause. Some sc.r.a.pe no doubt, and yet--. His dislike to Colonel Stuart made him a partisan, and he was more ready to believe ill of the elder, than of the younger man.
"Don"t be in a hurry," he said kindly. "There"s something wrong of course, but very few sc.r.a.pes necessitate running away."
"There"s nothing to make me run away," replied d.i.c.k, with a lump in his throat as he unconsciously contrasted this stranger"s kindness with other people"s harshness; "but go I must."
"Where?"
The question roused the sense of injury latent for years. "Where? How do I know? I tell you there"s nothing for me to do anywhere--nothing!
And then, when a fellow is sick of waiting, and runs wild a bit, they throw it in his teeth, when he has given it all up."
It was not very lucid, but the lad"s tone was enough for Philip Marsden. "Come home with me," he said with a smile full of pity; "and have a real sleep in a real bed. You don"t know how different things will seem to-morrow."
d.i.c.k looked at his hero, thought how splendid he was, and went with him like a lamb.
Next morning when the boy with much circ.u.mlocution began to tell the tale of his troubles, Major Marsden felt inclined to swear. Would he never learn to mistrust his benevolent impulses, but go down to his grave making a fool of himself? A boy and girl lovers" quarrel,--was that all? Yet as the story proceeded he became interested in spite of himself. "Do you mean to tell me," he said incredulously, "that Miss Stuart is absolutely ignorant of what goes on in that house?"
d.i.c.k laid his head on the table in sheer despair. "Ah Major, Major!"
he cried, "I told her--I--you should have seen her face!" He burst into incoherent regrets, and praises of Belle"s angelic innocence.
"It appears to me," remarked Major Marsden drily, "to be about the best thing that could have happened. Fiction is always unsafe.
Belle,--as you call her--must have found it out sooner or later. The sooner the better, in my opinion."
"You wouldn"t say that if you knew her as I do," explained the other eagerly; "or if you knew all that I do. There will be a smash some day soon, and it will kill Belle outright. Ah! if I hadn"t been a fool and a brute, I might have stayed and perhaps kept things from going utterly wrong."
"Then why don"t you go back?" asked his hearer impatiently.
"I can"t! He won"t have me in the office again. You don"t know what mischief is brewing there."
"Thank you, I"d rather not know; but if you"re certain this move of yours is final,--that is to say if you don"t want to kiss and make friends with your cousin--[Poor d.i.c.k writhed inwardly, for he had kept back the full enormity of his offence]--then I might be able to help you in getting employment. They are laying a new telegraph-line to the front, and, as it so happens, a friend wrote to me a few days ago asking if I knew of any volunteers for the work."
The lad"s face brightened. "Telegraphs! oh, I should like that! I"ve been working at them these two years, and I think--but I"m not sure--that I"ve invented a new--"
"All right," interrupted Major Marsden brusquely; "they can try you, at any rate. You can start tonight; that settles it. Now you had better go round and get your things ready."
d.i.c.k writhed again in mingled pride and regret. "I can"t; I"ve said good-bye to them all; besides, I left a bundle of sorts in the bazaar before I went--there."
Philip Marsden shrugged his shoulders, remarking that the boy might do as he liked, and went off to his work; returning about two o"clock, however, to find d.i.c.k asleep, wearied out even by a half-night"s vigil of sorrow. "How soft these young things are," he thought, as he looked down on the sleeping boy, and noticed a distinctly damp pocket-handkerchief still in the half-relaxed hand. A certain scorn was in his heart, yet the very fact that he did notice such details showed that he was not so hard as he pretended. He went into the rough, disorderly room where he spent so many solitary evenings, lit a cigar, and walked about restlessly. Finally, telling himself the while that he was a fool for his pains, he sat down and wrote to Belle Stuart in this wise:--
My Dear Miss Stuart,--At the risk of once more being meddlesome, I venture to tell you that your cousin, d.i.c.k Smith, goes off to Beluchistan to-night as telegraph overseer. It is dangerous work, and perhaps you might like to see him before he leaves. If so, by riding through the church garden about six o"clock you will meet him. He doesn"t know I am writing, and would most likely object if he did; but I know most women believe in the duty of forgiveness. Yours truly, P. H. Marsden.
P.S. If you were to send a small selection of warm clothing to meet him at the bullock train office it, at any rate, could not fail to be a comfort to him.
Belle read this rather brusque production with shining eyes and a sudden lightening of her heart. Perhaps, as she told herself, this arose entirely from her relief on d.i.c.k"s account; perhaps the conviction that Major Marsden could not judge her very harshly if he thought it worth while to appeal to her in this fashion, had something to do with it. The girl however did not question herself closely on any subject. Even the dreadful doubt which d.i.c.k"s mad words had raised the night before had somehow found its appointed niche in the orderly pageant of her mind where love sat in the place of honour. Was it true? The answer came in a pa.s.sionate desire to be ignorant, and yet to protect and save. Very illogical, no doubt, but very womanly; to a certain extent very natural also, for her father, forced by the circ.u.mstances detailed in the last chapter to retire early to bed, had arisen next morning in a most edifying frame of mind, and a somewhat depressed state of body. He was unusually tender towards Belle, and spoke with kindly dignity of unhappy d.i.c.k"s manifest ill-luck. These dispositions therefore rendered it easy for Belle to make excuses in her turn. Not that she made them consciously; that would have argued too great a change of thought. The craving to forget and forgive was imperative, and the sense of wrong-doing which her innate truthfulness would not allow to be smothered, found an outlet in self-blame for her unkindness to dear d.i.c.k. As for poor father--: the epithets spoke volumes.
"There is your cousin," said Major Marsden to d.i.c.k as Belle rode towards them through the overarching trees in the church garden.
"Don"t run away; I asked her to come. You"ll find me by the bridge."
The lad was like Mahomet"s coffin, hanging between a h.e.l.l of remorse and a heaven of forgiveness, as he watched her approach, and when she reined up beside him, he looked at her almost fearfully.
"I"m sorry I was cross to you, d.i.c.k," she said simply, holding out her hand to him. The clouds were gone, and d.i.c.k Smith felt as if he would have liked to stand up and chant her praises, or fight her battles, before the whole world. They did not allude to the past in any way until the time for parting came, when d.i.c.k, urged thereto by the rankle of a certain epithet, asked with a furious blush if she would promise to forget--everything. She looked at him with kindly smiling eyes. "Good-bye, dear d.i.c.k," she said; and then, suddenly, she stooped and kissed him.
The young fellow could not speak. He turned aside to caress the horse, and stood so at her bridle-rein for a moment. "G.o.d bless you for that, Belle," he said huskily and left her.
Belle, with a lump in her own throat and tearful shining eyes, rode back past the bridge where Philip Marsden, leaning over the parapet, watched the oily flow of the ca.n.a.l water in the cut below. He looked up, thinking how fair and slim and young she was, and raised his hat expecting her to pa.s.s, but she paused. He felt a strange thrill as his eyes met hers still wet with tears.
"I have so much to thank you for, Major Marsden," she said with a little tremor in her voice, "and I do it so badly. You see I don"t always understand--"
Something in her tone smote Philip Marsden with remorse. "Please not to say any more about it, Miss Stuart. _I_ understand,--and,--and,-- I"m glad you do not." Thinking over his words afterwards he came to the conclusion that both these statements had wandered from the truth; but how, he asked himself a little wrathfully, could any man tell the naked, unvarnished, disagreeable truth with a pair of grey eyes soft with tears looking at him?
d.i.c.k, of course, raved about his cousin for the rest of the evening, and besought the Major to send him confidential reports on the progress of events. In his opinion disaster was unavoidable, and he was proceeding to detail his reasons, when Major Marsden cut him short by saying: "I would rather not hear anything about it; and I should like to know, first, if you are engaged to your cousin?"
d.i.c.k confessed he was not; whereupon his companion told him that he would promise nothing, except, he added hastily, catching sight of d.i.c.k"s disappointed face, to help the girl in any way he could. With this the boy professed to be quite content; perhaps he had grasped the fact that Philip Marsden was apt to be better than his word. And indeed a day or two after d.i.c.k"s departure Marsden took the trouble to go over and inquire of John Raby what sort of a man Lala Shunker Das, the great contractor, was supposed to be.
The young civilian laughed. "Like them all, not to be trusted. Why do you ask?" He broke in on the evasive answer by continuing, "The man is a goldsmith by caste. I suppose you know that in old days they were never allowed in Government service. As the proverb says, "A goldsmith will do his grandmother out of a pice." But if the Lala-ji gives you trouble, bring him to me. I"ve been kind to him, and he is grateful, in his way."
Now the history of John Raby"s kindness to Lala Shunker Das was briefly this: he had discovered him in an attempt to cheat the revenue in the matter of income-tax, and had kept the knowledge in his own hands. "Purists would say I ought to report it, and smash the man,"
argued this astute young casuist; "but the knowledge that his ruin in the matter of that _Rai Bahadur_-ship hangs by a thread will keep the old thief straighter; besides it is always unwise to give away power."
That to a great extent was the keynote of John Raby"s life. He coveted power, not so much for its own sake as for the use he could make of it. For just as some men inherit a pa.s.sion for drink, he had inherited greed of gain from a long line of Jewish ancestry. The less said of his family the better: indeed, so far as his own account went, he appeared to have been born when he went to read with a celebrated "coach" at the age of sixteen. Memory never carried him further in outward speech; but as this is no uncommon occurrence in Indian society, the world accepted him for what he appeared to be, a well-educated gentleman, and for what he was, a man with a pension for himself and his widow. His first collector, a civilian of the old type, used to shake his head when John Raby"s name was mentioned, and augur that he would either be hanged or become a Chief Court Judge.
"He was in camp with me, sir," this worthy would say, "when a flight of wild geese came bang over the tent. I got a couple, the last with the full choke; and I give you my word of honour Raby never lifted his eyes from the _buniah"s_ book he was deciphering in a petty bond case!"
In truth the young man"s faculty for figures, and his apt.i.tude for discovering fraud, partook of the nature of genius, and gained him the reputation of being a perfect _shaitan_ (devil) among the natives.
Philip Marsden, a.s.sociated with him on a committee for the purchase of mules, learnt to trust his ac.u.men implicitly, and became greatly interested in the clear-headed, well-mannered young fellow who knew such a prodigious amount for his years; pleasant in society too, singing sentimental songs in a light tenor voice, and having a store of that easy small-talk which makes society smooth by filling up the c.h.i.n.ks. Being a regular visitor of Colonel Stuart"s house John Raby saw a good deal of Belle, and liked her in a friendly, approving manner; but, whatever Mrs. Stuart may have thought, he had no more intention of marrying a penniless girl than of performing a pilgrimage, or any other pious act savouring of the Middle Ages.
"By the way, I haven"t seen the Miss Van Milders or their mother lately," remarked Major Marsden one day to him, as they came home from their committee together and met Belle going out for her afternoon ride by herself.
"Oh, they"ve gone to Mussoorie; Belle"s keeping house for her father."
"Alone?"
"Yes, alone; queer _menage_, ain"t it? I believe the girl thinks she"ll reform the Colonel; and he _is_ awfully fond of her, but--" The younger man shook his head with a laugh. It jarred upon Philip Marsden and he changed the subject quickly. So she had elected to stay with her father! Well, he admired her courage, and could only hope that she would not have to pay too dearly for it.