"She who rode by just now? What, then?"
"I ride northward now, and then very likely South again. I can do nothing in the matter, yet--were he in my shoes, and she a native woman at the mercy of the troops--Cunnigan-bahadur would have a.s.signed a guard for her."
"Ho! So I am thy sepoy?" sneered Alwa, standing sideways--looking sideways--and throwing out his chest. "I am to do thy bidding, guarding stray padres" (he spoke the word as though it were a bad taste he was spitting from his mouth), "and herding women without purdah, while thou ridest on a.s.signations Allah knows where? Since when?"
"I have yet to refuse to guard thy back, or thy good name, Alwa!"
Mahommed Gunga eyed him straight, and thrust his hilt out. "The woman is nothing to me--the padre-sahib less. It is because of the debt I owe to Cunnigan that I ask this favor."
"Oh. It is granted! Should she appeal to me, I will rip Howrah into rags and burn this city to protect her if need be! She must first ask, though, even as thou didst."
Mahommed Gunga saluted him, bolt-upright as a lance, and without the slightest change in his expression.
"The word is sufficient, cousin!"
Alwa returned his salute, and raised his voice in a gruff command. A saice outside the window woke as though struck by a stick--sprang to his feet--and pa.s.sed the order on. A dozen horses clattered in the courtyard and filed through the arched pa.s.sage to the street, and Alwa mounted.
The others, each with his escort, followed suit, and a moment later, with no further notice of one another, but with as much pomp and noise as though they owned the whole of India, the five rode off, each on his separate way, through the scattering crowd.
Then Mahommed Gunga called for his own horse and the lone armed man of his own race who acted squire to him.
"Did any overhear our talk?" he asked.
"No, sahib."
"Not the saice, even?"
"No, sahib. He slept."
"He awoke most suddenly, and at not much noise."
"For that reason I know he slept, sahib. Had he been pretending, he would have wakened slowly."
"Thou art no idiot!" said Mahommed Gunga. "Wait here until I return, and lie a few lies if any ask thee why we six came together, and of what we spoke!"
Then he mounted and rode off slowly, picking his way through the throng much more cautiously and considerately than his relatives had done, though not, apparently, because he loved the crowd. He used some singularly biting insults to help clear the way, and frowned as though every other man he looked at were either an a.s.sa.s.sin or--what a good Mohammedan considers worse--an infidel. He reached the long brick wall at last--broke into a canter--scattered the pariah dogs that were nosing and quarreling about the corpse of the Maharati, and drew rein fifteen minutes later by the door of the tiny school place that Miss McClean had entered.
CHAPTER III
For service truly rendered, and for duty dumbly done--For men who neither tremble nor forget--There is due reward, my henchman. There is honor to be won. There is watch and ward and sterner duty yet.
No sound came, from within the schoolhouse. The little building, coaxed from a grudging Maharajah, seemed to strain for light and air between two overlapping, high-walled brick warehouses. Before the door, in a spot where the scorching sun-rays came but fitfully between a mesh of fast-decaying thatch, the old hag who had followed Rosemary McClean lay snoozing, muttering to herself, and blinking every now and then as a street dog blinks at the pa.s.sers-by. She took no notice of Mahommed Gunga until he swore at her.
"Miss-sahib hai?" he growled; and the woman jumped up in a hurry and went inside. A moment later Rosemary McClean stood framed in the doorway still in her cotton riding-habit, very pale--evidently frightened at the summons--but strangely, almost ethereally, beautiful. Her wealth of chestnut hair was loosely coiled above her neck, as though she had been caught in the act of dressing it. She looked like the wan, wasted spirit of human pity--he like a great, grim war-G.o.d.
"Salaam, Miss Maklin-sahib!"
He dismounted as he spoke and stood at attention, then stared truculently, too inherently chivalrous to deny her civility--he would have cut his throat as soon as address her from horseback while she stood--and too contemptuous of her father"s calling to be more civil than he deemed in keeping with his honor.
"Salaam, Mohammed Gunga!" She seemed very much relieved, although doubtful yet. "Not letters again?"
"No, Miss-sahib. I am no mail-carrier! I brought those letters as a favor to Franklin-sahib at Peshawur; I was coming hither, and he had no man to send. I will take letters, since I am now going, if there are letters ready; I ride to-night."
"Thank you, Mahommed Gunga. I have letters for England. They are not yet sealed. May I send them to you before you start?"
"I will send my man for them. Also, Miss Maklin-sahib" (heavens!
how much cleaner and better that sounded than the prince"s ironical "sahiba"!)
"If you wish it, I will escort you to Peshawur, or to any city between here and there."
"But--but why?"
"I saw Jaimihr. I know Jaimihr."
"And--"
"And--this is no place for a padre, or for the daughter of a padre."
What he said was true, but it was also insolent, said insolently.
"Mahommed Gunga-sahib, what are those ribbons on your breast?" she asked him.
He glanced down at them, and his expression changed a trifle; it was scarcely perceptible, but underneath his fierce mustache the muscles of his mouth stiffened.
"They are medal ribbons--for campaigns," he answered.
"Three-four-five! Then, you were a soldier a long time? Did you--did you desert your post when there was danger?"
He flushed, and raised his hand as though about to speak.
"Or did people insult you when you chose to remain on duty?"
"Miss-sahib, I have not insulted you!" said Mahommed Gunga. "I came here for another purpose."
"You came, very kindly, to ask whether there were letters. Thank you, Mahommed Gunga-sahib, for your courtesy. There are letters, and I will give them to your man, if you will be good enough to send him for them."
He still stood there, staring at her with eyes that did not blink. He was too much of a soldier to admit himself at a loss what to say, yet he had no intention of leaving Howrah without saying it, for that, too, would have been unsoldierly.
"The reason why your countrymen have found men of this land before now to fight for them--one reason, at least--" he said gruffly, "is that hitherto they have not meddled with our religions. It is not safe! It would be better to come away, Miss-sahib."
"Would you like to say that to my father? He is--"
"Allah forbid that I should argue with him! I spoke to you, on your account!"
"You forget, I think," she answered him gently, "that we had permission from the British Government to come here; it has not been withdrawn. We are doing no harm here--trying only to do good. There is always danger when--"