"Oh, this is perfectly glorious," Melian was saying, her eyes seeming to feed upon the sunlit wildness of the surroundings. "What a contrast to dear old Heath Hover, too. Look at that splendid mountain face, all terraced, as it were, with great cliffs; and even the openness of it all has a marvellous charm."
Her uncle puffed meditatively at his cheroot, then looked at her, and in the result felt not unsatisfied. She had taken, with characteristic readiness, to this strange wild country and its life--and every phase of it afforded her a fresh delight. And its people, too, of every shade and type, but that which attracted her most, was the tall, turbaned, often scowling, mountaineer, with his primitive _jezail_ and never absent and wicked looking tulwar--a very Ishmaelite in deed and in appearance.
They had come up the _tangi_ in the early morning and she had been entranced with the vastness of the huge narrow chasm, the first of its kind she had ever seen. And now, as Mervyn contemplated the eager animated face, tinged with the golden glow of an open air life, the blue eyes clear and large in contrast, he found himself thinking satirically that it was small wonder if Mazaran had sought to throw stumbling blocks in the way of their leaving it. And then as though the mention of Heath Hover evoked a recollection she suddenly said:
"I do hope old Joe and Judy will take real care of our little black poogie, and not let it out at night to get shot, or get into a trap in the coverts--dear little pooge-pooge?"
"Oh, I"m sure they will. But--we couldn"t have done with it here, could we?"
"No, but I would like to have it all the same. Why, what"s this?"
A whirl of dust was coming down the road, and as it drew nearer, they could make out a band of hors.e.m.e.n, clad in the loose white garments of the mountain tribes. Through it, too, as the gleam of weapons.
"Oh, it"s some of these picturesque people, and they are so fascinating," cried the girl. "It"ll be quite a sight to see them ride past."
The road ran about a hundred yards below the site of the camp. For the first time some qualm of misgiving came into Mervyn"s self-sufficient mind, and he found himself actually hoping that they really would ride past. They looked a formidable gang enough, some two score strong, and armed to the teeth. It was not lessened as he saw that they were not on the road at all, and were heading straight for the camp.
Came another sight, which caused his face to pale and stiffen strangely.
"Melian, go inside the tent, and stay there till I tell you to come out," he said sharply.
"Why? Mayn"t I see?"
"Do as I say--at once," he repeated, with a stamp of the foot. "They may be a bit rough, but--I"ll settle them."
She obeyed, greatly wondering. "Mayn"t I see?" she had said. Good!
Then she had not seen--what he had, and he felt thankful.
Out on the plain two of his camp natives were herding the camels. He had seen several of the hors.e.m.e.n dart out upon these from the main body, and cut them down with their keen edged tulwars without giving them time so much as to utter a shriek. At that moment John Seward Mervyn realised that if ever he had been in a tight place in his life he was in one now, and if he did not, when too late, curse his own foolhardiness for bringing him into it, why it was only because he had not time.
The whole band rode down like a whirlwind upon the camp. The bearer and khitmutghar, and the cook, Punjabi natives, scared out of their lives, had crept into one of the tents and crouched trembling. The Levy sowars alone showed fight, and pointed their rifles, but it was plain they would have welcomed any chance offered to surrender.
"Melian, don"t move outside, do you hear," said her uncle over his shoulder. He had risen, and stood confronting the wild array. These had now reined up, and were facing him, in a crescent formation.
"Salaam!" he said. "This is a strange welcome to a stranger in a strange land, brothers."
A grunt broke from the fierce s.h.a.ggy faces; and the gleaming, hostile eyes seemed to take on a further deepening of hate and greed.
"This is the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan," said one, designating the man on his right.
"That is good to hear," answered Mervyn, speaking in the Pushtu, "Salaam, Sirdar Allah-din Khan. I repeat this is a strange way of paying a friendly visit."
"A friendly visit?" repeated the chief, in deep tones. "But what if this is not a friendly visit?"
The fierce eyes of the fanatical predatory Asiatic, and the hard, determined blue gleam in those of the European met, and there was no yielding in the glance of either.
"In that case," replied the latter, "I invite the Sirdar to withdraw.
It is not safe to stay--for him, for as the life of the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must be worth the lives of all his followers put together, it is not good policy to throw away so valuable a life."
The tone was perfectly even, in itself containing no threat. Mervyn was at his best now, cool, desperate, therefore deadly dangerous. At his words a gasp of amazement escaped from the other side. The first thought was of a trap. Were there soldiers concealed in the tent, with rifles trained upon them through the canvas? And meanwhile Mervyn stood confronting them, calmly; one hand, however, always behind him.
"The life of so important a chief as the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must be of great value," he went on in the same unconcerned tone. "And--he has but one."
"And thou hast two, Feringhi," answered the chief, darkly. "Two, and that means two deaths instead of one, lingering and painful deaths at that. One of thy "lives" is behind in the tent. Good! I may fall or I may not, but I swear on the tomb of the Prophet that if thou so much as drawest the weapon now held behind thee, thou and thy daughter,"--this was a figure of speech--"shall be burnt alive. She first."
Mervyn felt desperate. He tried not to pale as he gazed at the speaker.
But his hand did not move from behind him. In that fierce, hard, set countenance, in the very words of the oath uttered, he knew there would be no going back from that sentence. He might shoot the chief dead, but no power on earth would turn the whirlwind rush of his followers. And they would be as good as their leader"s word, as to that he entertained no doubt whatever. Melian--writhing in a death of fiery torment--the bare idea was as a pictured glimpse into h.e.l.l itself. A great roll of time swept over his mind in that moment or two, as he stood, confronting the man in whose power he was.
"She first," this barbarian had said. There was a full refinement of diabolical cruelty in the words. G.o.d! the thing was unthinkable!
"I draw no weapon," he answered. "What does the Sirdar Allah-din Khan require. Money?"
"Thyself."
The answer was curt, deep toned, uncompromising.
"Myself?"
"Nothing else."
"And what of my "daughter"--who however is not my daughter, but my sister"s daughter?" went on Mervyn, who was puzzling hard over what took on more and more the look of a very hopeless and dreadful situation.
"As believers you dare not harm a woman, the holy Koran itself forbids it. But how shall she find her way back to her people alone, she who has never before been in this land?"
"We want nothing of her," said the chief. "She may go in peace. Two of my people here shall escort her safely to within view of the camp of yonder Feringhi," with a nod over his shoulder in the direction of Varne Coates" camp. "But for thyself thou must go with us."
To say that Mervyn felt as if more than half the cloud had lifted would be to put it mildly. The awful deadly weight that had been crushing him, the consciousness to wit, that by his own foolhardy obstinacy, he had brought Melian into ghastly peril--was that which afflicted him most. He himself and his own potential fate was a matter of utterly secondary importance--and, here was a way out.
But could he trust the chief"s promises? He knew that in this instance he could. So he made answer, and that very earnestly.
"You will keep faith with me, Sirdar Sahib? My sister"s child shall be escorted to yonder camp by two of your people, and delivered there safe and unharmed either by word or deed, on condition that I go with you now? Do you swear that solemnly on the holy Koran and the tomb of the Prophet?"
"I swear it," answered Allah-din Khan, "on the holy Koran, by the tomb of the Prophet, and on the holy Kaba." And he raised his sword hilt to the level of his forehead. Mervyn knew that the oath would be kept.
"I would fain bid farewell to the child, and prepare her for the journey," he said. "I, too, make oath, that nothing will be done inside the tent but that."
It seemed strange, but to this the chief made no objection, nor did he require that one of his followers should be present. He merely bent his head in a.s.sent.
"Well, what has happened? You have been talking long enough, dear,"
said the girl, as he entered the tent.
"Melian darling, you will have to go on to Coates" camp a little ahead of me. The fact is--I must go with these people for a bit--but I"ll rejoin you soon. The chief is going to tell off two of his men as an escort for you, and you will be quite safe--quite safe. Tell Coates I"ll join him later."
He tried to speak jauntily--to force a smile. But Melian was not to be taken in--not for a moment. She shook her head.
"I am not going to Mr Coates" camp," she said, "at least, not without you. If you have got to go with these people I go too."
Mervyn had not reckoned upon this. He tried to reason with her, pointing out that a forced march with a gang of wild tribesmen and a sojourn in their more or less uncomfortable villages, was no fit experience for her. Of any clement of peril he purposely said nothing, knowing full well that to do so would be simply to rivet her opposition the closer. But he might as well have argued with the tent walls, or have tried to turn the Gularzai chieftain from his fixed purpose.