SECRET DESPATCHES

Nushapore, however, was not all wise; very far from it. Out of its two hundred and odd thousand souls, there were some to whom the possibility of disturbances meant a long-looked-for opportunity of indulging--with comparative safety--in criminal habits. And there were many also, who, without any special desire for evil, regretted the diminishing chance of a night's excitement and amusement.

At first some of these found solace in the catastrophe at the kite-flyers' bastion; though, after a time, this proved to be less disastrous than might have been expected, for, out of all those who were known to have been on the building, only two or three were even injured. JehÂn Aziz, it is true, had disappeared, but even in the first knowledge of this, the fact brought scarcely a word of regret--especially in the Royal Family. It felt vaguely that it stood a better chance without him, even though the next heir was not close enough to that dead dynasty to hope for the practical recognition of an increased pension from Government!

Neither did the sight of Burkut Ali being carried off to hospital on a stretcher distress it much. But it had a word or two of encouragement and sympathy for Lateefa who, still clinging to his kites, refused all help as he sat propped against a wall waiting for the numbness to pass from his legs--as it must pass, since he had no pain.

Of JÂn-Ali-shÂn and Chris no one thought on that side of the bridge; for the simple reason that the disaster to the bastion absorbed all tongues for a time, and, in addition, beyond the fact that there had been some fighting for the bridge, no one knew anything.

In the station, also, there was no one to explain what had happened. The baboo, who might have told what he knew, had, in that interval of suspense, discreetly fled to his lodgings in the city, where he was trying to concoct alibis.

It was only on the bathing-steps that anything definite was known, and there a curious consternation had followed immediately on the rapid raid made by those two through the temple. For, when the brief tumult of resistance had passed with their passage, the only trace of it that remained was fateful, beyond words, to the superstitious eyes which saw it.

SwÂmi Viseshwar NÂth, the high priest of Shiv-jee, lay with crushed skull on Mai KÂli's very lap! His blood was pouring out upon her altar; yet, despite the blow which all had seen, despite the crash which all had heard, not one of her many widespread arms was injured!

Here was a miracle indeed! For what had been her words on that golden paper which she had flung, in defiance as it were, into the temple of her rival?

'Yea! though they smite me, there shall be Blood upon Mine Altar.'

And there was. The blood of the arch-detractor of Her Supremacy.

A miracle indeed! to be affirmed or denied to the exclusion of all other thoughts.

And so, on those wide steps leading down to the river, the newcomers, hastening thither at vague rumours of strange doings--stranger even than fixed bayonets at the city gates--were caught in the conflict of opinions and held captive by the question--

'Would Mai KÂli stay the plague now, as She had promised to do when there was blood upon Her altars, or would She not?'

In other words, dare men--mere men--take the remedy into their own hands, and risk offending the Great Goddess by lack of faith?

Would it not be better to wait a bit and see what happened? So, coming and going on the steps--coming in fierce haste, going in awestruck doubt--men asked themselves if their part was to wait and watch. But, inside the temple, two poor souls crouched in a corner knew what their part as women must be; and therefore, after a time of fruitless waiting, they stole out hand-in-hand and went back to the city, back to their empty house, realising but one thing: that the stray sheep which had been lost and found, had gone astray once more; had defied the priests, perhaps killed his guru.

And they had left that house empty with such joy, believing they were to bring their dear one back to it! And now, to whom were they to go for advice; for weddings and burials--since such things must be--if Viseshwar NÂth was dead? Viseshwar who had known all things concerning the family? So they wept, not knowing that his death made future happiness for one of them possible.

The city itself was by this time like a hive of bees about to swarm, which is disturbed by a finger-touch. People hurried hither and thither causelessly; excited, anxious, yet harmless; for those who had meant to give the cue for action hung back at the sight of the soldiers. Yet many of these would-be mischief-makers had not quite given up hope, and their unwillingness to do so, strangely enough, was in inverse ratio to their hope of achieving any good by raising a riot. For, while every minute that passed showed the more reasonable, the more interested, that wisdom lay in postponement, those who had very little stake or thought in the matter beyond a general desire to kick over the traces, grew more and more desperate as the opportunity for this seemed to be slipping from them. Govind the editor was one of these, and, gravitating naturally to his like, found himself after a time in one of the bands of discontents who were ready for any trivial mischief that might come handy. But as yet, even these had no objective.

And so, after all, Jack Raymond had time for a late dinner. And he ate a good one too, in ignorance--like every one else except a few of the would-be train-wreckers who discreetly held their tongues--of the real history of the drawbridge. For the steam fog had effectually hidden all the heroism of that struggle for it. Had hidden all things save the voices in the fog; save that almost incredible chanting of a sailor's chorus heard by the engine-driver, those few words, 'Keep your head, sir, and take a holt of me,' half-heard by some of the officers.

And Sir George Arbuthnot, too, ate his dinner at the club. He did not make so good a one, however; and when he had finished it, hurriedly, he paused beside the table where Jack Raymond was finishing his, leisurely, to say with rather elaborate point, 'So you were right after all, Mr. Raymond!--and--and I was wrong--should, I expect, have been still more wrong, if Kenyon here had not insisted on telegraphing to Fareedabad.' He looked as he spoke at the Commissioner, who had come in for a mere bite and sup.

Jack Raymond rose, feeling that he liked the man better than he had ever done before; feeling for the first time that he was glad he had helped.

'I don't know, sir,' he said cheerfully, 'about the right and the wrong. I happened to hear. But it was uncommonly lucky the troops managed to nick the up-mail, or they might have been a bit late. It must have been a near shave!'

'Very!' put in the Commissioner with a slightly puzzled frown. 'I don't know exactly how the deuce they did it, but that's a detail for the present. Now, sir, if you will write that note to relieve Lady Arbuthnot's anxiety, we can start back to the hospital--though really there is no necessity for it--the danger is over.'

Jack Raymond shook his head. 'Not till daylight--it never is. I don't mean for the hospital. If nothing happens at midnight, nothing will; but there are lots of other games--at least I should fancy so,' he added as he sat down again, resuming his dinner and his indifference.

'That is one of the most able men in India!' remarked the Commissioner to Sir George; 'it is a thousand pities he allowed----'

And then, hurriedly, he changed the subject. It would have been less significant if he had not done so, and Sir George felt inclined to ask him to finish the sentence. But even that defiance would have been significant in its turn, so he gave in resignedly to the awkwardness of the situation--for he could not help feeling it was awkward--and sat down to write his note to Grace before returning to the city.

She had been hoping for some message all the evening, and Lesley realised how great a strain the waiting for news had been on Lady Arbuthnot's nerves when she saw the sudden relief the note brought with it.

Till then the Sunday dinner-party had been unusually dull. Now, just as people were beginning to wonder if they had not ordered their carriage to come a trifle late, a new life seemed to spring up. The hostess herself started music by going to the piano, and as she did so, she found time for a whisper to Lesley--'It's all right! The troops caught the up-mail and came back in it--sharp work, wasn't it? and George says everything is settling down, but I am not to expect him home till one or two. Oh! I feel so happy!'

She looked it, and--good singer as she was--she sang as few had ever heard her sing. Lesley for one, who listened to the quaint little French chansons, half-laughter half-tears, and the pretty, comic-opera trills and runs with a new perception of the woman who sang them--the woman who was, as a rule, so unlike most of her sex in her calm intelligence.

And now? Now every man in the room was crowding round the piano. She was holding them there by something that was not beauty or intelligence, not by her looks or her singing, but by the woman's desire to have and hold the admiration of her world by making it depend on her for pleasure--the desire which made Eve share her apple with Adam!

Yes! that was it! The woman's desire to have and to hold for herself alone.

But while the dinner-party at Government House had taken a fresh lease of life under Grace Arbuthnot's guidance, there was another dinner-party going on in Nushapore, where the good wine of high spirits had come first and the ditch-water of dulness last. This was at Mr. Lucanaster's; and it had been the probability of being late for this--a supreme effort on his part towards something preeminently jolly--which had made him sulky at being delayed by the 'memorable occasion.' For, to begin with, more time would be required for dressing than usual, since the party was to be a rÉchauffÉ of the Mutiny Lancers. It was to be a Mutiny dinner; and for the first time Mrs. Chris had consented to act as hostess and sit at the top of Mr. Lucanaster's table; Mrs. Chris in that bewildering costume of pink roses and white shoulders.

And everything had been perfect. The dinner worthy of a chef, the champagne iced enough to cool the tongue, not enough to lessen its sparkle. And yet, at eleven o'clock, the guests were beginning to leave. At half-past, Mrs. Chris--there was no mistake in her costume either--was eyeing Mr. Lucanaster with the amused superiority to the trivialities of sentiment or passion which--as she had always told poor Chris--made her absolutely capable of taking care of herself in any situation.

'No, thanks! I don't want another cigarette, and I'd rather not have a cherry-brandy before I go back; but you can tell the bearer to tell my ayah to bring my cloak and overshoes in here. I told her to come and wait.'

Mr. Lucanaster swore under his breath.

'Oh! I don't think it was quite so bad as that,' she continued cheerfully, ignoring the palpable cause of his annoyance. 'It really was quite jolly at first, and nothing could have been better done. It was that little fool Jones with his cock-and-bull story of a row in the city; and then the dresses, you know, made one a bit shivery, thinking of the Mutiny. It did--even me--and I'm not that sort. But you couldn't help that, you know--your part of it was perfect.'

He looked at her grimly, his determination not to be played with in this fashion growing.

'Not quite!' he answered. 'There was yet one thing lacking; one thing that I had meant to have secured--only I could not--you were so late in coming.'

'I?' she asked curiously. 'Was it something to do with me, then?'

'With the perfection of your dress--it needs something!'

She coloured up pink as her roses, and gave a hurried glance at a mirror opposite. 'I do not see it,' she said angrily.

'Yes, you do!' he persisted, looking in the mirror also. 'There is something wanted here.' He pointed to her white throat, and in the mirror his hand pointed to it also.

'Ah'h,' she sighed thoughtfully.--'Yes! pearls--but I had no real ones. And--and I can stand paste--but somehow sham pearls----!'

'No! not pearls! No! never! Not milk-and-water pearls!' he protested. 'Not with roses there'--he pointed to the glistening shoulders--'and roses there'--the hand in the mirror seemed almost to touch the glistening hair.--'It should be roses here. And--and I had some pink topazes--a bagatelle--you might have bought them from me if you would not take them as a gift. Bah! a trifle!--just drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain----'

Her hard blue eyes grew covetous; she drew in her breath. 'Drops of pink dew hanging from a fine gold chain!--How--how perfectly delicious! And cheap too--oh! do let me see them.'

'Why not, madame? Are they not in my office room; but'--he looked at her and laughed--'will you not smoke one cigarette while you inspect them?'

She looked at him sharply in her turn, then laughed too. He had been clever! She rather admired him for it; though, if he thought he had gained any advantage, he was mistaken.

'Why not, monsieur?' she answered, coolly helping herself from the box. 'As I have to see the topazes, I may as well smoke while you are fetching them.'

She threw herself into an arm-chair and nodded at him. But when the pink topazes came, as they did come to her, after a minute or two, she stood up again in the intensity of her admiration. There were other jewels in the quaint little Indian casket which, with an ill grace, he had brought back with him from the office;--among them a string of remarkably fine pearls--but she never even looked at them. The topaz dewdrops absorbed her. He had been right! They were the one thing wanting.

The only question that remained was, briefly, how much she could afford to give for them.

As she stood calculating, as only women of her type can calculate, Mr. Lucanaster watched her with an easy smile, thinking what a curious hold little stones--which to him only meant so much money--had upon humanity. There was a ruby, for instance, in that very casket, which had taken him three years to wile away from a minor member of the Royal Family. Then there was the emerald----

A sudden sound of distant voices echoed through the stillness of the night, and Mrs. Chris looked up from the pink dew, startled.

'I wonder what that is?' she said, pausing. 'I wish that man Jones hadn't told his foolish tales. He has made me nervous, quite nervous.'

Mr. Lucanaster moved a step nearer. 'You needn't be afraid with me, Jenny,' he said, attempting sentiment, 'even if there was----'

He got no further, for the figure of a very old native, withered, bent, dressed (or undressed) in the nondescript garb of a scullion, showed at the door, then advanced with furtive haste and equally furtive importance.

'Khodawund!' it said toothlessly and with joined hands. 'It is about to come again. This slave saw it then--in '57. He was khÂnsÂman then to Ricketts-sahib bahadur, who was killed----'

'Curse you!' shouted Mr. Lucanaster, 'what the devil----? Then, as the simplest way of getting at the truth, he ran into the verandah. Every servant had disappeared; but there was no mistaking the sound that came clearer now--it was the sound of a crowd, an angry crowd! He stood irresolute for a moment, and then, along the road that lay between his house and Chris Davenant s, he saw two men running with torches.

'There is thatch to both,' called one. 'We will take his first--he who spoilt our plan. The others will settle the depraver of Kings' Houses!'

That was enough! He was back in the house in a second, but not in the drawing-room. In his office, at the safe which he had left open!

Meanwhile Viva, alone with the furtive haste and furtive importance which had seen it all before, stood paralysed with terror; stood in that dress of the year of grace 1857, feeling as if that past had claimed her.

But it had claimed the old anatomy who had returned, in his old age, to the first rung of the ladder whence he had climbed to that dignity of 'khÂnsÂman to Ricketts-sahib bahadur who was killed.'

They had come back to him, those days of livery and gold lace when he had served a lady, dressed perhaps in pink tarlatan! They had come back, and the furtiveness left the remnant that remained of that dignity; the importance returned. 'But the mem was not killed, Huzoor! How should it be so when Mohubbut KhÂn was there? Quick! follow me, Huzoor! This slave knows where safety lies! Has he not seen it all before? Quick, Huzoor, quick! The mem-sahiba is safe--quite safe if she follows Mohubbut KhÂn.'

Safe, quite safe! Those words were enough for this woman in her pink tarlatan, whose nerves, such as they were, had been juggled with by that same pink tarlatan! She forgot everything else, even the pink dewdrops!

The next instant she was out--as many a mem-sahiba had been out in that fateful May-time more than forty years before--with no guide to safety but a native servant. And this was no servant of hers, bound to her by the slender tie--slender in the West, at any rate!--of personal service. Mohubbut KhÂn was only servant of that past--the past which had brought him nothing for his old age save a return to the greasy swab and miserable pittance of his apprenticeship to service!

Yet as, with a breathlessness that had not been in that midnight flight of forty years ago, he headed straight as a die for the Garden Mound, he prattled cheerfully of the future as he might have done then.

Let the mem-sahiba stay herself on the Merciful and Clement, including, of course, His servant Mohubbut! As for the master, the ÂkÂ-sahib, who, perforce, had to think of more than mere safety, the Merciful and Clement had him in his keeping also. And though Mohubbut could not, unfortunately, be in two places at once, some other slave would doubtless be raised up!

There was no fear; none! Was not JÂn-Ali-shÂn-sahib--he pointed into the night--there to be reckoned with still? And had it been possible during that nine long months for any black face--even Mohubbut's, which had remained outside after he had put the mem inside--to win in to the Garden Mound?

So, hovering between past and present, the old man who had been 'khÂnsÂman to Ricketts-sahib bahadur who was killed,' chattered of safety----

Until the Garden Mound was reached, and then----

Then he stood in the dim moonlight--helpless--bewildered--importance gone! For where was safety, where was JÂn-Ali-shÂn?

Ruins, and flowers! Only one thing as it had been forty years before.

The English flag!

He headed straight for it comforted, the importance returning. 'The mem-sahiba need have no fear,' he muttered glibly; 'was not Mohubbut khÂnsÂman to Ricketts-sahib bahadur who was killed?--but the mem was not. Ah! no!'

Yet, once more, the wide ruined doorways of the Residency upset the unstable balance of the half-crazy old man's confidence. But only for a moment. The next, he had lost even importance in quick decision, as the sound of running footsteps, of men's voices, rose against the background of faint elusive cries and distant disturbance which had been with them, fitfully, in their flight.

'Quick, Huzoor, quick! they come! Have no fear! The mem was never killed! yet they came before!'

And Viva, tarlatan in ribbons, almost fainting with fear, followed blindly; then sank behind a heap of stones that lay--part of a ruined stair--in the lowest story of the turret.

Only just in time; for the voices were close at hand, the steps upon the outside stair that led to the roof.

'Lo! we can do so much, if naught else,' came savagely: 'we can end their boast, brothers!' The voice was an educated one, and there was some answering laughs, as five or six white figures passed upwards.

'Have no fear, mem-sahiba!' whispered the toothless comforter. 'JÂn-Ali-shÂn will settle them.'

Apparently he did; or some one else carrying on the tradition of the dead man who lay in the Hollow of Heroes; for almost ere the last climber could have reached the top, they were down the narrow stairs again helter-skelter.

'Trra!' said one vexedly. 'To think they should not have forgotten that! Truly, it is ill doing aught against them, and they so wise! Let us go back to the city--there be plenty of fools there.'

'Said I not so?' whispered the toothless comforter triumphantly, as the steps died away. 'He hath sent them forth discomfited. It was even so before, when Mohubbut was khÂnsÂman to Ricketts-sahib who was killed--but the mem, was not.'

Mrs. Chris, however, was past comfort. Had they come back again she would not have stirred; and she sat in the darkness behind the heap of stones, shuddering and sobbing, too terrified even to hear that monotonous refrain--'Have no fear! Have no fear!'

They are idle words when the heart is full of forebodings. Grace Arbuthnot was finding them so but a few hundred yards away, though she stood calmly saying them to herself.

'There can be no fear!' she said. 'Why should they do him an injury?'

'Why, indeed?' echoed Sir George with an inward groan, born of wider experience of what men can do in such times as these; 'but what can have become of the child?'

He had returned home but a few moments before--and far later than he had anticipated, owing to a raid which had been made on Chris Davenant's and Mr. Lucanaster's bungalows, which had ended in the burning of both--to find the whole household distracted.

For Jerry had disappeared; he was not to be found anywhere, neither was his Mohammedan chuprassi, nor his Hindoo bearer; both men who worshipped the child, who would to all appearance have given their lives for him.

For an instant Sir George's face had cleared at this information; but it had clouded again at the utter incomprehensibility of the whole affair. Lesley had put the child to bed before she had gone out on her cycle. He had then been quite happy, and was to play with his soldiers on 'The Land of Counterpane' till he felt sleepy. That was the last that had been seen of him. Needham, the maid, who worked in the next room, had heard no disturbance. She had been in and out of other rooms, naturally, but not for long. Grace had given a look in about eight o'clock, had seen the nightlight burning as usual--a little dimmer, perhaps--and, Jerry not having called to her, she had not risked disturbing him. Then had come the dinner-party. People had stayed late; and after they had gone she and Lesley had sat up talking, expecting every instant to hear Sir George return;--growing a little anxious as time went on, until, about half an hour ago, Captain Lloyd--who had gone off after the guests had left to see what news he could pick up--had come back with such good accounts, that Grace had sent Lesley to her bed.

Then, not till then, the child's absence was discovered. How long he had been absent, none could tell, for the only two servants likely to know, the two who never left him day or night, were gone also.

They had hunted everywhere: Nevill Lloyd had run back to the club to give the alarm to the men he had left there a few minutes before, Grace had made every inquiry of the other servants; but, she suggested, perhaps a man accustomed to cross-examining native witnesses might get at some clue--'There is nothing else to be done for the moment,' assented Sir George briefly. 'You had better leave me to do it, Grace--if you are here, they will be remembering what they said to you.'

So Lesley and Grace--the latter still repeating those words: 'There can be no fear! Who would hurt the child? Why should they choose him, of all others?'--went and waited in the verandah overlooking the Garden Mound, for the first hint of Nevill Lloyd's return. And yet, while Grace said the words, she was conscious that there might be a reason. If some one wanted to force their hand about that unlucky letter--the letter that now meant the worst, since the troops had been sent for, the promise of no coercion broken at the very beginning; unavoidably of course, yet none the less disastrously, if that letter became public property.

And Lesley's mind, also, was not without its sting of remorse added to its anxiety, as she stood in the fast-lightening dawn looking out into the dim shadows for hint or sign. Ought she to have told Grace why her cycle ride had been so long? Yet that made no difference to this, and a knowledge of the truth would only take from Grace a belief that had made her glad.

No! she could not tell her now! She would wait till Jerry returned--if he did return!

Oh! what could have become of the child?

'Jerry! Jerry!' she called almost involuntarily, and with the cry came back a memory of that midnight chase after the boy.

And with that, came the thought of Jack Raymond and his warning--'He takes it too hard, dear little chap.' She laid her hand quickly on Grace Arbuthnot's wrist. 'I believe I know!' she said, starting to run. 'Come! Let us find Budlu first.'

But she was too late; as they rounded the carriage-drive, and saw on the grey sky of dawn above the blossoming trees the flagstaff with its drooping flag ready to welcome the sun as ever, there was a sound of voices, of laughter, from the ruins. And the next moment Nevill Lloyd, catching sight of them, was tearing across the lawns to meet them, shouting as he ran--

'It's all right, Lady Arbuthnot! Raymond ran the little beggar to earth in five minutes. He was up on the top of the tower with his chuprassi, his bearer, and Budlu the caretaker, and the young imp had got my whole sporting-magazine too! By Jove! if I'd only known that, I might have guessed--but Raymond did----

Grace, who had pulled up, felt the relief almost worse than the suspense; yet she kept calm.

'Lesley!' she said, 'run back and tell Sir George.'

'Let me!' cried Nevill Lloyd. 'Or stay! I'd better go and stop the search-parties.'

So, with light hearts and feet, they left Grace alone to meet the little procession that was coming across the dim lawns. Rather a crestfallen little procession--Jerry, full of yawns and but half awake, led by Jack Raymond, and followed by guilty figures carrying the sporting magazine.

'He is very sorry to have made you so anxious,' said Jack Raymond, grave with difficulty, 'but I have promised you won't scold him, because he meant well. He thought it was a mutiny, and he went to guard the flag.'

'And I did guard it!' put in Jerry aggrievedly, 'afore I went to sleep. For they comed to pull it down--didn't they?' He turned sharply to his henchmen.

'Huzoor!' they assented eagerly, seeing extenuation in the plea, 'without doubt they came.'

'They may have!' said Jack Raymond aside, 'I haven't had time to find out yet. He was asleep when I came, with the key of the door in his hand; and they were positively afraid to take it from him till I insisted!'

'He is more than half-asleep now, poor child,' replied Grace in the same tone, struggling with her desire to laugh, and cry, and hug Jerry all at once. 'Bearer, you had better take the chota-sahib back to his bed, and I will inquire about the rest by and by. Good-night, Jerry! or rather good-morning! You gave poor mum such a fright!'

'I'm solly,' murmured Jerry sleepily, shrinking as ever from the passionate caress she could not help giving, 'but they weally did come--didn't they?'

'Huzoor! without doubt they came!' echoed the trio forlornly.

'And I wouldn't be hard on them either,' said Jack Raymond, as the disconsolate little group moved homewards. 'I fancy they must have had some inkling of the city business, and then, when he started this game, they were in two minds if he wasn't right. You were all away, you see. And Master Jerry was completely master of the situation, I can tell you. He must have been thinking about it for some time, for he had provisions--chocolate caramels, and heaven knows what!--stored in the crevices--dear little chap! And that reminds me'--he paused with a laugh, and drew an official envelope sealed with a red seal out of his pocket--'here's his "Secret Despatches." They fell out of Lloyd's cartridge-case he was wearing, as he came down-stairs--he was so dead sleepy he could hardly stand--and I promised to hand them over to you. He has had them, he told me, these two months! and they are most important.'

Grace Arbuthnot took the envelope, gave a glance at it, a cry, certain, yet incredulous--

'It is my letter--the letter--how could he have found it!'

There was a pause as those two stood, in the dawn of another day, with that immemorial past about them, looking at each other almost doubtfully.

'There are more things in heaven and earth,' said the man at last. 'And so Jerry really has--hullo, what's up now? What do you want?'

'Khodawund!' replied the furtive importance, which was all that remained of the 'khÂnsÂman to Ricketts-sahib bahadur who was killed,' as it salaamed low to the masters. 'There is a mem yonder in the Residency, whom I, Mohubbut, brought thither as I brought the other, into the keeping of JÂn-Ali-shÂn. And he hath kept her! Yea! during the night when the evildoers came, he kept her safe as he did of old. But now it is dawn, and though I tell the mem it is safety, she listens not; but if the Huzoors come, she will believe.'

'During the night!' commented Jack Raymond swiftly, as, scarcely able to believe their ears, those two followed the old man's lead. 'Then it is true--Jerry has--has kept the flag!'