(And Augustus Grabble; General Murger; Sergeant-Major Lawrence-Smith; Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green; Mr. Horace Faggit; as well as a reformed JOHN ROBIN ROSS-ELLISON.)

§ 1. MR. GROBBLE.

There was something very maidenly about the appearance of Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble. One could not imagine him doing anything unfashionable, perspiry, rough or rude; nor could one possibly imagine him doing anything ruthless, fine, terrible, strong or difficult.

One expected his hose to be of the same tint as his shirt and handkerchief, his dress-trousers to be braided, his tie to be delicate and beautiful, his dainty shoes to be laced with black silk ribbon,—but one would never expect him to go tiger-shooting, to ride a gay and giddy young horse, to box, or to do his own cooking and washing in the desert or jungle.

Augustus had been at College during that bright brief period of the attempted apotheosis of the dirty-minded little Decadent whose stock in trade was a few Aubrey Beardsley drawings, a widow's-cruse-like bottle of Green Chartreuse, an Oscar Wilde book, some dubious blue china, some floppy ties, an assortment of second-hand epigrams, scent and scented tobacco, a nil admirari attitude and long weird hair.

Augustus had become a Decadent—a silly harmless conventionally-unconventional Decadent. But, as Carey, a contemporary Rugger blood, coarsely remarked, he hadn't the innards to go far wrong.

It was part of his cheap and childish ritual as a Decadent to draw the curtains after breakfast, light candles, place the flask of Green Chartreuse and a liqueur-glass on the table, drop one drip of the liquid into the glass, burn a stinking pastille of incense, place a Birmingham "god" or an opening lily before him, ruffle his hair, and sprawl on the sofa with a wicked French novel he could not read—hoping for visitors and an audience.

If any fellow dropped in and, very naturally, exclaimed, "What the devil are you doing?" he would reply:—

"Wha'? Oh, sunligh'? Very vulgar thing sunligh'. Art is always superior to Nature. You love the garish day being a gross Philistine, wha'? Now I only live at night. Glorious wicked nigh'. So I make my own nigh'. Wha'? Have some Green Chartreuse—only drink fit for a Hedonist. I drink its colour and I taste its glorious greenness. Ichor and Nectar of Helicon and the Pierian Spring. I loved a Wooman once, with eyes of just that glowing glorious green and a soul of ruby red. I called her my Emerald-eyed, Ruby-souled Devil, and we drank together deep draughts of the red red Wine of Life——"

Sometimes the visitor would say: "Look here, Grobb, you ought to be in the Zoo, you know. There's a lot there like you, all in one big cage," or similar words of disapproval.

Sometimes a young fresher would be impressed, especially if he had been brought up by Aunts in a Vicarage, and would also become a Decadent.

During vac. the Decadents would sometimes meet in Town, and See Life—a singularly uninteresting and unattractive side of Life (much more like Death), and the better men among them—better because of a little sincerity and pluck—would achieve a petty and rather sordid "adventure" perhaps.

Augustus had no head for Mathematics and no gift for Languages, while his Classics had always been a trifle more than shaky. History bored him—so he read Moral Philosophy.

There is a somewhat dull market for second-hand and third-class Moral Philosophy in England, so Augustus took his to India. In the first college that he adorned his classes rapidly dwindled to nothing, and the College Board dispensed with the services of Augustus, who passed on to another College in another Province, leaving behind him an odour of moral dirtiness, debt, and decadence. Quite genuine decadence this time, with nothing picturesque about it, involving doctors' bills, alimony, and other the fine crops of wild-oat sowing.

At Gungapur he determined to "settle down," to "turn over a new leaf," and laid a good space of paving-stone upon his road to reward.

He gave up the morning nip, docked the number of cocktails, went to bed before two, took a little gentle exercise, met Mrs. Pat Dearman—and (like Mr. Robin Ross-Ellison, General Miltiades Murger and many another) succumbed at once.

Mrs. Pat Dearman had come to India (as Miss Cleopatra Diamond Brighte) to see her brother, Dickie Honor Brighte, at Gungapur, and much interested to see, also, a Mr. Dearman whom, in his letters to her, Dickie had described as "a jolly old buster, simply full of money, and fairly spoiling for a wife to help him blew it in." She had not only seen him but had, as she wrote to acidulous Auntie Priscilla at the Vicarage, "actually married him after a week's acquaintance—fancy!—the last thing in the world she had ever supposed … etc." (Auntie Priscilla had smiled in her peculiarly unpleasant way as the artless letter enlarged upon the strangeness of her ingenuous niece's marrying the rich man about whom her innocent-minded brother had written so much.)

Having thoroughly enjoyed a most expensive and lavish honeymoon, Mrs. Pat Dearman had settled down to make her good husband happy, to have a good time and to do any amount of Good to other people—especially to young men—who have so many temptations, are so thoughtless, and who easily become the prey of such dreadful people and such dreadful habits.

Now it is to be borne in mind that Mrs. Dearman's Good Time was marred to some extent by her unreasoning dislike of all Indians, a dislike which grew into a loathing hatred, born and bred of her ignorance of the language, customs, beliefs and ideals of the people among whom she lived, and from whom her husband's great wealth sprang.

To Augustus—fresh from very gilded gold, painted lilies and highly perfumed violets—she seemed a vision of delight, a blessed damozel, a living Salvation.

"Incedit dea aperta," he murmured to himself, and wondered whether he had got the quotation right. Being a weak young gentleman, he straightway yearned to lead a Beautiful Life so as to be worthy to live in the same world with her, and did it—for a little while. He became a teetotaller, he went to bed at ten and rose at five—going forth into the innocent pure morning and hugging his new Goodness to his soul as he composed odes and sonnets to Mrs. Pat Dearman. So far so excellent—but in Augustus was no depth of earth, and speedily he withered away. And his reformation was a house built upon sand, for, even at its pinnacle, it was compatible with the practising of sweet and pure expressions before the glass, the giving of much time to the discovery of the really most successful location of the parting in his long hair, the intentional entangling of his fingers with those of the plump and pretty young lady (very brunette) in Rightaway & Mademore's, what time she handed him "ties to match his eyes," as he requested.

It was really only a change of pose. The attitude now was: "I, young as you behold me, am old and weary of sin. I have Passed through the Fires. Give me beauty and give me peace. I have done with the World and its Dead Sea Fruit. There is no God but Beauty, and Woman is its Prophet." And he improved in appearance, grew thinner, shook off a veritable Old Man of the Sea in the shape of a persistent pimple which went ill with the Higher Aestheticism, and achieved great things in delicate socks, sweet shirts, dream ties, a thumb ring and really pretty shoes.

In the presence of Mrs. Pat Dearman he looked sad, smouldering, despairing and Fighting-against-his-Lower-Self, when not looking Young-but-Hopelessly-Depraved-though-Yearning-for-Better-Things. And he flung out quick epigrams, sighed heavily, talked brilliantly and wildly, and then suppressed a groan. Sometimes the pose of, "Dear Lady, I could kiss the hem of your garment for taking an interest in me and my past—but it is too lurid for me to speak of it, or for you to understand it if I did," would appear for a moment, and sometimes that of, "Oh, help me—or my soul must drown. Ah, leave me not. If I have sinned I have suffered, and in your hands lie my Heaven and my Hell." Such shocking words were never uttered of course—but there are few things more real than an atmosphere, and Augustus Clarence could always get his atmosphere all right.

And Mrs. Pat Dearman (who had come almost straight from a vicarage, a vicar papa and a vicarish aunt, to an elderly, uxorious husband and untrammelled freedom, and knew as much of the World as a little bunny rabbit whom its mother has not brought yet out into the warren for its first season), was mightily intrigued.

She felt motherly to the poor boy at first, being only two years his junior; then sisterly; and, later, very friendly indeed.

Let it be clearly understood that Mrs. Pat Dearman was a thoroughly good, pure-minded woman, incapable of deceiving her husband, and both innocent and ignorant to a remarkable degree. She was the product of an unnatural, specialized atmosphere of moral supermanity, the secluded life, and the careful suppression of healthy, natural instincts. In justice to Augustus Clarence also it must be stated that the impulse to decency, though transient, was genuine as far as it went, and that he would as soon have thought of cutting his long beautiful hair as of thinking evil in connection with Mrs. Pat Dearman.

Yes, Mrs. Pat Dearman was mightily intrigued—and quickly came to the conclusion that it was her plain and bounden duty to "save" the poor, dear boy—though from what she was not quite clear. He was evidently unhappy and obviously striving-to-be-Good—and he had such beautiful eyes, dressed so tastefully, and looked at one with such a respectful devotion and regard, that, really—well, it added a tremendous savour to life. Also he should be protected from the horrid flirting Mrs. Bickker who simply lived to collect scalps.

And so the friendship grew and ripened—quickly as is possible only in India. The evil-minded talked evil and saw harm where none existed, proclaiming themselves for what they were, and injuring none but themselves. (Sad to say, these were women, with one or two exceptions in favour of men—like the Hatter—who perhaps might be called "old women of the male sex," save that the expression is a vile libel upon the sex that still contains the best of us.) Decent people expressed the belief that it would do Augustus a lot of good—much-needed good; and the crystallized male opinion was that the poisonous little beast was uncommon lucky, but Mrs. Pat Dearman would find him out sooner or later.

As for Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman, that lovable simple soul was grateful to Augustus for existing—as long as his existence gave Mrs. Dearman any pleasure. If the redemption of Augustus interested her, let Augustus be redeemed. He believed that the world neither held, nor had held, his wife's equal in character and nobility of mind. He worshipped an image of his own creation in the shape of Cleopatra Dearman, and the image he had conceived was a credit to the single-minded, simple-hearted gentleman.

Naturally he did not admire Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble (learned in millinery; competent, as modes varied, to discuss harem, hobble, pannier, directoire, slit, or lamp-shade skirts, berthes, butterfly-motif embroideries, rucked ninon sleeves, chiffon tunics, and similar mysteries of the latest fashion-plates, with a lady undecided).

Long-haired men put Dearman off, and he could not connect the virile virtues with large bows, velvet coats, scent, manicure, mannerisms and meandering.

But if Augustus gave his wife any pleasure—why Augustus had not lived wholly in vain. His attitude to Augustus was much that of his attitude to his wife's chocolates, fondants, and crystallized violets—"Not absolutely nourishing and beneficial for you, Dearest;—but harmless, and I'll bring you a ton with pleasure".

Personally he'd as soon go about with his wife's fat French poodle as with Augustus, but so long as either amused her—let the queer things flourish.

Among the nasty-minded old women who "talked" was the Mad Hatter.

"Shameful thing the way that Dearman woman throws dust in her husband's eyes!" said he, while sipping his third Elsie May at the club bar. "He should divorce her. I would, to-morrow, if I were burdened with her."

A knee took him in the small of the back with unnecessary violence and he spun round to demand instant apology from the clumsy….

He found himself face to face with one John Robin Ross-Ellison newly come to Gungapur, a gentleman of independent means but supposed to be connected with the Political Department or the Secret Service or something, who stared him in the eyes without speaking while he poised a long drink as though wondering whether it were worth while wasting good liquor on the face of such a thing as the Hatter.

"You'll come with me and clear the dust from Dearman's eyes at once," said he at last. "Made your will all right?"

The Hatter publicly apologised, then and there, and explained that he had, for once in his life, taken a third drink and didn't know what he was saying.

"If your third drink brings out the real man, I should recommend you to stick to two, Bonnett," said the young man, and went away to cogitate.

Should he speak to Dearman? No. He didn't want to see so good a chap hanged for a thing like the Bonnett. Should he go and slap Augustus Grobble hard and make him leave the station somehow? No. Sure to be a scandal. You can no more stop a scandal than a locust-cloud or a fog. The best way to increase it is to notice it. What a horrid thing is a scandal-monger—exhaling poison. It publishes the fact that it is poisonous, of course—but the gas is not enjoyable.

Well, God help anybody Dearman might happen to hear on the subject! Happily Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman heard nothing, for he was a quiet, slow, jolly, red-haired man, and the wrath of a slow, quiet, red-haired man, once roused, is apt to be a rather dangerous thing. Also Mr. Dearman was singularly elephantine in the blundering crushing directness of his methods, and his idea of enough might well seem more than a feast to some.

And Mr. Dearman suffered Augustus gladly, usually finding him present at tea, frequently at dinner, and invariably in attendance at dances and functions.

Augustus was happy and Good—for Augustus. He dallied, he adored, he basked. For a time he felt how much better, finer, more enjoyable, more beautiful, was this life of innocent communion with a pure soul—pure, if just a little insipid, after the real spankers he had hitherto affected.

He was being saved from himself, reformed, helped, and all the rest of it. And when privileged to bring her pen, her fan, her book, her cushion, he always kissed the object with an appearance of wishing to be unseen in the act. It was a splendid change from the Lurid Life and the mean adventure. Piquant.

Unstable as water he could not excel nor endure, however, even in dalliance; nor persevere even when adopted as the fidus Achates of a good and beautiful woman—the poor little weather-cock. He was essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness. There is hope for the strong bad man. He may become a strong good one. Your weak man can never be that.

There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived. Her husband's name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as the Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen—and like Betsey Prig, they "didn't believe there was no sich person". And beyond doubt she was a spanker.

Augustus would sit and eye her at meals—and his face would grow a little less attractive. He would think of her while he took tea with Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper, a stunner, and, very probably,—thrilling thought—a wrong 'un.

Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and, shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent, a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more to-morrow.

Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment, and loses opportunities of experiences? There was nothing in the world, they said, to compare with War and Love. Those who wanted it were welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving rÔle. He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies. What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good, silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties, earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life! Been behaving like a backfisch. He read his Swinburne again, and unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the decadent's joys,—poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his many weary forms.

Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman, therefore suspected something and became uneasy.

One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though expected. He wrote that he had had a headache. Perhaps it was true, but, if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose husband may or may not have been named Harris.

As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency, his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her increased in fervour.

Mrs. Dearman grew more uneasy and a little unhappy.

Could she be losing her influence for Good over the poor weak boy? Could it be—horrible thought—that he was falling into the hands of some nasty woman who would flirt with him, let him smoke too many cigarettes, drink cocktails, and sit up late? Was he going to relapse and slip back into that state of wickedness of some kind, that she vaguely understood him to have been guilty of in the unhappy past when he had possessed no guardian angel to keep his life pure, happy and sweet, as he now declared it to be?

"Where's your young friend got to lately?" inquired her husband one day.

"I don't know, John," she replied, "he's always missing appointments nowadays," and there was a pathetic droop about the childish mouth.

"Haven't quarrelled with him, or anything, have you, Pat?"

"No, John dear. It would break his heart if I were unkind to him—or it would have used to. I mean it used to have would. Oh, you know what I mean. Once it would have. No, I have not been unkind to him—it's rather the other way about, I think!"

Rather the other way about! The little affected pimp unkind to Mrs. Dearman! Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman made no remark—aloud.

Augustus came to tea next day and his hostess made much of him. His host eyed him queerly. Very.

Augustus felt uncomfortable. Good Heavens! Was Dearman jealous? The man was not going to cut up jealous at this time of day, surely! Not after giving him the run of the house for months, and allowing him to take his wife everywhere—nay, encouraging him in every way. Absurd idea!

Beastly disturbing idea though—Dearman jealous, and on your track! A rather direct and uncompromising person, red-haired too. But the man was absolutely fair and just, and he'd never do such a thing as to let a fellow be his wife's great pal, treat him as one of the family for ages, and then suddenly round on him as though he were up to something. No. Especially when he was, if anything, cooling off a bit.

"He was always most cordial—such a kind chap,—when I was living in his wife's pocket almost," reflected Augustus, "and he wouldn't go and turn jealous just when the thing was slacking off a bit."

But there was no doubt that Dearman was eyeing him queerly….

"Shall we go on the river to-morrow night, Gussie?" said Mrs. Dearman, "or have a round of golf, or what?"

"Let's see how we feel to-morrow," replied Augustus, who had other schemes in view. "Sufficient unto the day is the joy thereof," and he escorted Mrs. Dearman to the Gymkhana, found her some nice, ladies' pictorials, said, "I'll be back in a minute or two,"—and went in search of Mrs. "Harris".

"Well," said that lady, "been a good little boy and eaten your bread and butter nicely? Have a Lyddite cocktail to take the taste away. So will I." …

"Don't forget to book the big punt," said the Siren an hour or so later.
"I'll be ready for you about five."

Augustus wrote one of his charming little notes on his charming little note-paper that evening.

"KIND AND GRACIOUS LADYE,

"Pity me. Pity and love me. To-morrow the sun will not shine for your slave, for he will not see it. I am unable to come over in the evening. I stand 'twixt love and duty, and know you would counsel duty. Would the College and all its works were beneath the ocean wave! Think of me just once and I shall survive till the day after. Oh, that I could think your disappointment were but one thousandth part of mine. I live but for Thursday.

"Ever your most devoted loving slave,

"GUSSIE."

Mrs. Dearman wept one small tear, for she had doubted his manner when he had evaded making the appointment, and was suspicious. Mr. Dearman entered and noted the one small tear ere it trickled off her dainty little nose.

She showed him the note.

Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman thought much. What he said was "Hm!"

"I suppose he has got to invigilate at some horrid examination or something," she said, but she did not really suppose anything of the kind. Even to her husband she could not admit the growing dreadful fear that the brand she had plucked from the burning was slipping from her hand—falling back into the flames.

At a dinner-party that night a woman whom she hated, and wrote down an evil-minded scandal-monger and inventor and disseminator of lies, suddenly said to her, "Who is this Mrs. Harris, my dear?"

"How should I know?" replied Mrs. Dearman.

"Oh, I thought your young friend Mr. Grobble might have told you—he seems to know her very well," answered the woman sweetly.

That night Mr. Dearman heard his wife sobbing in bed. Going to her he asked what was the matter, and produced eau-de-Cologne, phenacetin, smelling-salts and sympathy.

She said that nothing at all was the matter and he went away and pondered. Next day he asked her if he could row her on the river as he wanted some exercise, and Augustus was not available to take her for a drive or anything.

"I should love it, John dear," she said. "You row like an ox," and John, who had been reckoned an uncommon useful stroke, felt that a compliment was intended if not quite materialized.

Mrs. Pat Dearman enjoyed the upstream trip, and, watching her husband drive the heavy boat against wind and current with graceful ease, contrasted him with the puny, if charming, Augustus—to the latter's detriment. He was so safe, so sound, so strong, reliable and true. But then he never needed any protection, care and help. It was impossible to "mother" John. He loved her devotedly and beautifully but one couldn't pretend he leaned on her for moral help. Now Augustus did need her or he had done so—and she did so love to be needed. Had done so? No—she would put the thought away. He needed her as much as ever and loved her as devotedly and honourably…. The boat was turned back at the weir and, half an hour later, reached the Club wharf.

"I want to go straight home without changing, Pat; do you mind? I'll drop you at the Gymkhana if you don't want to get home so early," said Dearman, as he helped his wife out.

"Won't you change and have a drink first, John?" she replied. "You must be thirsty."

"No. I want to go along now, if you don't mind."

He did want to—badly. For, rowing up, he had seen something which his wife, facing the other way, could not see.

Under an over-hanging bush was a punt, and in the punt were Augustus and the lady known as Mrs. Harris.

The bush met the bank at the side toward his wife, but at the other side, facing Dearman, there was an open space and so he had seen and she had not. Returning, he had drawn her attention to something on the opposite bank. This had been unnecessary, however, as Augustus had effected a change of venue without delay. And now he did not want his wife to witness the return of the couple and learn of the duplicity of her snatched Brand.

(He'd "brand" him anon!)

* * * * *

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a glass beside him, a cigarette between his lips, a fleshly poet in his hand, and a reminiscent smile upon his flushed face.

She undoubtedly was a spanker. Knew precisely how many beans make five. A woman of the world, that. Been about. Knew things. Sort of woman one could tell a good story to—and get one back. Life! Life! Knew it up and down, in and out. Damn reformation, teetotality, the earnest, and the strenuous. Good women were unmitigated bores, and he…. A sharp knock at the door.

"Kon hai?"[47] he called. "Under ao."[48]

[47] Who's there. [48] Come in.

The door opened and large Mr. Dearman walked in. He bore a nasty-looking malacca cane in his hand—somewhat ostentatiously.

"Hullo, Dearman!" said Augustus after a decidedly startled and anxious look. "What is it? Sit down. I'm just back from College. Have a drink?"

Large Mr. Dearman considered these things seriatim.

"I will sit down as I want a talk with you. You are a liar in the matter of just being back from College. I will not have a drink." He then lapsed into silence and looked at Augustus very straight and very queerly, while bending the nasty malacca suggestively. The knees of Augustus smote together.

Good God! It had come at last! The thrashing he had so often earned was at hand. What should he do? What should he do!

Dearman thought the young man was about to faint.

"Fine malacca that, isn't it?" he asked.

"Ye-yes!"

"Swishy, supple, tough."

"Ye-yes!" (How could the brute be such a fool as to be jealous now—now when it was all cooling off and coming to an end?)

"Grand stick to thrash a naughty boy with, what?"

"Ye-yes!—Dearman, I swear before God that there is nothing between me and——"

"Shut up, you infernal God-forsaken cub, or I shall have to whip you.
I——"

"Dearman, if you are jealous of me——"

"Better be quiet and listen, or I shall get cross, and you'll get hurt…. You have given us the pleasure of a great deal of your company this year, and I have come to ask you——"

"Dearman, I have not been so much lately, and I—"

"That's what I complain of, my young friend."

"What?"

"That's what I complain of! I have come to protest against your making yourself almost necessary to me, in a sense, and then—er—deserting me, in a sense."

"You are mocking me, Dearman. If you wish to take advantage of my being half your size and strength to assault me, you——"

"Not a bit of it, my dear Augustus. I am in most deadly earnest, as you'll find if you are contumacious when I make my little proposition. What I say is this. I have grown to take an interest in you, Augustus. I have been very kind to you and tried to make a better man of you. I have been a sort of mother to you, and you have sworn devotion and gratitude to me. I have reformed you somewhat, and you have admitted to me that I have made another man of you, Augustus, and that you love me for it, you love me with a deep Platonic love, my Augustus, and—don't you forget it."

"I admit that your wife——"

"Don't you mention my wife, Augustus, or you and I and that malacca will have a period of great activity. I was saying that I am disappointed in you, Augustus, and truly grieved to find you so shallow and false. I asked you to take me on the river to-night and you lied to me and took a very different type of—er—person. Such meanness and ingratitude fairly get me, Augustus. Now I never asked you to run after me and come and swear I had saved your dirty little soul alive, but since you did it, Augustus, and I have come to take a deep interest in saving the thing—why, you've got to stick it, Augustus—and if you don't—why, then I'll make you, my dear."

"Dearman, your wife has been the noblest friend——"

"Will you come off it, Augustus? I don't want to be cruel. Now look here. I have got accustomed to having you about the house and employing you in those funny little ways in which you are a useful little animal. I am under no delusion as to the value of that Soul of yours—but, such as it is, I am determined to save it. So just you bring it round to tea to-morrow, as usual; and don't you ever be absent again without my permission. You began the game and I'll end it—when I think fit. Grand malacca that."

"Dearman, I will always——"

"'Course you will. See you at tea to-morrow, Gussie. If ever my wife hears of this I'll kill you painfully. Bye-Bye."

Augustus was present at tea next day, and, thenceforth, so regular was he that Mrs. Dearman found, first, that she had been very foolish in thinking that her Brand was slipping back into the fire and, later, that Gussie was a bore and a nuisance.

One day he said in the presence of John:—

"I can't keep that golf engagement on Saturday, dear lady, I have to attend a meeting of the Professors, Principal and College Board".

"Have you seen my malacca cane, Pat," said Dearman. "I want it."

"But I really have!" said Augustus, springing up.

"Of course you have," replied Dearman. "What do you mean?"

* * * * *

"John dear," remarked Mrs. Dearman one day, "I wish you could give Gussie a hint not to come quite so often. I have given him some very broad ones during the last few months, but he won't take them. He would from you, I expect."

"Tired of the little bounder, Pat?"

"Oh, sick and tired. He bores me to tears. I wish he were in Government Service and could be transferred. A Government man's always transferred as soon as he has settled to his job. I can't forbid him the house, very well, but I wish he'd realize how weary I am of his poses and new socks."

* * * * *

Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble sat in the long cane chair in his sitting-room, a look of rebellious discontent upon his face. What could he do? Better chuck his job and clear out! The strain was getting awful. What a relentless, watchful brute Dearman was! To him entered that gentleman after gently tapping at the chamber door.

"Gussie," said he, "I have come to say that I think you weary me. I don't want you to come and play with me any more. But be a nice good boy and do me credit. I have brought you this malacca as a present and a memento. I have another, Gussie, and am going to watch you, so be a real credit to me."

And Gussie was.

So once again a good woman redeemed a bad man—but a trifle indirectly perhaps.

Then came General Miltiades Murger and Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison to be saved.

During intervals in the salvation process, Mr. John Robin Ross-Ellison vainly endeavoured to induce Mr. Augustus Clarence Percy Marmaduke Grobble to lend his countenance, as well as the rest of his person, to the European Company of the Gungapur Fusilier Volunteer Corps which it was the earnest ambition of Ross-Ellison to raise and train and consolidate into a real and genuine defence organization, with a maxim-gun, a motor-cycle and car section, and a mounted troop, and with, above all, a living and sturdy esprit-de-corps. Such a Company appeared to him to be the one and only hope of regeneration for the ludicrous corps which Colonel Dearman commanded, and to change the metaphor, the sole possible means of leavening the lump by its example of high standards and high achievement.

To Augustus, however, as to many other Englishmen, the idea was merely ridiculous and its parent simply absurd.

The day dawned when Augustus, like the said many other Englishmen, changed his mind. In his, and their defence, it may be urged that they knew nothing of the activities of a very retiring but persevering gentleman, known to his familiars as Ilderim the Weeper, and that they had grown up in the belief that all England's fighting and defence can be done by a few underpaid, unconsidered, and very vulgar hirelings.

Perish the thought that Augustus and his like should ever be expected to do the dirty work of defending themselves, their wives, children, homes and honour.

prompt, and very bloodthirsty.

As he strolled up and down, supervising drills, went round the sentry-posts by night, or marched at the head of a patrol, Captain Malet-Marsac would reflect upon the relativity of things, the false values of civilization, and the extraordinary devitalising and deteriorating results of "education". When it came to vital issues, elementals, stark essential manhood,—then the elect of civilization, the chosen of education, weighed, was found not only wanting but largely negligible. Where the highly "educated" was as good as the other he was so by reason of his games and sports, his shikar, or his specialized training—as in the case of the engineers and other physically-trained men.

Captain John Bruce, for example, Professor of Engineering, was a soldier in a few weeks and a fine one. In time of peace, a quiet, humorous, dour and religious-minded man, he was now a stern disciplinarian and a cunning foe who fought to kill, rejoicing in the carnage that taught a lesson and made for earlier peace. The mind that had dreamed of universal brotherhood and the Oneness of Humanity now dreamed of ambushes, night-attacks, slaughterous strategy and magazine-fire on a cornered foe.

Surely and steadily the men enclosed behind the walls of the old Prison rose into the ranks of the utterly reliable, the indefatigable, the fearless and the fine, or sank into those of the shifty, unhearty, unreliable, and unworthy—save the few who remained steadily mediocre, well-meaning, unsoldierly, fairly trustworthy—a useful second line, but not to be sent on forlorn hopes, dangerous reconnoitring, risky despatch-carrying, scouting, or ticklish night-work. One siege is very like another—and Ross-Ellison's garrison knew increasing weariness, hunger, disease and casualties.

Mrs. Dearman's conduct raised Colonel Ross-Ellison's love to a burning, yearning devotion, and his defence of Gungapur became his defence of Mrs. Dearman. For her husband she appeared to mourn but little—there was little time to mourn—and, for a while, until sights, sounds and smells became increasingly horrible, she appeared almost to enjoy her position of Queen of the Garrison, the acknowledged Ladye of the Officers and men of the Corps. Until she fell sick herself, she played the part of amateur Florence Nightingale right well, going regularly with a lamp—the Lady with the Lamp—at night through the hospital ward. Captain John Bruce was the only one who was not loud in her praises, though he uttered no dispraises. He, a dour and practical person, thought the voyage with the Lamp wholly unnecessary and likely to awaken sleepers to whom sleep was life; that lint-scraping would have been a more useful employment than graciousness to the poor wounded; that a woman, as zealous as Mrs. Dearman looked, would have torn up dainty cotton and linen confections for bandages instead of wearing them; that the Commandant didn't need all the personal encouragement and enheartenment that she wished to give him—and many other uncomfortable, cynical, and crabby thoughts. Captain Malet-Marsac loved her without criticism.

Mrs. Cornelius Gosling-Green, after haranguing all and sundry, individually and collectively, on the economic unsoundness, the illogic, and the unsocial influence of War, took to her bed and stayed there until she found herself totally neglected. Arising and demanding an interview with the Commandant, she called him to witness that she entered a formal protest against the whole proceedings and registered her emphatic——until the Commandant, sending for Cornelius (whose duties cut him off, unrepining, from his wife's society), ordered him to remove her, silence her, beat her if necessary—and so save her from the unpleasant alternative of solitary confinement on bread and water until she could be, if not useful, innocuous.

Many a poor woman of humble station proved herself (what most women are) an uncomplaining, unconsidered heroine, and more than one "subordinate" of mixed ancestry and unpromising exterior, a brave devoted man. As usual, what kept the flag flying and gave ultimate victory to the immeasurably weaker side was the spirit, the personality, the force, the power, of one man.

To Captain Malet-Marsac this was a revelation. Even to him, who knew John Robin Ross-Ellison well, and had known and studied him for some time at Duri and elsewhere, it was a wonderful thing to see how the quiet, curious, secretive man (albeit a fine athlete, horseman and adventurous traveller) stepped suddenly into the fierce light of supreme command in time of war, a great, uncompromising, resourceful ruler of men, skilful strategist and tactician, remarkable both as organizer, leader, and personal fighter.

Did he ever sleep? Night after night he penetrated into the city disguised as a Pathan (a disguise he assumed with extraordinary skill and which he strengthened by a perfect knowledge of many Border dialects as well as of Pushtoo), or else personally led some night attack, sally, reconnaissance or foraging expedition. Day after day he rode out on Zuleika with the few mounted men at his command, scouting, reconnoitring, gleaning information, attacking and slaughtering small parties of marauders as occasion offered.

From him the professional soldier, his adjutant, learned much, and wondered where his Commandant had learned all he had to teach. Captain Malet-Marsac owned him master, his military as well as his official superior, and grew to feel towards him as his immediate followers felt toward Napoleon—to love him with a devoted respect, a respecting devotion. He recognized in him the born guerrilla leader—and more, the trained guerrilla leader, and wondered where on earth this strange civilian had garnered his practical military knowledge and skill.

Wherever he went on foot, especially when he slipped out of the Prison for dangerous spy-work among the forces of the mutineers, rebels, rioters and budmashes of the city, he was followed by his servant, an African, concerning whom Colonel Ross-Ellison had advised the servants of the Officers' Mess to be careful and also to bear in mind that he was not a Hubshi. Only when the Colonel rode forth on horseback was he separated from this man who, when the Colonel was in his room, invariably slept across the door thereof.

On night expeditions, the Somali would be disguised, sometimes as a leprous beggar, as stable-boy, again as an Arab, sometimes as a renegade sepoy from a Native Border Levy, sometimes as a poor fisherman, again as a Sidi boatman, he being, like his master, exceptionally good at disguises of all kinds, and knowing Hindustani, Arabic, and his native Somal dialect.

He was an expert bugler, and in that capacity stuck like a burr to the Colonel by day, looking very smart and workmanlike in khaki uniform and being of more than average usefulness with rifle and bayonet. Not until after the restoration of order did Mr. Edward Jones, formerly of the Duri High School, long puzzled as to where he had seen him before, realize who he was.

* * * * *

In a low dark room, dimly lighted that evening by wick-and-saucer butties, squatted, lay, sat, stood and sprawled a curious collection of scoundrels. The room was large, and round the four sides of it ran a very broad, very low, and very filthy divan, intended for the rest and repose of portly bunnias,[65] seths,[66] brokers, shopkeepers and others of the commercial fraternity, what time they assembled to chew pan and exchange lies and truths anent money and the markets. A very different assembly now occupied its greasy lengths vice the former habituÉs of the salon, now dispersed, dead, robbed, ruined, held to ransom, or cruelly blackmailed.

[65] Dealers. [66] Money-lenders.

In the seat of honour (an extra cushion), sat the blind faquir who, with his clerkly colleague, had set the original match to the magazine by inciting the late Mr. Dearman's coolies. Apparently a relentless, terrible fanatic and bitter hater of the English, for his councils were all of blood and fire, rapine and slaughter, he taunted his hearers with their supine cowardice in that the Military Prison still held out, its handful of defenders still manned its walls, nay, from time to time, made sallies and terrible reprisals upon a careless ill-disciplined enemy.

"Were I but as other men! Had I but mine eyes!" he screamed, "I would overwhelm the place in an hour. Hundreds to one you are—and you are mocked, robbed, slaughtered."

A thin-faced, evil-looking, squint-eyed Hindu whose large, thick, gold-rimmed goggles accorded ill with the sword that lay athwart his crossed legs, addressed him in English.

"Easy to talk, Moulvie. Had you your sight you could perhaps drill and arm the mob into an army, eh? Find them repeating rifles and ammunition, find them officers, find them courage? Is it not? Yes."

"Hundreds to one, Babu," grunted the blind man, and spat.

"I would urge upon this august assemblee," piped a youthful weedy person, "that recreemination is not argument, and that many words butter no parsneeps, so to speak. We are met to decide as to whether the treasure shall be removed to Pirgunge or still we keep it with us here in view of sudden sallies of foes. I hereby beg to propose and my honourable friend Mister——"

"Sit down, crow," said the blind faquir unkindly and there was a snigger. "The treasure will be removed at once—this night, or I will remove myself from Gungapur with all my followers—and go where deeds are being done. I weary of waiting while pi-dogs yelp around the walls they cannot enter. Cowards! Thousands to one—and ye do not kill two of them a day. Conquer and slay them? Nay—rather must our own treasure be removed lest some night the devil, in command there, swoop upon it, driving ye off like sheep and carrying back with him——"

"Flesh and blood cannot face a machine-gun, Moulvie," said the squint-eyed Hindu. "Even your holy sanctity would scarcely protect you from bullets. Come forth and try to-morrow."

"Nor can flesh and blood—such flesh and blood as Gungapur provides—surround the machine-gun and rush upon it from flank and rear of course," replied the blind man. "Do machine guns fire in all directions at once? When they ran the accursed thing down to the market-place and fired it into the armed crowd that listened to my words, could ye not have fled by other streets to surround it? Had all rushed bravely from all directions how long would it have fired? Even thus, could more have died than did die? Scores they slew—and retired but when they could fire no longer…. And ye allowed it to go because a dozen men stood between it and you——," and again the good man spat.

"I do not say 'Sit down, crow' for thou art already sitting," put in a huge, powerful-looking man, arrayed in a conical puggri-encircled cap, long pink shirt over very baggy peg-top trousers, and a green waistcoat, "but I weary of thy chatter Blind-Man. Keep thy babble for fools in the market-place, where, I admit, it hath its uses. Remain our valued and respected talker and interfere not with fighting men, nor criticize. And say not 'The treasure will be removed this night,' nor anything else concerning command. I will decide in the matter of the treasure and I prefer to keep it here under mine hand…."

"Doubtless," sneered the blind man. "Under thy hand—until, in the end, it be found to consist of boxes of stones and old iron. Look you—the treasure goes to-night or I go, and certain others go with me. And suppose I change my tune in the market-place, Havildar Nazir Ali Khan, and say certain words concerning thee and thy designs, give hints of treachery—and where is the loud-mouthed Nazir Ali Khan?…" and his blind eyes glared cold ferocity at the last speaker who handled his sword and replied nothing.

The secret of the man's power was clear.

"The treasure will be removed to night," he repeated and a discussion of limes, routes, escort and other details followed. A dispute arose between the big man addressed as Havildar Nazir Ali Khan and a squat broad-shouldered Pathan as to the distance and probable time that a convoy, moving at the rate of laden bullock-carts, would take in reaching Pirgunge.

The short thick-set Pathan turned for confirmation of his estimate to another Pathan, grey-eyed but obviously a Pathan, nevertheless.

"I say it is five kos and the carts should start at moonrise and arrive before the moon sets."

"You are right, brother," replied the grey-eyed Pathan, who, for his own reasons, particularly desired that the convoy should move by moonlight. This individual had not spoken hitherto in the hearing of the blind faquir, and, as he did so now, the blind man turned sharply in his direction, a look of startled surprise and wonder on his face.

"Who spoke?" he snapped.

But the grey-eyed man arose, yawned hugely, and, arranging his puggri and straightening his attire, swaggered towards the door of the room, passed out into a high-walled courtyard, exchanged a few words with the guardian of a low gateway, and emerged into a narrow alley where he was joined by an African-looking camel-man.

The blind man, listening intently, sat motionless for a minute and then again asked sharply:—

"Who spoke? Who spoke?"

"Many have spoken Pir Saheb," replied the squat Pathan.

"Who said 'You are right, brother,' but now? Who? Quick!" he cried.

"Who? Why, 'twas one of us," replied the squat Pathan. "Yea, 'twas
Abdulali Habbibullah, the money-lender. I have known him long…."

"Let him speak again," said the blind man.

"Where is he? He has gone out, I think," answered the other.

"Call him back, Hidayetullah. Take others and bring him back. I must hear his voice again," urged the faquir.

"He will come again, Moulvie Saheb, he is often here," said the short man soothingly. "I know him well. He will be here to-morrow."

"See, Hidayetullah," said the blind faquir "when next he comes, say then to me, 'May I bring thee tobacco, Pir Saheb,' if he be sitting near, but say 'May I bring thee tobacco, Moulvie Saheb,' if he be sitting afar off. If this, speak to him across the room that I may hear his voice in answer, and call him by his name, Abdulali Habbibullah. And if I should, on a sudden, cry out 'Hold the door,' do thou draw knife and leap to the door…."

"A spy, Pir Saheb?" asked the interested man.

"That I shall know when next I hear his voice—and, if it be he whom I think, thou shalt scrape the flesh from the bones of his face with thy knife and put his eyeballs in his mouth. But he must not die. Nay! Nay!"

The Pathan smiled.

"Thou shalt hear his voice, Pir Saheb," he promised.

* * * * *

An hour later the African-looking camel-man and the Pathan approached the gates of the Military Prison and at a distance of a couple of hundred yards the African imitated the cry of a jackal, the barking of a dog and the call of the "Did-ye-do-it" bird.

Approaching the gate he whispered a countersign and was admitted, the gate being then held open for the Pathan who followed him at a distance of a hundred yards. Entering Colonel Ross-Ellison's room the Pathan quickly metamorphosed himself into Colonel Ross-Ellison, and sent for his Adjutant, Captain Malet-Marsac.

"Fifty of the best, with fifty rounds each, to parade at the gate in half an hour," he said. "Bruce to accompany me, you to remain in command here. All who can, to wear rubber-soled shoes, others to go barefoot or bandage their boots with putties over cardboard or paper. No man likely to cough or sneeze is to go. Luminous-paint discs to be served out to half a dozen. No rations, no water,—just shirts, shorts and bandoliers. Nothing white or light-coloured to be worn. Put a strong outpost, all European, under Corporal Faggit on the hill, and double all guards and sentries. Shove sentry-groups at the top of the Sudder Bazaar, West Street and Edward Road.—You know all about it…. I've got a good thing on. There'll be a lot of death about to-night, if all goes well."

Half an hour later Captain Bruce called his company of fifty picked men to "attention" as Colonel Ross-Ellison approached, the gate was opened and an advance-guard of four men, with four flankers, marched out and down the road leading to the open country. Two of these wore each a large tin disc painted with luminous paint fastened to his back. When these discs were only just visible from the gate a couple more disc-adorned men started forth, and before their discs faded into the darkness the remainder of the party "formed fours" and marched after them, all save a section of fours which followed a couple of hundred yards in the rear, as a rear-guard. In silence the small force advanced for an hour, passed some cross-roads, and then Colonel Ross-Ellison, who had joined the advance-guard, signalled a halt and moved away by himself to the right of the road.

In the shadow of the trees, the moon having risen, Captain Bruce ordered his men to lie down, announcing in a whisper that he would have the life of anyone who made a sound or struck a match. This was known to be but half in jest, for the Captain was a good disciplinarian and a man of his word.

Save for the occasional distant bark of the village-dogs, the night was very still. Sitting staring out into the moon-lit hazy dusk in the direction in which his chief had disappeared, Captain John Bruce wondered if he were really one of a band of armed men who hoped shortly to pour some two and a half thousand bullets into other men, really a soldier fighting and working and starving that the Flag might fly, really a primitive fighting-man with much blood upon his hands and an earnest desire for more—or whether he were not a respectable Professor who would shortly wake, beneath mosquito-curtains, from a very dreadful dream. How thin a veneer was this thing called Civilization, and how unchanged was human nature after centuries and centuries of——

Colonel Ross-Ellison appeared.

"Bring twenty-five men and follow me. Hurry up," he said quietly, and, a minute later, led the way from the high-road across country. Five minutes marching brought the party, advancing in file, to the mouth of a nullah which ran parallel with the road. Along this, Colonel Ross-Ellison led them, and, when he gave the signal to halt, it was seen that they were behind a high sloping bank within fifty yards of the high-road.

"Now," said the Colonel to Captain John Bruce, "I'm going to leave you here. Let your men lie below the top of the bank and if any man looks over, till your command 'Up and fire,' kick his face in. You will peep through that bit of bush and no one else will move. Do nothing until I open fire from the other side. The moment I open fire, up your lot come and do the same. Magazine, of course. The moon will improve as it rises more. You'll fix bayonets and charge magazines now. I expect a pretty big convoy—and before very long. Probably a mob all round a couple of bylegharies[67] and a crowd following—everybody distrusting every one, as it is treasure, looted from all round. Don't shoot the bullocks, but I particularly want to kill a blind bloke who may be with 'em, so if we charge, barge in too, and look out for a blinder and don't give him any quarter—give him half instead—half your sword. He's a ringleader—and I want him for auld lang syne too, as it happens. He doesn't look blind at all, but he would be led…. Any questions?"

[67] Bullock-carts.

"No, Sir. I'm to hide till you fire. Then fire, magazine, and charge if you do. A blind man to be captured if possible. The bullocks not to be shot, if possible."

"Eight O. Carry on," and the Colonel strode back to where the remaining twenty-five waited, under a Sergeant. These he placed behind an old stone wall that marked the boundary of a once-cultivated patch of land, some forty yards from the road, to which the ground sloped sharply downwards.

A nice trap if all went well.

All went exceeding well.

Within an hour and a half of the establishment of the ambush, the creaking of ungreased wheels was heard and the loud nasal singing of some jovial soul. Down the silent deserted road came three bullock-carts piled high with boxes and escorted by a ragged regiment of ex-sepoys, ex-police, mutineers, almost a battalion from the forces of the wild Border State neighbouring Gungapur. A small crowd of variously armed uniformless men preceded the escort and carts, while a large one followed them.

No advance-guard nor flanking-parties guaranteed the force from ambush or attack.

Suddenly, as the carts crossed a long culvert and the escort perforce massed on to the road, instead of straggling on either side beneath the trees, a voice said coolly in English "Up and fire," and as scores of surprised faces turned in the direction of the voice the night was rent with the crash of fifty rifles pouring in magazine fire at the rate of fifteen rounds a minute. Magazine fire at less than fifty yards, into a close-packed body of men. Scarcely a hundred shots were returned and, by the time a couple of thousand rounds had been fired (less than three minutes), and Colonel Boss-Ellison had cried "Ch-a-a-a-r-ge" there was but little to charge and not much for the bayonet to do. Of the six bullocks four were uninjured.

"Load as many boxes as you can on two carts, and leave half a dozen men to bring them in. They'll have to take their chance. We must get back ek dum,"[68] said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

[68] At once.

Even as he spoke, the sound of distant firing fell upon the ears of the party and the unmistakable stammer-hammer racket of the maxim.

"They're attacked, by Jove," he cried. "I thought it likely. There may have been an idea that we should know something of this convoy and go for it. All ready? Now a steady double. We'll double and quick-march alternately. Double march."

* * * * *

Near the Military Prison was a low conical hill, bare of vegetation and buildings, a feature of the situation which was a constant source of anxiety to Colonel Ross-Ellison, for he realized that life in the beleaguered fortress would be very much harder, and the casualty rate very much higher, if the enemy had the sense to occupy it in strength and fire down into the Prison. Against this contingency he always maintained a picket there at night and a special sentry to watch it by day, and he had caused deep trenches to be dug and a covered way made in the Prison compound, so that the fire-swept area could be crossed, when necessary, with the minimum of risk. Until the night of the convoy-sortie, however, the enemy had not had the ordinary common sense to grasp the fact that the hill was the key of the situation and to seize it.

"Bloomin' cold up 'ere, Privit Greens, wot?" observed Corporal Horace Faggit to the famous Mr. Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., in kindly and condescending manner, as he placed him back to back with Private Augustus Grobble on the hill-top. "But you'll keep awake all the better for that, me lad…. Now you other four men can go to sleep, see? You'll lie right close up agin the feet o' Privits Greens an' Grabbles, and when they've done their two hours, they'll jes' give two o' you a kick and them two'll rise up an' take their plaices while they goes to sleep. Then them two'll waike 'tother two, see? An' if hannyone approaches, the sentry as is faicin' 'im will 'olleraht 'Alt! 'Oo comes there?' an' if the bloke or blokes say, 'Friend,' then 'e'll say 'Hadvance one an' give the countersign,' and if he can't give no countersign, then blow 'is bleedin' 'ead off, see?… Now I shall visit yer from time to time, an' let me find you spry an' smart with yer,' 'Alt,' 'Oo comes there? see? An' if either sentry sees anythink suspicious down below there—let 'im send the other sentry across fer me over in the picket there, see? 'E'll waike up the others meanwhile an' they'll all watch out till I comes and gives orders, see? An' if you're attacked afore I come, then retire firing. Retire on the picket, see? We won't shoot yer. Don't make a bloomin' blackguard-rush for the picket though. Jest retire one by one firin' steady, see? Now I'm goin' back to the picket. Ow! an' don' fergit the reconnoitrin' patrol. Don' go an' shoot at 'em as they comes back. 'Alt 'em for the countersign as they comes out, and 'alt 'em fer it agin as they comes in, see? Right O. Now you keep yer eyes skinned, Greens and Grobbles."

Private Cornelius Gosling-Green, M.P., had never looked really impressive even on the public platform in over-long frock-coat and turned-down collar. In ill-fitting khaki, ammunition boots, a helmet many sizes too big, and badly-wound putties, he looked an extremely absurd object. Private Augustus Grobble looked a little more convincing, inasmuch as his fattish figure filled his uniform, but the habit of wearing his helmet on the back of his neck and a general congenital unmilitariness of habit and bearing, operated against success.

Two unhappier men rarely stood back to back upon a lonely, windy hill-top. Both were very hungry, very sleepy and very cold, both were essentially men of peace, and both had powerful imaginations—especially of horrors happening to their cherished selves.

Both were dealers in words; neither was conversant with things, facts, deeds, and all that lay outside their inexpressibly artificial and specialized little spheres. Each had been "educated" out of physical manliness, self-reliance, courage, practical usefulness, adaptability, "grit" and the plain virile virtues.

Cornelius burned with a peevish indignation that he, writer of innumerable pamphlets, speaker at innumerable meetings, organizer of innumerable societies, compiler of innumerable statistics, author of innumerable letters to the press, he, husband of the famous suffragist worker, speaker, organizer and leader, Superiora Gosling-Green (a Pounding-Pobble of the Pounding-Pobbles of Putney), that he, Cornelius Gosling-Green, Esq., M.P., should be stuck there like a common soldier, with a heavy and dangerous gun and a nasty sharp-pointed bayonet, to stand and shiver while others slept. To stand, too, in a horribly dangerous situation … he had a good mind to resign in protest, to take his stand upon his inalienable rights as a free Englishman. Who should dare to coerce a Gosling-Green, Member of Parliament, of the Fabian Society, and a hundred other "bodies". His Superiora did all the coercing he wanted and more too. He would enter a formal protest and tender his resignation. He had always, hitherto, been able to protest and resign when things did not go as he wished.

He yawned, and again.

"I can see as well sitting or kneeling as I can standing," he remarked to Private Augustus Grobble.

"It is a great physiological truth," replied Augustus, and they both sat down, leaning against each other for warmth and support, back to back.

The soul of Augustus was filled with a melancholy sadness and a gentle woe. To think that he, the loved of many beautiful Wimmin should be suffering such hardships and running such risks. How his face was falling in and how the wrinkles were gathering round his eyes. Some of the beautiful and frail, of whom he thought when he gave his usual toast after dinner, "To the Wimmin who have loved me," would hardly recognize the fair boy over whom they had raved, whose poems they had loved, whose hair, finger-nails, eyes, ties, socks and teeth they had complimented. A cruel, cruel waste. But how rather romantic—the war-worn soldier! He who knew his Piccadilly, Night Clubs, the theatres, the haunts of fair women and brave men, standing, no—sitting, on a lonely hill-top watching, watching, the lives of the garrison in his hands…. He would return to those haunts, bronzed, lined, hardened—the man from the edge of the Empire, from the back of Beyond, the man who had Done Things—and talk of camp-fires, the trek, the Old Trail, smells of sea and desert and jungle, and the man-stifled town, … battle, … brave deeds … unrecognized heroism … a medal … perhaps the … and the nodding head of Augustus settled upon his chest.

His deep breathing and occasional snores did not attract the attention of Private Gosling-Green, as Private Gosling-Green was sound asleep. Nor did they awaken the weary four who made up the sentry group—Edward Jones, educationist; Henry Grigg, barber; Walter Smith, shopman; Reginald Ladon Gurr, Head of a Department—and whose right it was to sleep so long as two of the six watched.

* * * * *

"Let there be no mistake then," said the burly Havildar Nazir Ali Khan to one Hidayetulla, squat thick-set Pathan, "at the first shot from the hill your party, ceasing to crawl, will rush upon the picket, and mine will swoop upon the gate bearing the tins of kerosene oil, the faggots and the brushwood. All those with guns will fire at the walls save the Border State company who will reserve their fire till the gate is opened or burnt down. The dogs within must either open it to extinguish the fire, or it must burn. On their volley, all others will charge for the gate with knife and sword. Do thou win the hill-top and keep up a heavy fire into the Prison. There will be Lee-Metford rifles and ammunition there ready for thy taking—ha-ha!"

"And if we are seen and fired on as we stalk the picket on the hill?"

"Then their first shot will, as I said, be the signal for your rush and ours. Understandest thou?"

"I understand. 'Tis a good plan of the blind Moulvie's."

"Aye! He can plan,—and talk. We can go and be shot, and be blamed if his plans miscarry," grumbled the big man, and added, "How many have you?"

"About forty," was the reply, "and all Khost men save seven, of whom four are Afghans of Cabul, two are Punjabis, and one a Sikh."

"Is it three hours since the treasure started? That was the time the
Moulvie fixed for the attack."

"It must be, perhaps," replied the other. "Let us begin. But what if the hill be not held, or if we capture it with the knife, none firing a shot?"

"Then get into good position, make little sungars where necessary, and, all being ready, open fire into the Prison compound…. At the first shot—whatever be thy luck—we shall rush in our thousands down the Sudder Bazaar, West Street and Edward Street, and do as planned. Are thy forty beneath the trees beyond the hill?"

"They are. I join them now," and the squat broad-shouldered figure rolled away with swinging, swaggering gait.

Suddenly Private Augustus Grobble started from deep sleep to acutest wide-eyed consciousness and was aware of a man's face peering over a boulder not twenty yards from him—a hideous hairy face, surmounted by a close-fitting skull-cap that shone greasy in the moonlight. The blood of Augustus froze in his veins, he held his breath, his heart shook his body, his tongue withered and dried. He closed his eyes as a wave of faintness swept over him, and, as he opened them again, he saw that the man was crawling towards him, and that between his teeth was a huge knife. The terrible Pathan, the cruel dreadful stalker, the slashing disemboweller was upon him!—and with a mighty effort he sprang to his feet and fled for his life down the hill in the direction of the Prison. His sudden movements awoke Private Green, who, in one scared glance, saw a number of terrible forms arising from behind boulders and rushing silently and swiftly towards him and his flying comrade. Leaping up he fled after Grabble, running as he had never run before, and, even as he leapt clear of the sleeping group, the wave of Pathans broke upon it and with slash and stab assured it sound sleep for ever, all save Edward Jones, who, badly wounded as he was, survived (to the later undoing of Moussa Isa, murderer of a Brahmin boy).

Of the four Pathans who had surprised the sentry group, one, with a passing slash that re-arranged the face of Reginald Ladon Gurr, sped on after the flying sentries. But that the man was short and stout of build and that the fugitives had a down-hill start, both would have died that night. As it was, within ten seconds, a tremendous sweep of the heavy blade of the long Khyber knife caused Private Gosling-Green to lose his head completely and for the last time. Augustus Grobble, favoured of fortune for the moment, took flying leaps that would have been impossible to him under other circumstances, bounded and ran unstumbling, gained the shadow of the avenue of trees, and with bursting breast sped down the road, reached the gate, shouted the countersign with his remaining breath, and was dragged inside by Captain Michael Malet-Marsac.

"Well?" inquired he coldly of the gasping terrified wretch.

When he could do so, Augustus sobbed out his tale.

"Bugler, sound the alarm!" said the officer. "Sergeant of the Guard put this man in the guard-room and keep him under arrest until he is sent for," and, night-glasses in hand, he climbed one of the ladders leading to the platform erected a few feet below the top of the well-loopholed wall, just as a shot was fired and followed by others in rapid succession on the hill whence Grobble had fled.

The shot was fired by Corporal Horace Faggit and so were the next four as he rapidly emptied his magazine at the swiftly charging Pathans who rose out of the earth on his first shot at the man he had seen wriggling to the cover of a stone. As he fired and shouted, the picket-sentry did the same, and, within a minute of Horace's first shot, ten rifles were levelled at the spot where the rushing silent fiends had disappeared. Within thirty yards of them were at least half a dozen men—and not a glimpse of one to be seen.

"I got one, fer keeps, any'ow," said Horace in the silence that followed the brief racket; "I see 'im drop 'is knife an' fall back'ards…."

Perfect silence—and then … bang … and a man standing beside
Horace grunted, coughed, and scuffled on the ground.

"Get down! Get down! You fools," cried Horace, who was himself standing up. "Wha's the good of a square sungar if you stands up in it? All magazines charged? It's magazine-fire if there's a rush."….

Silence.

"Fire at the next flash, all of yer," he said, "an' look out fer a rush." Adding, "Bli' me—'ark at 'em dahn below," as a burst of fire and a pandemonium of yells broke out.

A yellow glare lit the scene, flickered on the sky, and even gave sufficient light to the picket on the hill-top to see a wave of wild, white-clad, knife-brandishing figures surge over the edge of the hill and bear down upon them, to be joined, as they passed, by those who had sunk behind stones at the picket's first fire.

"Stiddy," shrilled Horace. "Aim stiddy at the b——s. Fire," and again the charging line vanished.

"Gone to earf," observed Horace in the silence. "Nah look aht for flashes an' shoot at 'em…."

Bang! and Horace lost a thumb and a portion of his left cheek, which was in line with his left thumb as he sighted his rifle.

Before putting his left hand into his mouth he said, a little unsteadily:—

"If I'm knocked aht you go on shootin' at flashes and do magazine-fire fer rushes. If they gets in 'ere, we're tripe in two ticks."

Then he fainted for a while, came to, and felt much better. "Goo' job it's the left fumb," he observed as he strove to re-charge his magazine. The dull thud of bullet into flesh became a frequent sound. The last observation that Horace made to the remnant of his men was:—

"Bli' me! they're all rahnd us now—like flies rahnd a fish-barrer. Dam' swine!…"

* * * * *

Firing steadily at the advancing mobs the street-end pickets retired on the Prison and were admitted as the surging crowds amalgamated, surrounded the walls, and opened a desultory fire at the loopholes and such of the defenders as fired over the coping from ladders.

One detachment, with some show of military discipline and uniform, arrayed itself opposite the gate and a couple of hundred yards from it, lining the ditch of the road, and utilizing the cover and shadow of the trees. Suddenly a large party, mainly composed of Mahsuds, and headed by a very big powerful man, made a swift rush to the gate, each man bearing a bundle of faggots or a load of cut brushwood, save two or three who bore vessels of kerosene oil. With reckless courage and daring, they ran the gauntlet of the loopholes and the fire from the wall-top, piled their combustibles against the wooden gate, poured gallons of kerosene over the heap, set fire to it, and fled.

The leaping flames spread and shot forth licking tongues and, in a few minutes, the pile was a roaring crackling furnace.

The mob grew denser and denser toward the gate side of the Prison, leaving the remaining portions of the perimeter thinly surrounded by those who possessed firearms and had been instructed to shoot at loopholes and at all who showed themselves over the wall. It was noticeable to Captain Malet-Marsac that the ever-increasing mob opposite the fire left a clear front to the more-or-less uniformed and disciplined body that had taken up a position commanding the gate.

That was the game was it? Burn down the gate, pour in a tremendous fire as the gate fell, and then let the mob rush in and do its devilmost….

What was happening on the hill-top? The picket must be holding whatever force had attacked it, for no shots were entering the Prison compound and the only casualties were among those at the loopholes and on the ladders and platforms round the walls. How long would the gate last? Absolutely useless to attempt to pour water on the fire. Even if it were not certain death to attempt it, one might as well try to fly, as to quench that furnace with jugs and chatties[69] of water.

[69] Bowls.

There was nothing to be done. Every man who could use a rifle was at loophole or embrasure, ammunition was plentiful, all non-combatants were hidden. Every one understood the standing-orders in case of such an emergency….

The gate was on fire. It was smoking on the inner side, warping, cracking, little flames were beginning to appear tentatively, and disappear again.

"Now bugler!" said Captain Malet-Marsac, and Moussa Isa's locum tenens blew his only call—a series of long loud G's…. The gate blazed, before long it would fall…. A hush fell upon the expectant multitude without, the men of the more-or-less uniformed and disciplined party raised their rifles, a big burly man bawled orders….

With a crash and leaping fountain of sparks the gate fell into the dying fire, a mighty roar burst from the multitude, and a crashing fusillade from the rifles of the uniformed men….

As their magazine-fire slackened, dwindled to a desultory popping, and ceased, the mob with a howl of triumph surged forward to the gaping gateway, trampled and scattered the glowing remnants of the fire, swarmed yelling through, and—found themselves face to face with a stout semicircular rampart of stone, earth and sandbags, which, loopholed, embrasured and strongly manned, spanned the gateway in a thirty-yard arc. From the centre of it, pointing at the entrance, looked the maxim gun.

"Fire," shouted a voice, and in a minute the place was a shambles. Before Maxim and Lee-Metford were too hot to touch, before the baffled foe fell back, those who surged in through the gate climbed, not over a wall of dead, but up on to a platform of dead, a plateau through which ran a valley literally blasted out by the ceaseless maxim-fire….

And, as the less fanatical, less courageous, less bloodthirsty withdrew and gathered without and to one side, where they were safe from that terrible fire-belching rampart that was itself like the muzzle of some gigantic thousand-barrelled machine-gun, they were aware, in their rear, of a steady tramp of running feet and of the orders:—

"From the centre extend! At the enemy in front; fixed sights; fire," and of a withering hail of bullets.

Colonel Ross-Ellison had arrived in the nick of time. It was a "crowning mercy" indeed, the beginning of the end, and when (a few days later), over a repaired bridge, came a troop-train, gingerly advancing, the battalion of British troops that it disgorged at Gungapur Road Station found disappointingly little to do in a city of women, children, and eminently respectable innocent, householders.

* * * * *

On the hill-top, at dawn, Colonel Ross-Ellison and Captain Malet-Marsac found all that was left of the picket and sentry-group,—of the latter, three mangled corpses, the headless deserter, and a just-living man, horribly slashed. It was Moussa Isa Somali who improvised a stretcher and lifted this poor fellow on to it and tended him with the greatest solicitude and faithful care. Was he not Jones Sahib who at Duri gave him the knife wherewith he cleansed his honour and avenged his insulted People?

Of the picket, nine lay dead and one dying. Of the dead, one had his lower jaw neatly and cleanly removed by a bullet. Two had bled to death.

"'Ullo, Guvner!" whispered Corporal Horace Faggit through parched cracked lips. "We kep' 'em orf. We 'eld the bleedin' fort," and the last effect of the departing mind upon the shot-torn, knife-slashed body was manifested in a gasping, quavering wail of—

"'Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin'"
Jesus whispers still.
"'Owld the Fort fer Hi am comin,'"
—By Thy graice we will.

Each of these corpses Moussa Isa carried reverently down to the Prison that they might be "buried darkly at dead of night" with the other heroes, in softer ground without the walls—a curious funeral in which loaded rifles and belted maxim played their silent part. Apart from the honoured dead was buried the body of Private Augustus Grabble, shot against the Prison wall by order of Colonel Ross-Ellison for cowardice in the face of the enemy and desertion of his post. So was that of Private Green, deserter also. After the uninterrupted ceremony, Moussa Isa, in the guise of an ancient beggar, lame, decrepit, and bandaged with foul rags, sought the city and the news of the bazaar.

Limping down the lane in which stood the tall silent house that his master often visited, he saw three men emerge from the well-known low doorway.

Two approached him while one departed in the opposite direction. One of these two held the arm of the other.

"I must hear his voice again. I have not heard his voice again," urged this one insistently to the other.

"Nay—but I have heard thine, thou Dog!" said Moussa Isa to himself, and turning, followed.

In a neighbouring bazaar the man who seemed to lead the other left him at the entrance to a mosque—a dark and greasy entry with a short flight of stone steps.

As he set his foot upon the lowest of these, a hand fell upon the neck of the man who had been led, and a voice hissed:—

"Salaam! O Ibrahim the Weeper! Salaam! A 'Hubshi' would speak with thee…." and another hand joined the first, encircling his throat….

"Art thou dead, Dog?" snarled Moussa Isa, five minutes later….

Moussa Isa never boasted (if he realized the fact) that the collapse of the revolt and mutiny in Gungapur, before the arrival of troops, was due as much to the death of its chief ringleader and director, the blind faquir, as to the disastrous repulse of the great assault upon the Military Prison.

§ 2.

It had gone. Nothing remained but to clear up the mess and begin afresh with more wisdom and sounder policy. It was over, and, among other things now possible, Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison might ask the woman he loved whether she could some day become his wife. He had saved her life, watched over her, served her with mind and body, lived for her. And she had smiled upon him, looked at him as a woman looks at the man she more than likes, had given him the encouragement of her smiles, her trust, affectionate greeting on return from danger, prayers that he would be "careful" when he went forth to danger.

He believed that she loved him, and would, after a decent interval, even perhaps a year hence, marry him.

And then he would abandon the old life and ways, become wholly English and settle down to make her life a happy walk through an enchanted valley. He would take her to England and there, far from all sights, sounds and smells of the East, far from everything wild, turbulent, violent, crush out all the Pathan instincts so terribly aroused and developed during the late glorious time of War. He would take himself cruelly in hand. He would neither hunt nor shoot. He would eat no meat, drink no alcohol, nor seek excitement. He would school himself until he was a quiet, domesticated English country-gentleman—respectable and respected, fit husband for a delicately-bred English gentlewoman. And if ever his hand itched for the knife-hilt, his finger for the trigger, his cheek for the rifle-butt, his nostrils for the smell of the cooking-fires, his soul for the wild mountain passes, the mad gallop, the stealthy stalk—he would live on cold water until the Old Adam were drowned.

He would be worthy of her—and she should never dream what blood was on his hands, what sights he had looked on, what deeds he had done, what part he had played in wild undertakings in wild places. English would he be to the back-bone, to the finger tips, to the marrow; a quiet, clean, straight-dealing Englishman of normal tastes, habits, and life.

Strange if, with all his love of fighting, he could not fight (and conquer) himself. Yes—his last great fight should be with himself…. He would call, to-day, at the bungalow to which Mrs. Dearman, prior to starting for Home, had removed as soon as the carefully-guarded Cantonment area was pronounced absolutely safe as a place of residence for the refugees who had been besieged in the old Military Prison.

She would be sufficiently "straight" in her bungalow, by this time, to permit of a formal mid-day call being a reasonable and normal affair….

"Good-morning, Preserver of Gungapur," said Mrs. Dearman brightly; "have the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order materialized yet—or don't they give them to Volunteers? What a shame if they don't!"

"I want something far more valuable and desirable than those, Mrs. Dearman," said Colonel Ross-Ellison as he took the extended hand of his hostess, who was a picture of coolness and health.

"Oh?—and—what is that?" she asked, seating herself on a big settee with her back to the light.

"You," was the direct and uncompromising reply of the man who had been leading a remarkably direct and uncompromising life for several years.

Mrs. Dearman trembled, flushed and paled.

"What do you mean?" she managed to say, with a fine affectation of coolness, unconcern, and indifference.

"I mean what I say," was the answer. "I want you. I cannot live without you. I want to take care of you. I want to devote my life to making you happy. I want to make you forget this terrible experience and tragedy. You are lonely and I worship you. I want you to marry me—when you can—later—and let me serve you for the rest of my life. Make me the happiest and proudest man in the world and I will strive to be the noblest."

He was very English then—in his fine passion. He took her hand and it was not withdrawn. He bent to look in her eyes, she smiled, and in a second was in his embrace, strained to his breast, her lips crushed by his.

For a minute he could not speak.

"I cannot believe it," he whispered at length. "Is this a dream?"

"You are a very concrete dream—dear," said Mrs. Dearman, re-arranging crushed and disarranged flowers at her breast, blushing and laughing shyly.

The man was filled with awe, reverence and a deep longing for worthiness.

The woman felt happy in the sense of safety, of power, of pride in the love of so fine a being.

"And how long have you loved me?" she murmured.

"Loved you, Cleopatra? Dearest—I have loved you from the moment my eyes first fell on you…. Poor salt-encrusted, weary, bloodshot eyes they were too," he added, smiling, reminiscent.

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Dearman, puzzled.

"Ah—I have a secret to tell you—a confession that will open those beautiful eyes wide with surprise. I first saw you when you were Cleopatra Brighte."

"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mrs. Dearman in great surprise. "When_ever_ when?"

"I'll tell you," said the man, smiling fondly. "You have my photograph.
You took it yourself—on board the 'Malaya'."

"I?" said Mrs. Dearman. "What are you talking about?"

"About you, dearest, and the time when I first saw you—and fell in love with you;—love at first sight, indeed."

"But I never photographed you on board ship. I never saw you on a ship.
I met you first here in Gungapur."

"Do you remember the 'Malaya' stopping to pick up a shipwrecked sailor, a castaway, in a little dug-out canoe, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, when you were first coming out to India? But of course you do—you have the snap-shot in your collection…."

"Why—yes—I remember, of course—but that was a horrid, beastly native. The creature could only speak Hindustani. He was the sole survivor of the crew of some dhow or bunder-boat, they said…. He lived and worked with the Lascars till we got to Bombay. Yes…."

"I was that native," said Colonel Ross-Ellison.

"You," whispered Mrs. Dearman. "You," and scanned his face intently.

"Yes. I. I am half a native. My father was a Pathan. He——"

"What?" asked the woman hoarsely, drawing away. "What? What are you saying?"

"I am half Pathan—my father was a Pathan and my mother an Australian squatter's daughter."

"Go," shrieked Mrs. Dearman, springing to her feet. "Go. You wretch! You mean, base liar! To cheat me so! To pretend you were a gentleman. Leave my house! Go! You horrible—mongrel—you——. To take me in your arms! To make love to me! To kiss me! Ugh! I could die for shame! I could die——"

The face of the man grew terrible to see. There was no trace of the West in it, no sign of English ancestry, the face of a mad, blood-mad Afghan.

"We will both die," he gasped, and took her by the throat.

* * * * *

A few minutes later a Pathan in the dirty dress of his race fled from Colonel Ross-Ellison's bungalow in Cantonments and took the road to the city.

Threading his way through its tortuous lanes, alleys, slums and bazaars he reached a low door in the high wall that surrounded an almost windowless house, knocked in a particular manner, parleyed, and was admitted.

The moment he was inside, the custodian of the door slammed, locked and bolted it, and then raised an outcry.

"Come," he shouted in Pushtoo. "The Spy! The Feringhi! The
Pushtoo-knowing English dog, that Abdulali Habbibullah," and he drew his
Khyber knife and circled round Ross-Ellison.

A clatter of heavy boots, the opening of wooden "windows" that looked inward on to the high-walled courtyard, and in a minute a throng of Pathans and other Mussulmans entered the compound from the house—some obviously aroused from heavy slumber.

"It is he," cried one, a squat, broad-shouldered fellow, as they stood at gaze, and long knives flashed.

"Oho, Spy! Aha, Dog! For what hast thou come?" asked one burly fellow as he advanced warily upon the intruder, who backed slowly to the angle of the high walls.

"To die, Hidayetullah. To die, Nazir Ali Khan. To die slaying! Come on!" was the reply, and in one moment the speaker's Khyber knife flashed from his loose sleeve into the throat of the nearest foe.

As he withdrew it, the door-keeper slashed at his abdomen, missed by a hair's-breadth, raised his arm to save his neck from a slash, and was stabbed to the heart, the knife held dagger-wise. Another Pathan rushing forward, with uplifted knife held as a sword, was met by a sudden low fencing-lunge and fell with a hideous wound, and then, whirling his weapon like a claymore in an invisibly rapid Maltese cross of flashing steel, the man who had been Ross-Ellison drove his enemies before him, whirled about, and established himself in the opposite corner, and spat pungent Border taunts at the infuriated crowd.

"Come on, you village curs, you landless cripples, you wifeless sons of burnt fathers! Come on! Strike for the credit of your noseless mothers! Run not from me as your wives ran from you—to better men! Come on, you sweepers, you swine-herds, you down-country street-scrapers!" and they came on to heart's content, steel clashed on steel and thudded on flesh and bone.

"Get a rifle," cried one, lying bleeding on the ground, striving to rise while he held his right shoulder to his neck with his partly severed left hand. As he fainted the shoulder gaped horribly.

"Get a cannon," mocked Ross-Ellison. "Get a cannon, dogs, against one man," and again, whirling the great jade-handled knife, long as a short sword, he rushed forward and the little mob gave ground before the irresistible claymore-whirl, the unbreakable Maltese cross described by the razor-edge and needle-point.

"It is a devil," groaned a man, as his knife and his hand fell together to the ground, and he clapped his turban on the stump as a boy claps his hat upon some small creature that he would capture.

The madman whirled about in the third corner and, as he ceased the wild whirl, ducked low and lunged, lessening the number of his enemies by one. This lunge was a new thing to men who could only slash and stab, a new thing and a terrible, for it could not be parried save by seizing the blade and losing half a hand.

"Come on, you growing maidens! Come on, grandmothers! Come on, you cleaners of pig-skins, you washers of dogs! Come on!" and as he shouted, the door crashed down and a patrol of British soldiers, attracted by the noise, and delayed by the stout door, burst into the courtyard.

"At the henemy in front, fixed sights," shouted the corporal in charge. And added an order not to be found in the drill-book: "Blow 'em to 'ell if they budges."

In the hush of surprise his voice arose, addressing the fighters: "Bus[70] you bleedin' soors,[71]" said Corporal Cook. "Bus; and you dekho[72] 'ere. If any of you jaos[73] from where 'e is, I'll pukkaro[74] 'im and give 'im a punch in the dekho."

[70] Enough, stop. [71] Swine. [72] Look. [73] Jao = go (imperative). [74] Seize (imperative).

And, as bayonets rose breast-high and fingers curled lovingly round triggers, every knife but that of Ross-Ellison disappeared as by magic, and the Corporal beheld a little crowd of innocent men endeavouring to secure a dangerous lunatic at the risk of their lives—terrible risk, as the bodies of five dead and dying men might testify.

"I give myself up to you as a murderer, Corporal," said he who had been Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison. "I am a murderer. If you will take me before your officer I will confess and give details."

"I'm agoin' to take you bloomin' well all," replied the surprised Corporal. "Chuck down that there beastly carvin' knife. You seem a too 'andy cove wiv' it."

At the Corporal's order of, "Prod 'em all up agin that wall and shoot any bloke as moves 'and or 'oof," the party of panting, bleeding and perspiring ruffians was lined up, relieved of its weapons, and duly marched to the guard-room.

Here, one of the gang (later identified as the man who had been known as John Robin Ross-Ellison, and who insisted that he was a Baluchi) declared that he had just murdered Mrs. Dearman in her drawing-room and made a full statement—a statement found to be only too true, its details corroborated by a trembling hamal who had peeped and listened, as all Indian servants peep and listen.

* * * * *

Duly tried, all members of the gang received terms of imprisonment (largely a prophylactic measure), save the extraordinary English-speaking Baluchi, who had long imposed, it was said, upon Gungapur Society in the days before that Society had disappeared in the cataclysm.

A few days before the date fixed for the execution of this very remarkable desperado, Captain Michael Malet-Marsac, Adjutant of the Gungapur Volunteer Corps, received two letters dated from Gungapur Jail, one covering the other. The covering letter ran:—

"MY DEAR MALET-MARSAC,

"I forward the enclosed. Should you desire to attend the execution you could accompany the new City Magistrate, Wellson, who will doubtless be agreeable.

"Yours sincerely,

"A. RANALD, Major I.M.S."

The accompaniment was from John Robin Ross-Ellison Mir Ilderim Dost
Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan.

"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,

"For the credit of the British I am pretending to be a Baluchi. I am not a Baluchi and I hope to die like a Briton—at any rate like a man. I have been held responsible for what I did when I was not responsible, and shall be killed in cold blood by sane people, for what I did in hot blood when quite as mad as any madman who ever lived. I don't complain—I _ex_plain. I want you to understand, if you can, that it was not your friend John Ross-Ellison who did that awful deed. It was a Pathan named Ilderim Dost Mahommed. And yet it was I." ["Poor chap is mad!" murmured the bewildered and horrified reader who had lived in a kind of nightmare since the woman he loved had been murdered by the man he loved. "The strain of the war has been too much for him. He must have had sunstroke too." He read on, with misty sight.]

"And it is I who will pay the penalty of Ilderim Dost Mahommed's deed. As I say, I do not complain, and if the Law did not kill me I would certainly kill myself—to get rid of Ilderim Dost Mahommed.

"I have thought of doing so and cheating the scaffold, but have decided that Ilderim will get his deserts better if I hang, and I may perhaps get rid of him, thus, for ever.

"Will you come? I would not ask it of any living soul but you, and I ask it because your presence would show me that you blindly believe that it was not John Robin Ross-Ellison who killed poor Mrs. Dearman, and that would enable me to die quite happy. Your presence would also be a great help to me. It would help me to feel that, whatever I have lived, I die a Briton—that if I could not live without Ilderim Dost Mahommed I can die without him. But this must seem lunatic wanderings to you.

"I apologize for writing to you and I hesitated long. At length I said,
'I will tell him the truth—that the deed was not done by Ross-Ellison
and perhaps he will understand, and come'. Mike—John Robin
Ross-Ellison did not murder Mrs. Dearman.

"Your distracted and broken-hearted ex-friend,

"J.R. ROSS-ELLISON."

"He was 'queer' at times," said Captain Michael Malet-Marsac. "There was a kink somewhere. The bravest, coolest, keenest chap I ever met, the finest fighting-man, the truest comrade and friend,—and from time to time something queer peeped out, and one was puzzled…. Madness in the family, I suppose…. Poor devil, poor, poor devil!" and Captain Malet-Marsac stamped about and swore, for his eyes tingled and his chin quivered.

§ 3.

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac alighted from his horse at the great gate of the Gungapur Jail, loosed girths, slid stirrup irons up the leathers to the saddle, and handed his reins to the orderly who had ridden behind him.

"Walk the horses up and down," said he, for both were sweating and the morning was very cold. Perhaps it was the cold that made Captain Michael Malet-Marsac's strong face so white, made his teeth chatter and his hands shake. Perhaps it was the cold that made him feel so sick, and that weakened the tendons of his knees so that he could scarcely stand—and would fain have thrown himself upon the ground.

With a curious coughing sound, as though he swallowed and cleared his throat at the same moment, he commenced to address another order or remark to the mounted sepoy, choked, and turned his back upon him.

Striding to the gate, he struck upon it loudly with his hunting-crop, and turning, waved the waiting orderly away.

Not for a king's ransom could he have spoken at that moment. He realized that something which was rising in his throat must be crushed back and swallowed before speech would be possible. If he tried to speak before that was done—he would shame his manhood, he would do that which was unthinkable in a man and a soldier. What would happen if the little iron wicket in the great iron door in the greater wooden gates opened before he had swallowed the lump in his throat, had crushed down the rising tumult of emotion, and a European official, perhaps Major Ranald himself, spoke to him? He must either refuse to answer, and show himself too overcome for speech—or he must—good God forbid it—burst into tears. He suffered horribly. His skin tingled and he burnt hotly from head to foot.

And then—he swallowed, his will triumphed—and he was again as outwardly self-possessed and nonchalant as he strove to appear.

He might tremble, his face might be blanched and drawn, he might feel physically sick and almost too weak and giddy to stand, but he had swallowed, he had triumphed over the rising flood that had threatened to engulf him, and he was, outwardly, himself again. He could go through with it now, and though his face might be ghastly, his lips white, his hand uncertain, his gait considered and careful, he would he able to chat lightly, to meet Ross-Ellison's jest with jest—for that Ross-Ellison would die jesting he knew….

Why did not the door open? Had his knock gone unheard? Should he knock again, louder? And then his eye fell upon the great iron bell-pull and chain, and he stepped towards it. Of course—one entered a place like this on the sonorous clanging of a deep-throated bell that roused the echoes of the whole vast congeries of buildings encircled by the hideous twelve-foot wall, unbroken save by the great gatehouse before which he stood insignificant. As his shaking hand touched the bell-pull he suddenly remembered, and withdrew it. He was to meet the City Magistrate outside the jail and enter with him. He could gain admittance in no other way.

He looked at his watch. Seventeen minutes to seven. Wellson should be there in a minute—he had said, "At the jail-entrance at 6.45". God send him soon or the new-found self-control might weaken and a rising tide creep up and up until it submerged his will-power again.

With an effort he swallowed, and turning, strode up and down on a rapid, mechanical sentry-go.

A guard of police-sepoys emerged from a neighbouring guard-room and "fell in" under the word of command of an Inspector. They were armed with Martini-Henry rifles and triangular-bladed bayonets, very long. Their faces looked cruel, the stones of the gate-house and main-guard looked cruel, the beautiful misty morning looked cruel.

Would that damned magistrate never come? Didn't he know that Malet-Marsac was fighting for his manhood and terribly afraid? Didn't he know that unless he came quickly Malet-Marsac would either leap on his horse and ride it till it fell, or else lose control inside the jail and either burst into tears, faint, or—going mad—put up a fight for his friend there in the jail itself, snatch weapons, get back to back with him and die fighting then and there—or, later, on the same scaffold? His friend—by whose side he had fought, starved, suffered, triumphed—his poor two-natured friend….

Could not one of these cursed clever physicians, alienists, psychologists, hypnotists—whatever they were—have cut the strange savagery and ferocity out of the splendid John Robin Ross-Ellison?…

A buffalo passed, driven by a barely human lout. The lout was free—the brainless, soulless bovine lout was free in God's beautiful world—and Ross-Ellison, soldier and gentleman, lay in a stone cell, and in quarter of an hour would dangle by the neck in a pit below a platform—perhaps suffering unthinkable agonies—who could tell?… His old friend and commandant—

Would Wellson never come? What kept the fellow? It was disgraceful conduct on the part of a public servant in such circumstances. Think what an eternity of mental suffering each minute must now be to Ross-Ellison! What was he doing? What were they doing to him? Could the agony of Ross-Ellison be greater than that of Malet-Marsac? It must be a thousand times greater. How could that tireless activity, that restless initiative, that cool courage, that unfathomable ingenuity be quenched in a second? How could such a wild free nature exist in a cell, submit to pinioning, be quietly led like a sheep to the slaughter? He who so loved the mountain, the wild desert, the ocean, the free wandering life of adventure and exploration.

Would Wellson never come? It must be terribly late. Could they have hanged Ross-Ellison already? Could he have gone to his death thinking his friend had failed him; had passed by, like the Levite, on the other side; had turned up a sanctimonious nose at the letter of the Murderer; had behaved as some "friends" do behave in time of trouble?

Could he have died thinking this? If so, he must now know the truth, if the Parsons were right, those unconvincing very-human Parsons of like passions, and pretence of unlike passions. Could his friend be dead, his friend whom he had so loved and admired? And yet he was a murderer—and he had murdered … her….

Captain Michael Malet-Marsac leant against a tree and was violently sick.

Curse the weak frail body that was failing him in his hour of need! It had never failed him in battle nor in athletic struggle. Why should it weaken now. He would see his friend, and bear himself as a man, to help him in his dreadful hour.

Would that scoundrel never come? He was the one who should be hanged.

A clatter of hoofs behind, and Malet-Marsac turned to see the City Magistrate trot across the road from the open country. He drew out his watch accusingly and as a torrent of reproach rose to his white parched lips, he saw that the time was—exactly quarter to seven.

"'Morning, Marsac," said the City Magistrate as he swung down from the saddle. "You're looking precious blue about the gills."

"'Morning, Wellson," replied the other shortly.

To the City Magistrate a hanging was no more than a hair-cut, a neither pleasing nor displeasing interlude, hindering the doing of more strenuous duties; a nuisance, cutting into his early-morning report—writing and other judicial work. He handed his reins to an obsequious sepoy, eased his jodhpores at the knee, and rang the bell.

The grille-cover slid back, a dusky face appeared behind the bars and scrutinized the visitors, the grille was closed again and the tiny door opened. Malet-Marsac stepped in over the foot-high base of the door-way and found himself in a kind of big gloomy strong-room in which were native warders and a jailer with a bunch of huge keys. On either side of the room was an office. Following Wellson to a large desk, on which reposed a huge book, he wrote his name, address, and business, controlling his shaking hand by a powerful effort of will.

This done, and the entrance-door being again locked, bolted, and barred, the jailer led the way to another pair of huge gates opposite the pair through which they had entered, and opened a similar small door therein. Through this Malet-Marsac stepped and found himself, light-dazzled, in the vast enclosure of Gungapur Jail, a small town of horribly-similar low buildings, painfully regular streets, soul-stunning uniformity, and living death.

"'Morning, Malet-Marsac," said Major Ranald of the Indian Medical Service, Superintendent of the jail. "You look a bit blue about the gills, what?"

"'Morning, Ranald," replied Malet-Marsac, "I am a little cold."

Was he really speaking? Was that voice his? He supposed so.

Could he pretend to gaze round with an air of intelligent interest? He would try.

A line of convicts, clad in a kind of striped sacking, stood with their backs to a wall while a native warder strode up and down in front of them, watching another convict placing brushes and implements before them. Suddenly the warder spoke to the end man, an elderly stalwart fellow, obviously from the North. The reply was evidently unsatisfactory, perhaps insolent, for the warder suddenly seized the grey beard of the convict, tugged his head violently from side to side, shook him, and then smote him hard on either cheek. The elderly convict gave no sign of having felt either the pain or the indignity, but gazed straight over the warder's head. Of what was he thinking? Of what might be the fate of that warder were he suddenly transported to the wilds of Kathiawar, to lie at the mercy of his late victim and the famous band of outlaws whom he had once led to fame—a fame as wide as Ind?

There was something fine about the old villain, once a real Robin Hood, something mean about the little tyrant.

Had Ranald seen the incident? No, he stood with his back to a buttress looking in the opposite direction. Did he always stand with a wall behind him in this terrible place? How could he live in it? A minute of it made one sick if one were cursed with imagination. Oh, the horror of the prison system—especially for brave men, men with a code of honour of their own—possibly sometimes a higher code than that of the average British politician, not to mention the be-knighted cosmopolitan financier, friend of princes and honoured of kings.

Could not men be segregated in a place of peace and beauty and improved, instead of being segregated in a dull hell and crushed? What a home of soulless, hopeless horror!… And his friend was here…. Could he contain himself?… He must say something.

"Do you always keep your back to a wall when standing still, in here?" he asked of Major Ranald.

"I do," was the reply, "and I walk with a trustworthy man close behind me." "Would you like to go round, sometime?" he added.

"No, thank you," said Malet-Marsac. "I would like to get as far away as possible and stay there."

Major Ranald laughed.

"Wouldn't like to visit the mortuary and see a post-mortem?"

"No, thank you."

"What about the Holy One?" put in the City Magistrate. "Did you 'autopsy' him? A pleasure to hang a chap like him."

"Yes, the brute. I'll show you his neck vertebrae presently if you like. Kept 'em as a curiosity. An absolute break of the bone itself. People talk about pain, strangulation, suffocation and all that. Nothing of the sort. Literally breaks the neck. Not mere separation of the vertebrae you know. I'll show you the vertebra itself—clean broken…."

Captain Malet-Marsac swayed on his feet. What should he do? A blue mist floated before his eyes and a sound of rushing waters filled his ears. Was he fainting? He must not faint, and fail his friend. And then, the roar of the waters was pierced and dominated by the voice of that friend saying—

"Hul_lo_! old bird. Awf'ly good of you to turn out, such a beastly cold morning."

John Robin Ross-Ellison had come round an adjacent corner, a European warder on either side of him and another behind him, all three, to their credit, as white as their white uniforms and helmets. On his head was a curious bag-like cap.

Ross-Ellison appeared perfectly cheerful, absolutely natural, and without the slightest outward and visible sign of any form of perturbation.

"'Morning, Ranald," he continued. "Sorry to be the cause of turning you out in the cold. Gad! isn't it parky. Hope you aren't going to keep me standing. If I might be allowed I'd quote unto you the words which a pretty American girl once used when I asked if I might kiss her—'Wade right in, Bub!'"

"'Fraid I can't 'wade in' till seven o'clock—er—Ross-Ellison," answered the horribly embarrassed Major Ranald. "It won't be long."

"Right O, I was only thinking of your convenience. I'm all right," said the remarkable criminal, about to suffer by the Mosaic law at the hands of Christians, to receive Old Testament mercy from the disciples of the New, to be done-by as he had done.

An Indian clerk, salaaming, joined the group, and prepared to read from an official-looking document.

"Read," said Major Ranald, and the clerk in a high sing-song voice, regardless of punctuation, read out the charge, conviction and death-warrant of the man formerly calling himself John Robin Ross-Ellison, and now professing and confessing himself to be a Baluchi. Having finished, the clerk smiled as one well pleased with a duty well performed, salaamed and clacked away in his heelless slippers.

"It is my duty to inquire whether you have anything to say or any last request to make," said Major Ranald to the prisoner.

"Well, I've only to say that I'm sorry to cause all this fuss, y' know—and, well, yes, I would like a smoke," replied the condemned man, and added hastily: "Don't think I want to delay things for a moment though—but if there is time…."

"It is four minutes to seven," said Major Ranald, "and tobacco and matches are not supposed to be found in a Government Jail."

Ross-Ellison winked at the Major and glanced at a bulge on the right side of the breast of the Major's coat.

At this moment the warder standing behind the condemned man seized both his wrists, drew them behind him and fastened them with a broad, strong strap.

"H'm! That's done it, I suppose," said the murderer. "Can't smoke without my hands. Queer idea too—never thought of it before. Can't smoke without hands…. Rather late in life to realize it, what?"

"Oh, yes, you can," said the Major, drawing his big silver cheroot-case from his pocket and selecting a cheroot. Placing it between the prisoner's lips he struck a match and held it to the end of the cigar. Ross-Ellison drew hard and the cigar was lit. He puffed luxuriously and sighed.

"Gad! That's good," he said, "May some one do as much for you, old chap, when you come to be—er—no, I don't mean that, of course…. Haven't had a smoke for weeks. Yes—you can smoke without hands after all—but not for long without feeling the inconvenience. I used to know an American (wicked old gun-running millionaire he was, Cuba way, and down South too) who could change his cigar from one corner of his mouth right across to the other with his tongue. Fascinatin' sight to watch…."

Captain Malet-Marsac swallowed continuously, lest he lose the faculty of swallowing—and be choked.

Major Ranald looked at his watch.

"Two minutes to seven. Come on," he said, and took the cheroot from the prisoner's mouth.

"Good-bye, Mike," said that person to the swallowing fainting wretch. "Don't try and say anything. I know exactly what you feel. Sorry we can't shake hands," and he stepped off in the wake of Major Ranald, closely guarded by three warders.

The City Magistrate and Captain Malet-Marsac followed. At Major Ranald's knock, the small inner door of the gate-house was opened and the procession filed through it into the strong room where the warders stood to attention. Having re-fastened the door, the jailer opened the outer one and the procession passed out of the jail into the blessed free world, the world that might be such a place of wonder, beauty, delight, health and joy, were man not educated to materialism, false ideals, false standards, and blind strife for nothing worth.

The sepoy-guard stood in a semicircle from the gate-house to the entrance to a door-way in the jail-wall. Ross-Ellison took his last look at the sky, the distant hills, the trees, God's good world, and then turned into the doorless door-way with his jailers, and faced the scaffold in a square, roofless cell. The warder behind him drew the cap down over his face, and he was led up a flight of shallow stairs on to a platform on which was a roughly-chalked square where two hinged flaps met. As he stood on this spot the noose of the greased rope was placed round his neck by a warder who then looked to Major Ranald for a sign, received it, and pulled over a lever which withdrew the bolts supporting the hinged flaps. These fell apart, Ross-Ellison dropped through the platform, and Christian Society was avenged.

Without a word, Captain Malet-Marsac strode, as in a dream, to his horse, rode home, and, as in a dream, entered his sanctum, took his revolver from its holster and loaded it.

Laying it on the table beside him, he sat down to write a few words to the Colonel of his regiment, Colonel Wilberforce Wriothesley of the 99th Baluch Light Infantry, and to send his will to a brother-officer whom he wished to be his executor.

This done, he took up the revolver, placed the muzzle in his mouth, the barrel pointing upward, and—pulled the trigger.

Click!

And nothing more.

A tiny, nerve-shattering, world-shaking, little universe-rocking click—and nothing more.

A bad cartridge. He remembered complaints about the revolver ammunition from the Duri Small Arms Ammunition Factory. Too long in stock.

Should he try the same one again, or go on to the next? Probably get better results from the first, as the cap would be already dented by the concussion. He took the muzzle of the big revolver from his aching mouth and, releasing the chamber, spun it round…. He would place it to his temple this time. Holding one's mouth open was undignified. He raised the revolver—and John Bruce burst into the room. He had seen Malet-Marsac ride by, and knew where he had been.

"Half a second!" he shouted. "News! Do that afterwards."

"What is it?" asked Malet-Marsac, taken by surprise.

"Put that beastly thing in the drawer while I tell you, then. It might go off. I hate pistols," said Bruce.

Malet-Marsac obeyed. Bruce was a man to be listened to, and what had to be done could be done when he had gone. If it were some last piece of duty or service, it should be seen to.

"It is this," said Bruce. "You are a liar, a forger, a thief, a dirty pickpocket, a coward, a seller of secrets to Foreign Powers," and, ere the astounded soldier could speak, John Bruce sprang at him and tried to knock him out. "Take that you greasy cad—and fight me if you dare," he shouted as the other dodged his punch.

Malet-Marsac sprang to his feet, furious, and returned the blow. In a second the men were fighting fiercely, coolly, murderously.

Bruce was the bigger, stronger, more scientific, and there could be but one result, given ordinary luck. It was a long, severe, and punishing affair.

"Time," gasped Malet-Marsac at length, and dropped his hands. "Get—breath—fight—decently—time—'nother round—after," and as he spoke Bruce knocked him down and out, proceeding instantly to tie his feet with the punkah-cord and his hands with two handkerchiefs and a pair of braces. This done, he carried him into his bedroom, and laid him on the bed, and sprinkled his face with water.

Malet-Marsac blinked and stirred.

"Awful sorry, old chap," said Bruce at length. "I thought it the best plan. Will you give me your word to chuck the suicide idea, or do you want some more?"

"You damned fool! I…." began the trussed one.

"Yes, I know—but I solemnly swear I won't untie you, nor let anybody else, until you've promised."

Malet-Marsac swore violently, struggled valiantly and, anon, slept.

When he awoke, ten hours later, he informed Bruce, sitting by the bed, that he had no intention of committing suicide….

Years later, as a grey-haired Major, he learnt, from the man's own brother, the story of the strange hero who had fascinated him, and of whose past he had known nothing—save that it had been that of a man.

*****

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