Caste Part 17

Barlow's face was white, and Hodson was trembling, but the girl stood, a merciless cold triumph in her face: "I do realise that, father. For the girl I care nothing, nor for Captain Barlow's intrigue with such, but I am the daughter of the man who represents the British Raj here."

Barlow, knowing the full deviltry of this high protestation, knowing that Elizabeth, imperious, dominating, cold-blooded, was knifing a supposed rival--a rival not in love, for he fancied Elizabeth was incapable of love--felt a surge of indignation.

"For G.o.d's sake, Elizabeth, what impossible thing has led you to believe that Captain Barlow has anything to do with this girl?" the father asked.

"I'll tell you; the matter is too grave for me to remain silent. This morning I rode early--earlier than usual, for I wanted to pick up the Captain before he had started. As I turned my mount in to his compound I saw, coming from the back of the bungalow, this native woman, and she was being taken away by his _chowkidar_. She had just come out some back door of the bungalow, for from the drive I could see the open s.p.a.ce that lay between the bungalow and the servants' quarters."

Hodson dropped a hand to the teak-wood desk; it looked inadequate, thin, bloodless; blue veins mapped its white back. "You are mistaken, Elizabeth, I'm sure. Some other girl--"

"No, father, I was not mistaken. There are not many native girls like the Gulab, I'll admit. As she turned a clump of crotons she saw me sitting my horse and drew a gauze scarf across her face to hide it. I waited, and asked the _chowkidar_ if it were his daughter, and the old fool said it was the wife of his son; and the girl that he claimed was his son's wife had the iron bracelet of a Hindu widow on her arm. And the Gulab wears one--I saw it the night she danced."

A ghastly hush fell upon the three. Barlow was moaning inwardly, "Poor Bootea!"; Hodson, fingers pressed to both temples, was trying to think this was all the mistaken outburst of an angry woman. The strong-faced, honest, fearless soldier sitting in the chair could not be a traitor--_could not be_.

Suddenly something went awry in the inflamed chambers of Elizabeth's mind--as if an electric current had been abruptly shut off. She hesitated; she had meant to say more; but there was a staggering vacuity.

With an effort she grasped a wavering thing of tangibility, and said: "I'm going now, father--to give the keys to the butler for breakfast.

You can question Captain Barlow."

Elizabeth turned and left the room; her feet were like dependents, servants that she had to direct to carry her on her way. She did not call to the butler, but went to her room, closed the door, flung herself on the bed, face downward, and sobbed; tears that scalded splashed her cheeks, and she beat pa.s.sionately with clenched fist at the pillow, beating, as she knew, at her heart. It was incredible, this thing, her feelings.

"I don't care--I don't care--I never did!" she gasped.

But she did, and only now knew it.

"I was right--I'm glad--I'd say it again!"

But she would not, and she knew it. She knew that Barlow could not be a traitor; she knew it; it was just a battered new love a.s.serting itself.

And below in the room the two men for a little sat not speaking of the ghoulish thing. Barlow had drawn the papers from his pocket; he pa.s.sed them silently across the table.

Hodson, almost mechanically, had stretched a hand for them, and when they were opened, and he saw the seal, and realised what they were, some curious guttural sound issued from his lips as if he had waked in affright from a nightmare. He pulled a drawer of the desk open, took out a cheroot--and lighted it. Then he commenced to speak, slowly, droppingly, as one speaks who has suddenly been detected in a crime.

He put a flat hand on the papers, holding them to the desk. And it was Elizabeth he spoke of at first, as if the thing under his palm, that meant danger to an empire, was subservient.

"Barlow, my boy," he said, "I'm old, I'm tired."

The Captain, looking into the drawn face, had a curious feeling that Hodson was at least a hundred. There was a floaty wonderment in his mind why the fifty-five-years'-service retirement rule had not been enforced in the Colonel's case. Then he heard the other's words.

"I've had but two G.o.ds, Barlow, the British Raj and Elizabeth; that's since her mother died. In a little, a few years more, I will retire with just enough to live on plus my pension--perhaps in France, where it's cheap. And then I'll still have two G.o.ds, Elizabeth and the one G.o.d. And, Captain, somehow I had hoped that you and Elizabeth would hit it off, but I'm afraid she's made a mistake."

Barlow had been following this with half his receptivity, for, though he fought against it, the memory of Bootea--gentle, trusting, radiating love, warmth--cried out against the bitter unfemininity of the girl who had stabbed his honour and his cleanness. The black figure of Kali still rested on the table, and somehow the evil lines in the face of the G.o.ddess suggested the vindictiveness that had played about the thin lips of his accuser.

And the very plea the father was making was reacting. It was this, that he, Barlow, was rich, that a chance death or two would make him Lord Barradean, was the attraction, not love. A girl couldn't be in love with a man and strive to break him.

Hodson had taken up the papers, and was again scanning them mistily.

"They were on the murdered messenger--he was killed, wasn't he, Barlow?"

"Yes."

"And has any native seen these papers, Captain?"

"No, I cut them from the soles of the sandals the messenger wore, myself, Sir."

"That is all then, Captain; we have them back--I may say, thank G.o.d!"

He stood up and holding out his hand added, "Thank you, Captain. I don't want to know anything about the matter--I'm too much machine now to measure rainbows--fancy I should wear a strip of red-tape as a tie."

"If you will listen, Sir--there is another that I want to put right.

Your daughter did see the Gulab, but because she had brought me the sandals. And you can take an officer's word for it that the Gulab is not what Elizabeth believes."

"Captain, I have lived a long time in India, too long to be led away by quick impressions, as unfortunately Elizabeth was. I've outlived my prejudices. When the _mhowa_ tree blooms I can take glorious pleasure from its gorgeous fragrant flowers and not quarrel with its leafless limbs. When the pipal and the neem glisten with star flowers and sweeten the foetid night-air, it matters nothing to me that the natives believe evil G.o.ds home in the branches. I know that even a cobra tries to get out of my way if I'll let him, and I know that the natives have beauty in their natures--one gets to almost love them as children. So, my dear Captain, when you tell me that the Gulab rendered you and me and the British Raj this tremendous service, and add, quite unnecessarily, that she's a good girl, I believe it all; we need never bring it up again. Elizabeth has just made a mistake. And, Barlow, men are always forgiving the mistakes of women where their feelings are concerned--they must--that is one of the proofs of their strength. But these"--and he patted the papers lovingly--"well, they're rather like a reprieve brought at the eleventh hour to a man who is to be executed.

We're put in a difficult position, though. To pa.s.s over in silence the killing of two soldiers would end only in the House of Commons; somebody would rise in his place and want to know why it had been hushed up. But to take action, to create a stir, would give rise to a suspicion of the existence of this."

Hodson rose from his chair and paced the floor, one hand clasped to his forehead, his small grey eyes carrying a dream-look as though he were seeking an occult enlightenment; then he sat down wearily, and spoke as if interpreting something that had been whispered him.

"Yes, Barlow, this decoit has been seized by the Nana Sahib lot. His life was forfeit, and they've offered him his life back to come here and turn Approver--to become a spy, not _for_ us but as a spy _on_ us for them. Ajeet would know that information of his coming to me would be carried to them by spies--the spies are always with me--and his life wouldn't be worth two annas. I gave him that pardon because we have no power to seize him here, but it will make them think that we have fallen into the trap. They might even believe--wily and suspicious as they are--that what he gleans here is the truth.

"There's a curious efficacy, Barlow, in what I might call an affectation of simplicity. You know those stupid heavy-headed crocodiles in that big pool of the Nerbudda below the marble gorge, and how they'll take nearly an hour wallowing and sidling up to a mud-bank before they crawl out to bask in the sun; but just show the tip of your helmet above the rock and they're gone. That's perhaps what I mean.

As we might say back in dear old London, this wily Rajput thinks he has pulled my leg."

"I think, Colonel, that you are dead onto his wicket."

"Well, then, the thing to do is to emulate the mugger. But this"--Hodson lifted the paper and he grew crisp, incisive, his grey eyes blued like temper purpling polished steel--"we've got to act: they've got to be delivered, and soon."

"I am ready, Sir."

"It's a dangerous mission--most dangerous."

"Pardon, Sir?"

"Sorry, Captain. I was just thinking aloud--musing; forgive me.

Perhaps when one likes a young man he lets the paternal spirit come in where it doesn't belong. I'm sorry. There's a trusty Patan here who could go with you," Hodson continued, "and this side of his own border he is absolutely to be trusted; I have my doubts if any Patan can be relied upon by us across the border."

"I will go alone," Barlow said quietly. Then his strong white teeth showed in a smile. "You know the Moslem saying, Colonel, that ten Dervishes can sleep on one blanket, but a kingdom can only hold one king. I don't mean about the honour of it, but it will be easier for me. I went alone through the Maris tribe when we wanted to know what the trouble was that threatened up above the Bolan, and I had no difficulty. You know, Sir, the playful name the chaps have given me for years?"

"Yes--the 'Patan'--I've heard it."

"I make a good Musselman--scarce need any make-up, I'm so dark; I can rattle off the _namaz_ (daily prayer), and sing the _moonakib_, the hymn of the followers of the Prophet."

"Yes," Hodson said, his words coming slowly out of a deep think, "there will be Patans in the Pindari camp; in fact Pindari is an all-embracing name, having little of nationality about it. Rajputs, Bundoolas, Patans, men of Oudh, Sindies--men who have the l.u.s.t of battle and loot, all flock to the Pindari Chief. Yes, it's a good idea, Captain, the disguise; not only for an unnoticed entrance to the camp, but to escape a waylaying by Nana Sahib's cut-throats."

"Yes, Colonel, from what I have learned--from the Gulab it was, Sir--the Dewan has an inkling that I am going on a mission; and if I rode as myself the King might lose an officer, and officers cost pounds in the making."

The Resident toyed with the papers on his desk, his brow wrinkled from a debate going on behind it; he rose, and grasping the black Kali carried it back to the cabinet, saying: "That devilish thing, so suggestive of what we are always up against here, makes me shiver."

Then he sat down, adding, "Captain, there is another important matter connected with this. The Rana of Udaipur is being stripped of every rupee by Holkar and Sindhia; they take turn about at him. Holkar is up there now, where we have chased him--threatened to sack Udaipur unless he were paid seventy lakhs, seven million rupees--the accursed thief!

We have managed to get an envoy to the Rana with a view to having him, and the other smaller rulers of Mewar, join forces with us to crush forever the Mahratta power--drive them out of Mewar for all time. The Rajputs are a brave lot--men of high thought, and it is too bad to have these accursed cut-throats bleeding to death such a race. If the Rana would sign this paper also as an a.s.surance of friendship, to be shown the Pindari Chief, it would help greatly."

"I understand, Colonel. You wish me to get that from the Rana?"