Gunpowder Treason and Plot Part 5

Paul said nothing, but he returned his brother's embrace with interest.

"Place your back to mine, old Pavlushka," said Peter, "and shoot and shoot till we scare them. We shall be as safe as possible, now we are together."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Place your back to mine, old Pavlushka!_" Page 73.]

And shoot they did. Never was such a fusillade heard in the peaceful forest as on that night. Never were wolves so disgusted, so disenchanted, as on that painful occasion. A dozen or so fell, never more to prowl and howl; the rest, after much baying and snarling from a safe distance, retired in order to go forth and tell all young wolves and strangers of the discovery they had made that night--namely, that it is better to follow a sledge and eat horses and young pig than to stay behind to feast upon human creatures who fall out, and would thus seem to be the easier prey. This has since become a maxim among wolves.

Then the brothers walked quietly home. They pa.s.sed the broken sledge and the bones of the poor ponies. A wolf or two still lingered here, but they discreetly retired; they were well fed, now, and no longer courageous.

"Get into the sledge, Paul, and I'll drag you home," said Peter, "like the hero you have proved yourself."

"Nonsense," said Paul; "you mock me, brother."

"I mean it," said Peter, and would have insisted, but that the sledge was found to be too much damaged for use.

"I hope they are not anxious about us," said Peter, as the pair reached the Ootin mansion and pa.s.sed upstairs. "We will pretend we walked for choice; no need to alarm them."

But no one was alarmed. The little party awaiting their arrival here had been too busy to have time for anxieties. It was Vera who told the news.

She took a hand of Paul and a hand of Peter. "Dear brothers," she said, "you both love me so well, and I you, that no other lips but mine shall tell you of the happiness the new year has brought me. I am to be married to one who is dear, I know, to both of you--Mr. Thirlstone."

"It is strange," said Peter that night, as the brothers lay in bed and talked over the events of the day, "how little I seem to mind Vera being engaged to the Englishman. How could I have been such a fool as to think--you know--what I told you?"

"I expect we are both rather young for that kind of thing," said Paul, with a sigh. "I think hunting is more in our line, brother; we understand that better."

In spite of which wise and true remark, Paul cried himself to sleep that night, Peter being fast asleep long before, and quite unconscious that his younger brother was engaged in a second attempt to play the hero--an attempt which, this time, was partly a failure.

LOST IN THE SOUDAN.

Bimbashi Jones, or, as he was called at the beginning of the story, Lieutenant Jones, did not know much. He only knew that England, or Egypt, or both together, were about to administer what he would have called "beans," or perhaps "toko," to a person called the Khalifa, who had merited chastis.e.m.e.nt by desiring to "boss it" at Khartoum, which city, Jones was a.s.sured, belonged by right, together with the rest of the Soudan, to Egypt, and therefore in a way (and not a bad way either, Jones used to add with a look of intelligence, when talking of these things with his peers) to England.

Jones had not read "With Kitchener to Khartoum," unfortunately for himself; but this was not his fault, because that excellent work was not yet before the public--indeed, it was not written.

But though the lieutenant did not know much of matters that happened so very far away as Khartoum and "the district," yet he had proved himself a capital officer during the four or five years he had served with his regiment, the King's Own Clodshire Rifles, and had contrived to make himself a general favourite both with officers and men; so that when Jones, having most unfortunately fallen desperately in love with a lady who was, as he found out too late, already engaged to be married to some one else, determined to volunteer for the Egyptian army, in order to get out of the country for a change of surroundings, the colonel and the rest of the mess, though recognizing the wisdom of the step, were sorry indeed to part with the young officer, and gave him a send-off from the barracks at Ballycurragh which went far to cause poor Jones to consider whether, after all, life might not still be worth living, in spite of all things tending to the opposite conclusion.

The actual campaign against the Khalifa and his city was about to commence at this time--nay, had commenced, after a fashion; for the active brain of the Sirdar had for years been engaged in preparing for it, and though the British troops chosen to take a hand in subduing the Dervishes were only now setting out upon their mission, the campaign was, intellectually considered, rather beginning to end than beginning to begin.

Jones had met with little difficulty in obtaining the commission he sought as an officer in the Egyptian army. His reputation in the regiment was so good, and the recommendation of his colonel so strongly worded, that his application was among those considered as "likely" from the first. He was able to reply to all the questions put to him quite satisfactorily; but one of these especially, when addressed to him by the officer empowered by the Sirdar to examine would-be members of the Egyptian force, he answered with so much vigour and emphasis as to draw a smile from the colonel's lips, and to cause that gallant individual to form certain conclusions with regard to the youngster which were not far from being very correct indeed.

This question was, "Are you married, or engaged, or likely to become so?" To which poor Jones had replied without hesitation and with absolute conviction, "Oh no, sir; I am neither married nor engaged, and I hope I never shall be."

"What! a woman-hater?" said the colonel with a twinkle in his eye; "the Sirdar would be none the less pleased--"

"Not exactly that, sir," faltered Jones; "but--"

"Oh, I see," said the colonel, smiling kindly. "Well, I think I may say, Mr. Jones, that the Sirdar will be glad to give you an appointment as bimbashi in one of the native regiments. You will sail--"

And so on; the upshot of the interview being a commission for young Alaric Jones--who was but twenty-three years of age--as bimbashi, which is, being interpreted, major in the Egyptian army.

Know him, then, in future, as Bimbashi Jones, a t.i.tle which pleased him greatly, and puzzled his people quite as much until they realized that the word stood for major; and when they became aware of this the knowledge acted as a wonderful consolation to them for his departure, for it was clear that the lad was "getting on" in his profession, and that he was destined to do great things. A major at twenty-three! It was glorious--unprecedented.

But Bimbashi Jones had a piece of outrageously bad luck at Cairo. He fell ill of fever, and was delayed for months; first nearly dying, then partially recovering, then suffering a relapse, and then wearily picking up his strength from day to day and week to week, while more fortunate individuals started southwards for the front. And already reports came to hand--from Halfa, from Abu Hamed, from Berber--of troops, English and Egyptian, marching and ma.s.sing; of the Khalifa's hordes, which were expected at any moment; of Osman Digna, of Mahmoud, lying in wait, Heaven knew where, ready to pounce upon the advancing army, or more likely, some feared, to remain safely in ambush, and pretend to know nothing about the proximity of the Sirdar and his men.

Bimbashi Jones prayed heartily that the enemy might for a while be too frightened to show itself--at any rate until he should be able to join his regiment. After that, let Mahmoud and all his emirs become possessed with a new spirit--that of the irresistible desire to fight.

It was very trying, nay, maddening, for him to be left behind at Cairo; only think of it--_left behind_, and his regiment, it might be, at any moment distinguishing itself, and reaping glories and honours in which he could have no share.

What a confession to make to his friends in England! There would be a big battle, and, of course, a great victory for the Sirdar, at Berber, some said, or at Fort Atbara. Perhaps the struggle was going on at this very minute, and he must pa.s.s the rest of his life explaining how it had happened that he was not present and did not possess this medal and that. Bah! it was too bad!

Still, he was well now, and getting stronger daily, and the doctor had promised him that by the last day of February he should set out for the front, unless anything happened to cause him to modify his permission.

From that hour Jones determined that he would fret no longer, but consent, like a reasonable being, to devote all his energies to quiet recuperation. Soon there was but a week longer of waiting, then three days, then a day. At last the hour of his departure arrived, and with much good advice from the doctor, more good wishes from many friends, and a great quant.i.ty of luggage, some of which he hoped to convey, somehow, to the front, Bimbashi Jones launched himself against the Khalifa and all the hosts of evil, as represented by the Dervish masters of the Soudan.

His journey as far as Berber was uneventful. The railway was by that time finished up to this point, or very near it, and there remained but a day or two of camel riding between him and the army at Fort Atbara.

But what with the weakness which was the legacy of fever, or the weariness of the long journey down from Cairo, poor Jones was by the time he reached the terminus of the railway the very wreck of a bimbashi. He ought to have rested a few days at Berber. He was advised to do so by the garrison doctor there, but he laughed the idea to scorn.

He had rested long enough at Cairo, he declared; he must go on and join his regiment.

"But there's no hurry, bless the man!" said the garrison doctor; "they haven't found Mahmoud; Heaven knows where he is."

"Mahmoud may find _them_," said Jones; "and I should like to be on the spot when he does."

"No such luck!" laughed the other; "that's what we should all like, but Mahmoud knows better."

However, Jones would listen to no advice. He hired camels for himself and his servant, and started in the cool of the evening to cover as much of the thirty miles or so which lay between him and the haven of his desires as could be done before the heat of the morning, leaving his kit to follow as quickly as blacks and donkeys would condescend to bring it along.

But more misfortunes attended the bimbashi.

Jones was very weary and half torpid with the heat of the past days. He fell asleep on the top of his billowy, b.u.mpy mount, and presently, sliding off into the sand, lay and snored, with the Soudan for a bed, unconscious as a log, and so remained for some hours. His servant, dozing also on the back of his beast, which followed a score of paces behind that of his master, saw nothing of the bimbashi's collapse into the sand, and jogged past the place in which he lay sleeping, entirely unconscious of the accident.

As for Jones's camel, that sagacious creature was far too clever to say anything about the circ.u.mstance. It was pleased to be rid of its load, though recognizing the fact that the journey must be continued without him. Perhaps it had friends or an important engagement at Fort Atbara.

At any rate, it continued its journey not less rapidly than before, keeping well ahead of its travelling companion--perhaps anxious to be asked no questions as to the load it had shot into the sand, for fear of being reloaded.

The servant dozed and waked and dozed again till morning, never so soundly asleep as to fall off his beast, yet never wide enough awake to realize that the bimbashi was not on the top of the camel looming in front of him through the darkness. Only when morning light and the on-coming heat thoroughly roused him did he become aware that his master was gone. Then the man, who was an Egyptian soldier, and had been invalided, like Jones, in Cairo, where he came in handily enough to accompany the bimbashi as servant to the front--the man Ali did the wisest thing possible. After weeping copiously and swearing at Jones's camel until that shocked beast careered madly out of earshot, he covered the remainder of the journey to Fort Atbara as fast as his own animal could be induced to go; and, arrived there, he greeted the first English officer he met, weeping and explaining incomprehensibly.

"Stop blubbering, you pig," said the subaltern, "and say what you want."

"O thou effendim," cried Ali, drying his tears with marvellous suddenness, "I have lost my bimbashi--Bimbashi Jones!"

Explanations revealed that the man had, in truth, started from Berber in company with an English bimbashi, and that the bimbashi's camel had certainly arrived, but not the bimbashi.

A search-party was therefore sent back without delay, but unfortunately a high wind had risen during the morning, and a dust storm was now in full blast, so that though the party thoroughly searched the road on both sides as far as Berber, taking two or three days over the job, and duly execrating the object of their search for possibly losing them the chance of being present at the big event--namely, the battle with Mahmoud, now expected daily--they found no trace of poor Bimbashi Jones.

They returned, therefore, empty-handed, and returned, as it chanced, just in time to have a hand in certain great events which were about to take place on Atbara River.