Miss Stuart's Legacy Part 31

One,--two,--three!--"

An instant's pause, and the hand on the trigger wavered. Something, the memory of those days and nights in the smoky cave, perhaps, came between Philip and the wrist he aimed at, for the ball struck the door below it, splintering the wood. But that waver, slight though it was, caught the Pathan's quick eye. He threw up his arm with a laugh of malicious triumph. "We are quits, _Huzoor!_ We have both been fools before the other's bravery; that is the end, the end at last!"

The meaning of his words, even the words themselves, were lost on Philip, who was already down the verandah steps, his head, as he ran, bent low to save himself from being blinded by the swirl of dust which now swept past continuously. Afzul scowled after the retreating figure. "Fool!" he muttered between his teeth. "But I have done with him now--done with everything save this accursed letter. I wish I had sent it to the _mem_ at first. It belongs to her, and she is the best of the bunch."

So muttering he made his way to the verandah, and raising the bamboo screen looked into the drawing-room. Belle, crushed to a dull endurance by the consciousness of her own impotence to aid; nay more, with the very desire to help killed by the awful knowledge that both those men had flung her aside as something beneath their manhood, had thrown herself face downward on the sofa, where she lay with clenched hands, striving to regain some power of thought or action; yet in the very effort driving herself to greater helplessness by her wild insistence that time was pa.s.sing, that she must decide, must do something.

"_Huzoor!_"

She started to her feet, and found Afzul beside her with outstretched hand. The sight, by rousing a physical fear, brought back the courage which never failed her at such times. "Well?" she asked boldly.

"I am not come to hurt you, _Huzoor_, but to give you this. It belongs to you."

She put out her hand mechanically, and took a small package done up, native fashion, in a bit of old brocade.

"Mine! what is it?" she asked in a dull tone.

"It is d.i.c.k _sahib's_ will. He died fighting like the brave one he was; but they were all brave, those three,--d.i.c.k _sahib_, and Marsden _sahib_, and Raby _sahib_. They die fighting,--curse them!"

They die fighting? With the first cry she had given, Belle broke from him, and, still clutching the packet, followed in the footsteps of those two; and as she ran, beaten back by the wind, and half-blinded by the sand, she scarcely thought of their safety, only that she might get there in time. Only in time, dear G.o.d! only in time to show them that she was brave also.

The lurid yellow of the dust-storm had darkened or lightened everything to the same dull tint; the sand beneath her feet, the sky above, the swaying trees between, each and all seemed like shadows thrown upon a screen, and her own flying figure the only reality in an empty world of dreams. Not a sound save the broad rush of the wind, not a sight save the dim dust hazed paths bordered by shrivelled flowers. Then, beyond the garden, the long curve of the dam, the deeper sinking into dun-coloured soil of those frantic feet; and, running with her as she ran, the swirls and dimples of the yellow river angry for all its silence.

If only she might be in time! There, in the centre of the curve, like a swarm of bees, shifting, crowding, pressing,--was that John's fair head in the centre? If the wind were only the other way, she might have heard; but now, even if they were crying for help, she would not hear!--

Suddenly her stumbling flight ceased in a stumbling pause. Was that the wind? She threw up her hands without a cry, and stood as if turned to stone. It seemed to her as if the seconds beat themselves in on her brain--one--two--three--four--five--not more than that; then a low dull roar ending in silence; silence and peace, for she lay huddled up in a heap upon the ground as if struck by lightning.

CHAPTER XXV.

When John Raby, waking at Belle's touch to find the floods had come, remarked that the people would be taken by surprise, he said truly.

The corollary he drew from this premise--that he was to be congratulated on good luck--was not so sure. For there are times when the unforeseen acts as a spur to those who, when prepared, often lack the courage of action. And this was the case with a large body of the malcontents whom Shunker Das, aided of late by his lieutenant Ram Lal, had been diligently instructing in the necessity for resistance at the proper time. But a vague formula of this sort is a very different thing in the eyes of the stolid law-abiding peasant, from the resolution that to-day, this hour, this minute, they had to set aside their inherited endurance, their ancestral calm, and fight. So, had the floods come in due course and after due warning, it is more than probable that even Ram Lal's reckless desire for revenge would have failed to excite the people to the organised attack on the new dam towards which all Shunker's machinations had tended, and in which he saw at least temporary ruin to his enemy's plans. Fate, however, provided the element of surprise, and, to these slow-brained rebels, seemed to leave no choice beyond instant revolt or instant submission.

Aided by Ram Lal's envoys the news that the river was rising travelled fast; down the depression of cultivated land along which--given a high flood-mark--the water might be expected: nor was the a.s.sertion wanting that such a flood-mark had already been reached during the past two days, and its benefits neutralised by Raby _sahib's_ unholy contrivance. By dawn bands of the restless had begun to drift about from village to village, eager to discuss the position, and by degrees gaining a certain coherence of intention. Even those who hung back from the idea of active interference joining the crowd out of curiosity and so increasing the quant.i.ty of human tinder ready for ignition by the smallest spark. Before noon Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan, looking out from his ruined tower, saw a cloud of dust beyond his bare brown fields and ere long was in parley with a recruiting band.

"Not I," swore the old man fiercely; "these are not days for honest blows. My son--G.o.d smite those who smote him!--could tell you so much; and his son must learn his father's wisdom. Ye are fools! Let every one of you give one rupee after the manner of a wedding, and go purchase the slithering lies of a pleader. Then may ye have justice in the _sahibs'_ courts; not otherwise. Besides, look ye, Shunker is in this, and his jackal Ramu; and by the twelve Imaums I hate them worse than Raby _sahib!_"

"Ram Lal hath cause," retorted a villainous-looking goldsmith, hailing from the village where Belle had been pelted by the children. "We Hindus, Khan _sahib_, are peace-lovers till they touch our women."

The old Mussulman burst into a scornful laugh. "Best not chatter thus to me, Gurdit! _Inshallah_; there have been times when honest blows with a good sword have brought the faithful many a Hindu _peri!_ But I quarrel not, so go your way, fools, like sheep to slaughter if so your wisdom teaches. I bide at home."

"Nay but, Khan _sahib_," expostulated that very Peru with whom Shunker had begun his work, "we go not to, or for slaughter. We mean to pet.i.tion first to Marsden _sahib_, who comes to-day; so the Pathan hath given out."

"What!" interrupted the Khan with a frown. "He hath returned! Then go ye doubly to slaughter, for there is one who dallies not with words.

He knows how to smite, and if it comes to blows I know which side good swords--But there! I bide at home."

Nor, despite their urgent importunities, would he consent even to join those who favoured a pet.i.tion. No doubt the racial disinclination to be mixed up with idolaters had something to do with the refusal; beyond this there was a stronger desire to give no help to Shunker; and stronger than all was that liking for sheer pluck which makes a native regiment, recruited from the martial races and led by Englishmen it trusts, well nigh the perfection of a warlike weapon.

Many records bear witness to this fact, none more so than the story of Ahmad Kheyl, when, but for an Englishman's voice and the steady response of Indian soldiers, the tale might have been writ "disaster"

instead of "victory." Perhaps some of the three thousand Ghazies who on that day dashed like an avalanche down the hill-side on to the thin brown line guarding a mistaken retreat of red-coats may have expected colour to side with colour. If so they paid dearly for their error. It is pluck with pluck; and the words "_Retreat be d.a.m.ned--stand fast, men!_" attributed rightly or wrongly to an Englishman not mentioned in despatches, were sufficient to weld two nationalities into a wall which broke the force of one of the most desperate charges ever made.

At least so runs the story,--out of despatches.

Khan Mahomed Lateef Khan, then, retreated growling to his tumbledown roof, and betook himself inconsequently to polishing up his sword.

Half an hour afterwards, however, he suddenly bade old Fatma bring him his company raiment with the medals and clasps of his dead sons sewn on it. Then he said a brief farewell to the child, left the women without a word, and went over to borrow the pink-nosed pony of the pleader's father, who, being the Government accountant, was of course discreetly at home.

"Why didst not make thy son take up the case without payment?" asked the old man wrathfully, as his neighbour held the stirrup for him to mount. "Then should I not have had to go in mine old age and strive for peace,--mark you, for peace!"

But as he rode off, the old sword clattered merrily about his old legs, and he smiled, thinking of the gift given when the light of his eyes lay sick in the _mem's_ arms.

"The sword is for her and hers, according to my oath," he said to himself. "G.o.d knows it may be peace; I will do naught to hinder it; but with Marsden _sahib_--_Allah Akbar!_ at least they do not worship stocks and stones like these pigs."

So behind the gathering cloud of witnesses, half hidden in the gathering dust, came the pink-nosed pony ready for peace or war. The odds, either for one or the other, flickered up and down a dozen times as village after village sent or held back its contingent. Finally it flared up conclusively with the advent of Ramu at the head of his particular villains, armed not only with sticks and stones, but with picks and shovels. Like a spark among tinder the suggestion flamed through the ma.s.s,--why waste time in words when, without a blow, except at solid earth, they could bring the floods into their own channel, since Afzul and his gang had declared in favour of the people? So said Ramu, and the peasants were only too ready to believe him, seeing that picks and shovels were more to their minds than blows. Thus, while the trio of aliens to whom that low curve of earthwork meant so much, were talking and laughing over their lunch, the dam was being a.s.sailed by a swarm of men eager for its destruction. Almost at the same time the Khan _sahib_, spurring the pink-nosed pony to the overseer's hut, found Afzul asleep, or pretending to sleep. Perhaps the hint of bribery was true; perhaps the Pathan thought a crisis was needed; at all events he was too crafty to show his hand to his stern old patron, and set off ostensibly to give the alarm at the house and summon his gang, who by a curious coincidence happened to be employed half a mile or so further up the river. Not till he saw his messenger reach the verandah did the Khan seek the scene of action. Picks and shovels indeed! Well! these ploughmen had a right to use such weapons, and he would stand by and see fair play.

How Afzul fulfilled his mission has already been told; also the result of John Raby's appeal for help to Philip Marsden. To say that the former could not believe his eyes, when, on first turning out of the garden, he caught sight of the crowd gathered on the dam, is but a feeble description of the absolutely incredulous wrath which overpowered him. He had been prepared for opposition, perhaps even for attack, when such attack was reasonable. But that these fools, these madmen, should propose to cut a channel with the full weight of a flood on the dam was inconceivable. As he ran back for his revolver, a savage joy at the danger to the workers themselves merged itself with rage at the possible ruin of his labour, and a fierce determination by words, warnings, and threats to avert the worst. They could not be such fools, such insensate idiots! As he pa.s.sed the workmen's huts on his return, he shouted to Afzul, and getting no reply ran on with a curse at all traitors. He was alone against them all, but despite them all he would prevail. As he neared the crowd, bare-headed, revolver in hand, he felt a wild desire to fire without a word and kill some one, no matter whom. The suspicion, however, that this attack could not proceed from anything but revenge had grown upon him, and became conviction as he saw that the largest portion of his enemies were of the ruck; men who never did a hand's turn, and who even now stood by, applauding, while others plied spade and mattock. In the latter, in their stolid wisdom and experience, lay his best chance, and he slipped the revolver to his pocket instantly. "Stop, you fools!" he shouted, "stop! Peru! Gunga; where are your wits? The flood,--the flood is too strong." Then, recognising the old Khan, he appealed instinctively to him for support. "Stop them, Khan _sahib!_ you are old and wise; tell them it is madness!"

As he spoke, reaching the growing gap, he leapt down into it and wrested a spade from the man nearest to him. It was yielded almost without resistance, but a murmur ran through the bystanders, and the workers dug faster.

"Jodha! Boota! Dhurma!" rose John's voice again, singling out the men he knew to be cultivators. "This is folly! tell them it is folly, Khan _sahib!_"

"I know not," answered the other moodily; "'tis shovel, not sword-work, and they have a right to the water--before G.o.d, _sahib_, they have a right to so much!"

"Before G.o.d, they will have more than they want," interrupted that eager tone; and something in its intelligent decision arrested one or two of the older workers. They looked round at the swirling waste of the river and hesitated.

"Tis but his craft," cried Ramu excitedly, showing himself for the first time; "I know Raby well. On! On, my brothers! He has wiles for men as well as for women!"

The revolver came out of John Raby's pocket again swiftly, but an ominous surge together of the crowd showed him that it must be a last resource when all else had failed; and now there were steps behind him coming down the embankment hard and fast. The next instant Philip's voice with the ring of accustomed command in it came sharp. "Listen!

The first of you who puts spade to ground, G.o.d save his soul from d.a.m.nation!"

The native is essentially dramatic. The very turn of his speech, where the imperative remains intact even when it has filtered through other lips, shows him to be so; and Philip Marsden, with the intimate knowledge of years, counted not unwisely on this characteristic for effect. The surprise, the appearance of one who in a vague way they considered of the right sort, the certainty that the voice they heard meant what it said, produced a general pause among the diggers; a pause during which Mahomed Lateef drew his sword gently from the scabbard.

"Listen again!" cried Philip. "Put down those spades and you shall have justice. I promise it."

But even as he spoke John Raby gave a quick excited cry. "Back!

Marsden, back! the dam is cracking! Back, for G.o.d's sake! It is too late! Let the fools be!"

He sprang up the gap, and as he did so a man sprang after him. It was Ramu, ready for the deed he had come to do, fearful lest by this unexpected flight his prey might escape him. The glance of a knife, a cry, more of surprise than pain, and John Raby, twisting round in a last desire to get at his a.s.sa.s.sin, overbalanced and fell headlong down into the ditch. The next instant, before Philip's revolver could single out the criminal, the old Khan's sword swirled above the high turban.

"_Allah-i-Hukk! Allah-i-Akbar!_" (G.o.d is Right and Might.) The fervour of youth rang in the familiar war-shout, and the memory of youth must have nerved the hand, for Ramu's head heeled over on his shoulder in ghastly fashion as he doubled up beneath the force of the blow. But ere he fell the ground beneath him split as if for a grave, and with a hiss of water pouring through the cracks the loosened soil gave way on all sides. Philip, bounding down to reach his fallen friend, felt a sudden dizziness as the solid earth swirled round, split up, broke into islands. Then, with an awful swiftness, while the crowd fought frantically for a crumbling foothold, the dam, like a child's sand-castle before an incoming wave, broadened, sank, melted, disappeared, leaving nothing but a sheet of water racing madly to find its old haunts.

Then it was, when the scene in which all her life seemed bound up disappeared bodily from before her eyes, that Belle Raby threw up her hands and forgot the whole world for a time.

Philip, strong swimmer as he was, struggled hard with the underdraw ere he rose to the surface, shook the mud and water from his eyes, and looked about him. Many a wretch swept past him shrieking for aid, but he searched for something which, even amid his own danger, he could not think of without a curse. Once, twice, thrice, he dived after a hint, a hope; then, coming on Mahomed Lateef, drifting half-unconsciously down stream, he gave up the useless search and, buoying the old man's head against his shoulder, struck out for the back eddy. He was so spent when he reached the sh.o.r.e, that he could with difficulty drag his burden to the dry warm sand and sink down beside it. The whole incident had pa.s.sed so rapidly that it seemed but an instant since he had been running down the embankment, eager to be in time. And he had been in time for what? Suddenly he remembered Belle and staggered to his feet. The storm was darker than ever and aided by the afternoon shadows wrapped everything in a dim twilight which hid all save the immediate foreground. Still he could see from the ebb of the flood in front of him that the great ma.s.s of upheld water must have surged first in a forward direction, and then recoiled to find the lower levels which lay at right angles. Thus it seemed probable that many of those swept away in the great rush might have been left high and dry a quarter of a mile or so lower down; and in this case nothing was more likely than a further attack on the house, for once blood has been shed,--and that some of those engaged must have lost their lives seemed certain--even the proverbially placid peasantry of India loses its head. Belle, therefore, must be found, not merely to tell her of the calamity, but to secure her safety; the instant after this thought flashed upon him, Philip Marsden was making his way to the house, stumbling as he ran through heavy sand and in the teeth of a choking dust-storm. Men, even strong men, have in such a storm lost their way and been smothered to death as they sought shelter in some hollow, but Philip was too set on his purpose to think of pausing.

"Belle! Belle!" he cried as he ran up the verandah-steps and burst into the drawing-room. She was not there. "Belle! Belle! I want you."

But there was no reply. The absence of servants, the deserted verandah, did not surprise him; news flies fast among the people. But Belle? was it possible she too had ventured out, perhaps along the dam itself? The very thought turned him sick with fear, and he dashed into her room calling on her again and again. The thousand and one delicate tokens of her presence hit him hard by contrast with the idea of her out there alone, perhaps swirling down that awful stream with which it seemed to him he was still struggling.

"Belle! Belle!" He was out of the house once more, through the garden, down by the huts. Was it a year, or a minute ago, that he had pa.s.sed that way, running, as now, to be in time? Or were past and present nothing but a bad dream? One of those endless nights from some unknown horror which survive a thousand checks, and go on and on despite perpetual escape? No, it was not a dream! The last time there had been a low curve of earth before him where now nothing showed save a dim yellow flood sliding so smoothly that it seemed to have been sliding there since time began. Each step bringing him nearer to it brought him nearer also to despair. Then, just as he had given up hope, on the very brink, so close that one clenched hand hung over the water, he found her lying as she had fallen; found her none too soon, for even as he stooped to raise her, another few inches of loosened soil undermined by the current fell with a dull splash, and he realised that ere long the river would have turned her forgetfulness to death.