Rung Ho! Part 10

She needed no help. The pony stood as though he knew that the hot wind would soon dry the life out of him; and, though dark rings beneath dark eyes betrayed the work of heat and sleepless worry on a girl who should have graced the cool, sweet, rain-swept hills of Scotland, she had spirit left yet and an unspent store of youth. The saice seemed more weathered than the twenty-year-old girl, for he limped back into the smelly shelter of the servants' quarters to cook his breakfast and mumble about dogs and sahibs who prefer the sun.

She looked shrunk inside the riding-habit--not shrivelled, for she sat too straight, but as though the cotton jacket had been made for a larger woman. If she seemed tired, and if a stranger might have guessed that her head ached until the chestnut curls were too heavy for it, she was still supple. And, as she whipped the pony into an unwilling trot and old mission-named Joanna broke into a jog behind, revolt--no longer impatience, or discontent, or sorrow, but reckless rebellion--rode with her.

It was there, plain for the world to see, in the firm lines of a little Puritan mouth, in the angle of a high-held chin in the set of a gallant little pair of shoulders. The pony felt it, and leaned forward to a canter. Joanna scented, smelt, or sensed in some manner known to Eastern old age, that purpose was afoot; this was to be no early-morning canter, merely out and home again; there was no time, now, for the customary tricks of corner-cutting and rest-s.n.a.t.c.hing under eaves; she tucked her head down and jogged forward in the dust, more like a dog than ever. It was a dog's silent, striving determination to be there when the finish came--a dog's disregard of all object or objective but his master's--but a long-thrown stride, and a crafty, beady eye that promised more usefulness than a dog's when called on.

The first word spoken was when Rosemary drew rein a little more than half-way along the palace wall.

"Are you tired yet, Joanna?"

"Uh-uh!" the woman answered, shaking her head violently and pointing at the sun that mounted every minute higher. The argument was obvious; in less than twenty minutes the whole horizon would be shimmering again like shaken plates of bra.s.s; wherever the other end might be, a rest would be better there than here! Her mistress nodded, and rode on again, faster yet; she had learned long ago that Joanna could show a dusty pair of heels to almost anything that ran, and she had never yet known distance tire her; it had been the thought of distance and speed combined that made her pause and ask.

She did not stop again until they had cantered up through the awakening bazaar, where unclean-looking merchants and their underlings rinsed out their teeth noisily above the gutters, and the pariah dogs had started nosing in among the muck for things unthinkable to eat. The sun had shortened up the shadows and begun to beat down through the gaps; the advance-guard of the shrivelling hot wind had raised foul dust eddies, and the city was ahum when she halted at last beside the big brick arch of the caravansary, where Mahommed Gunga's boots and spurs had caught her eye once.

"Now, Joanna!" She leaned back from the saddle and spoke low, but with a certain thrill. "Go in there, find me Mahommed Gunga-sahib's man, and bring him out here!"

"And if he will not come?" The old woman seemed half-afraid to enter.

"Go in, and don't come out without him--unless you want to see me go in by myself!"

The old woman looked at her piercingly with eyes that gleamed from amid a bunch of wrinkles, then motioned with a skinny arm in the direction of an awning where shade was to be had from the dangerous early sun-rays.

She made no move to enter through the arch until her mistress had taken shelter.

Fifteen minutes later she emerged with Ali Partab, who looked sleepy, but still more ashamed of his unmilitary dishabille. Rosemary McClean glanced left and right--forgot about the awning and the custom which decrees aloofness--ignored the old woman's waving arm and Ali Partab's frown, and rode toward him eagerly.

"Did Mahommed Gunga-sahib leave you here with any orders relative to me?" she asked.

The Rajput bowed.

"Before he went away, he spoke to me of safety, and told me he would leave a link between me and men whom I may trust."

The Rajput bowed again. Neither of them saw an elbow laid on the window-ledge of a room above the arch; it disappeared, and very gingerly a bared black head replaced it. Then the head too disappeared.

The girl's eyes sparkled as the rea.s.surance came that at least one good fighting man was waiting to do nothing but a.s.sist her. For the moment she threw caution to the winds and remembered nothing but her plight and her father's stubbornness.

"My father will not come away, but--"

Ali Partab's eyes betrayed no trace of concern.

"But--I thought--Are you all alone?"

"All alone, Miss-sahib, but your servant."

"Oh! I thought--perhaps that"--she checked herself, then rushed the words out as though ashamed of them--"that, if you had men to help you, you might carry him away against his will! Where are these others who are to be trusted?"

Ali Partab grinned and then drew himself up with a movement of polite dissent. It was not for him to question the suggestions of a Miss-sahib; he conveyed that much with an inimitable air. But it was his business to keep strictly to the letter of his orders.

"Miss-sahib, I cannot do that. So said Mahommed Gunga: 'When the hag brings word, then take three horses and bear the Miss-sahib and her father to my cousin Alwa's place.' I stand ready to obey, but the padre-sahib comes not against his will."

"To whose place?"

"Alwa's, Miss-sahib."

"And who is he?" She seemed bewildered. "I had hoped to be escorted to some British residency."

"That would be for Alwa, should he see fit. He has men and horses, and a fort that is impregnable. The Miss-sahib would be safe there under all circ.u.mstances."

"But--but, supposing I declined to accept that invitation? Supposing I preferred not to be carried off to a--er--a Mohammedan gentleman's fort.

What then?"

"I could but wait here, Miss-sahib, until the hour came when you changed your mind, or until Mahommed Gunga by letter or by word of mouth relieved me of my trust."

"Oh! Then you will wait here until I ask?"

"Surely, Miss-sahib."

The head again peered through the window up above them, but disappeared below the ledge furtively, and none of the three were aware of it.

For that matter, the old woman was gazing intently at Ali Partab and listening eagerly; he stood almost underneath the arch, and Miss McClean was staring at him frowning with the effort to translate her thoughts into a language that is very far from easy. They would none of them have seen the roof descending on them.

"And--and won't you under any circ.u.mstances take us, say, to the Resident at Abu instead?"

"I may not, Miss-sahib."

"But why?"

"Of a truth I know not. I never yet knew Mahommed Gunga to give an order without good reason for it; but beyond that he chose me, because he said the task might prove difficult and he trusted me, I know nothing."

"Have you no idea of the reason?"

"Miss-sahib, I am a soldier. To me an order is an order to be carried out; suspicions, fears are nothing unless they stand in the way of accomplishment. I await your word. I am ready. The horses are here--good horses--lean and hard. The order is that you must ask me."

"Thank you--er--Ali what?--thank you, Ali Partab." The disappointment in her voice was scarcely more noticeable than the despondency her drooping figure showed. The little shoulders that had sat so square and gallantly seemed to have lost their strength, and there was none of the determined ring left in the words she hesitated for. "I--hope you will understand that I am grateful--but--I cannot--er--see my way just yet to--"

"In your good time, Miss-sahib. I was ordered to have patience!"

"At least I will have more confidence, knowing that you are always close at hand."

The Rajput bowed. She reined back. He saluted, and she bowed again; then, with a glance to make sure that Joanna followed, she started back at little more than a walking pace--a dejected wraith of a girl on a dejected-looking pony, too overcome by the upsetting of her rebellious scheme to care or even think whether Joanna dropped out of sight or not. Ali Partab watched her down the street with a face that betrayed no emotion and no suspicion of what his thoughts might be. When she was out of sight he went back under the arch to attend to his three horses; and the moment that he did so a fat but very furtive Hindoo took his place--glanced down the street once in the direction that Rosemary had taken--and then darted up-street as fast as his shaking paunch would let him. He had been gone at the least ten minutes, when Joanna, also furtive, also in a hurry, dodged here and there among the commencing surge of traffic and approached the arch again.

It would be useless to try to read her mind, or to translate the glitter of her beady eyes into thoughts intelligible to any but an Oriental.

It was quite clear, though, that she wished not to be noticed, that she feared the occupants of the caravansary, and that she had returned for word with Ali Partab. He, least of all, would have doubted her intention of demanding the two gold mohurs, for it was she who had brought the word that Miss McClean wanted him. But what relation that intention had to her loyalty or treachery, or whether she were capable of either--capable of anything except greed, and obedience for the sake of pay--were problems no man living could have guessed.

She asked the lounging sweeper by the arch whether Ali Partab had ridden out as yet. He jeered back outrageous improprieties, suggestive of impossible ambition on the hag's part. She called him "sahib," dubbed him "father of a dozen stalwart sons," returned a few of his immodest compliments with a flattering laugh, and learned that Ali Partab was still busy in the caravansary. Then she proceeded to make herself very inconspicuous beside a two-wheeled wagon, up-ended in the gutter opposite the arch, and waited with eastern patience for the horseman to ride out.

She saw the fat Hindoo come back, in no particular hurry now, and seat himself not far from her. Later she saw eight hors.e.m.e.n ride down the street, pa.s.s the arch, wheel, and halt. She noticed that they were not Maharajah Howrah's men but a portion of his brother Jaimihr's body-guard, then took no further notice of them. If they chose to wait there, it was no affair of hers, and to appear inquisitive would be to invite a lance-b.u.t.t, very shrewdly thrust where it would hurt.

It was an hour at least before Ali Partab rode out through the arch, looking down anxiously at his horse's off-hind that had been showing symptoms of "brushing" lately. Joanna rose instantly to cross the street and intercept him; and she recoiled in the nick of time to save herself from being ridden down.

At a sign from the fat Hindoo the eight hors.e.m.e.n spurred, and swooped up-street with the speed and certainty of sparrow-hawks and the noise of devastation. They rode down Ali Partab--unhorsed him--bound him--threw him on his horse again--and galloped off before any but the Hindoo had time to realize that he was their objective. He was gone--s.n.a.t.c.hed like a chicken from the coop. Noise and dust were all the trace or explanation that he left. The mazy streets swallowed him; the Hindoo waddled over to the arch and disappeared without a smile on his face to show even interest. The interrupted trading and bartering went on again, and no one commented or made a move to follow but Joanna.