The Path to Honour Part 19

"Now do the nightingales sing once more in the groves of friendship!"

he remarked. "Verily for Jirad Sahib the flame of joy has of late burned low in the lamp of life, but now the oil of Chatar Sahib's presence will replenish it until it illuminates all Granthistan."

With similar flowery compliments he beguiled the whole way, and Charteris noted with admiration that he did not once repeat his metaphors. On the well-remembered verandah Gerrard's servant was putting the finishing touches to the supper-table, to furnish which he had raided the Resident's larder and suborned his cook, and Charteris threw himself into a chair with a sigh of satisfaction. Gerrard, moving things about energetically inside to make room for him, called out that he would come in a moment, and presently emerged and sat down opposite him.

"Well, this is just what I like--and a few over," remarked Charteris contentedly. "So I hear you are going to sneak my job, old boy?"

"I shall hand it back to you with the utmost pleasure, Bob, as you can well guess. But tell me how it is you are here at all."

Charteris a.s.sumed a deeply sententious manner. "You are not wholly unacquainted with the literature of our vivacious kindred across the Atlantic, I believe, Hal? Well, do you know the expression 'playing possum'? because that's what I did. I got a glancing bullet across my forehead, where this imposing scar is, just here, which stunned me at first, and must have made a ghastly-looking wound, but the unconsciousness didn't last more than a minute or two. At least, that's what I gather from seeing my precious Darwanis in full flight when I got the blood out of my eyes. Their way of conducting a retreat was always to fire a volley and then run away helter-skelter, and though I had been teaching them better manners, I always knew they would break if I wasn't there to stiffen them. I was a good deal knocked about, besides the wound on the head, and before I could manage to roll into the bushes, Sher Singh's men were back. I thought it well to appear more dead than I was, especially when I saw them going round and finishing off all our wounded that they could find. They were in a great hurry, and I gathered that your men had driven them off, and they felt it advisable to make themselves scarce. I was in full view, unluckily, and expected to get the _coup de grace_ every moment, but when they came to me they took me up without troubling to see whether I was alive or not, and threw me over a horse. It was not what you would call a luxurious mode of travelling, and twice I managed to drop off, feet first, hoping they would leave me lying where I was and go on in disgust. They were disgusted--highly, but their remarks made it clear that Sher Singh had ordered you and me to be brought in dead or alive, preferably alive, so I condescended to exhibit signs of life, and they hoisted me up behind one of them. That was an uncommon disagreeable ride, I can tell you."

"I started to come back and look for you, Bob, but I couldn't get far enough."

"Of course you couldn't. Why, this alone"--he touched the sling of Gerrard's broken arm--"shows that you were much worse hurt than I was.

But I was pretty well done for, and a most gruesome object, when we came up with Sher Singh. His manners ain't exactly ingratiating at the best of times, as you have more than once remarked to me, but when he saw my unlucky hair, his language was positively improper. You see, it was my misfortune--and your very good fortune, I'm inclined to think--that I wasn't you. He even sent for water and had some of the blood washed off my face, to make sure, I suppose, that we hadn't exchanged wigs in the hope of deceiving him, and when he was quite sure who I wasn't, I expected nothing better than to be cut into little bits there and then. But some one ventured to suggest something, and he came at me with great fury and demanded whether I knew where Partab Singh's hidden treasure was. I know I ought to have struck a heroic att.i.tude and refused to speak, but as a matter of fact, I fainted. It was horribly ill-timed, for Sher Singh is bound to believe for ever that it was sheer terror of his alarming aspect that did it, but it was precious fortunate for me, for when I woke up I was in a palanquin, and they had tied up my head and looked after me a bit. Dear, good, sympathetic souls! how they did try to make things pleasant for me--always dinning into my ears that Sher Singh was fattening me for the slaughter--the torture, I mean! They used to congregate outside and discuss tortures in the halts, when I might have had a chance to get a little sleep if there had been any air, like a whole regiment of Fat Boys."

"If we had only known you were alive, Bob!"

"Oh, don't think _I'm_ trying to make your flesh creep. All's well that ends well, and it's a useful experience to have been through.

Shows a fellow he can stand a good deal more than he ever thought he could, I mean. But perhaps it was just as well it was me and not you."

"Complimentary, as usual!" Gerrard's laugh was a little forced.

"It's merely a question of nerves, old boy. You would have been picturing the details over and over again when the beggars were not talking about 'em, whereas I was able to put them out of my mind.

Well, we got to Agpur at last, and once in the palace, Sher Singh set to work to try kindness. He let me take up my quarters--watched day and night, of course--in your old Residency, which looks a good deal the worse for wear since you left it. The servants you left in charge seem to have taken first choice when they heard you were hardly likely to come back, and then the palace servants and the guards had their turn. Your books were all torn to pieces--they must have thought you had gold-leaf hidden between the pages--and scattered all about the place. I camped in the ruins, and Sher Singh came to see me twice. He talked to me like a man and a brother, pointed out how important it was for him to find the treasure, what a guarantee of peace it would be, and how he was obviously the rightful owner now that his father and brother were dead. I agreed with him in everything, but declined respectfully to say whether I knew where it was or not. When he proceeded to threats, I told him that he must think me as big a fool as I was beginning to consider him. I was not going to tell him whether I knew the secret, because if I did know it, he would at once begin to make things very unpleasant for me, and if I didn't, he might kill me as useless. On the other hand, he could not proceed to extremities while he was still uncertain, because if I knew the hiding-place, he would have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs, and if I didn't, he would have thrown away uselessly his one chance of placating Antony.

That was just when Nisbet was beginning to thunder at the gates of Agpur--or rather, a good way off them--so it appealed to him. Of course the flaw in the argument was that if he knew his business, his torturer might contrive to extract the answer to the question, and the secret, without killing me, but I had to treat that possibility as absolutely non-existent. Still, he found out the secret at last."

"Bob!" cried Gerrard anxiously.

"Sold again. This was how he did it. After d.o.g.g.i.ng me all over the place, trying to discover by my face where the treasure might be hidden, they hit upon a new plan, by which, if the worst came to the worst, they could produce my body quite free from marks of violence, and so satisfy Antony. It was a fiendish thing, Hal. As soon as ever I went to sleep, day or night, they woke me up, and asked me if I knew where the treasure was. I stood it for two days and nights, but if it had gone on, I swear to you I must have given in; I was pretty near mad then. But curiously enough, Sher Singh discovered the treasury for himself in an odd sort of way. You know the great tank where the lotus grows? Well, one of Sher Singh's ladies brought some gold-fish with her from Adamkot and turned them into it. The fish all died--change of diet, I suppose, but she swore that the deaf and dumb boatman had killed them. It was clearly a case of 'Off with his head!' for the poor wretch couldn't defend himself, but he made signs that if they would let him off he would show them something. They were open to a deal, and he took them across to the thicket of bamboos, and showed them the door in the wall, making them understand somehow that old Partab Singh used to go that way often at night. They lost the scent when they found that the door only led down to the wild beasts' pit, but picked it up again by a very pretty bit of deduction. It was quite certain that the treasury couldn't be under the pit or under the tank, so that the pa.s.sage leading to it must pa.s.s between them, and it must lie in the direction either of the palace or the Residency. They broke ground in the Residency direction first, sinking two or three shafts in likely places, while I watched them with great interest, and asked intelligent questions. It was the one way I had of getting a little bit even with them for what they were doing to me. They held to the Residency theory because they couldn't see otherwise how you managed to get at the treasure for paying the soldiers without being discovered, but Sher Singh never believed in it much. Once when he was a small boy his father let him come with him into the ordinary treasury under the zenana, and he heard what sounded to him like men working underground not very far off. He couldn't make out where the sound came from, and his father diddled him with some fairy-tale to account for it, but now he remembered. So he had every inch of the treasury walls examined, and they came on the air-hole looking into the pa.s.sage. Then they had only to break down the wall between, and there they were--and I give you my word for it, Hal, I was thankful! When they were all busy watching what was being done, and the gold was being handed up through a shaft that they dug, I just dropped down and went to sleep. It wasn't for long, but when I woke up I felt fit to face Sher Singh or the devil himself."

"Pretty much the same thing, after all," said Gerrard grimly.

"I should rayther think so! But the worst was over. It seems that they were uncommon disappointed in the amount of the treasure. They expected sufficient to make them all rich for life, and there was only just about enough to settle Sher Singh comfortably on the _gaddi_."

"Just what I calculated--only it was for poor little Kharrak Singh."

"Well, they held palaver upon palaver to decide whether they should hang the expense and plump for immediate war, beginning upon me.

Everybody talked very big about wanting to fight, but n.o.body really cared about it. The army have plenty of money left for the present, and want to spend it, and the secret messengers sent to see whether the Granthis generally would join in a rising against the English were not encouraging. It'll be just as well for Antony to know that they look forward to a shindy before very long, but they ain't equal to kicking it up in cold blood just yet. The council had no illusions as to the possibility of the Agpuris making head against us without allies, and your old friend Dwarika Nath, who has come back as Diwan, was very strong on the need of prudence."

"The old reprobate!" cried Gerrard. "Master and man are pretty well matched."

"So I should guess. At last they did me the honour to call me into consultation. There was no parade of tenderness for my feelings, but they did make it clear that while every man of them would have made it his particular business to see that you underwent the longest and most uncomfortable death that could be had, they considered me not half a bad sort. Therefore they did their best to frighten me into promising them all sorts of concessions in Antony's name, and all I could do was to invite them to kill me at once, since that would be far less painful to my feelings than the consequences that would follow if I attempted to negotiate treaties on my own responsibility. At the same time I dropped a hint that since the murder of a British officer was a prominent count in the bill Nisbet was presenting, it would undoubtedly be an extenuating circ.u.mstance if the said officer could be produced alive and only superficially damaged. We wrangled a good bit, but at last I agreed to act as mediator on the basis of the execution of Kharrak Singh's murderers, the retention by the Rani of her _jaghirs_ or their equivalent in cash, and a settlement of the frontier question--all of them bitter pills for the Agpuris to swallow, but indispensable, I a.s.sured them, if their professions of goodwill were to be accepted."

"The execution of Kharrak Singh's murderers! You were pretty cool to demand that, and they must have been mad, or pretty well desperate, to grant it."

"Why, you have picked out the easiest condition of the lot. His official murderers, I mean. They confessed, four of them--what they were paid for doing it I don't know--and I saw them blown from guns myself. But paying the Rani's jointure--that was a bitter pill, I grant you. I had to engage that any jewels or cash in her possession when she dies--a natural death, of course, understood--shall return to Sher Singh, before he would promise, and even then it was like bleeding him white. And the rectification of the frontier, on which Antony laid such stress in his instructions to Nisbet, will be opposed by all Agpur when they hear of it. I hope our Mr James may be in power again when it comes to be settled, to carry it through by sheer strength of will, for I should be very sorry to be in charge of the negotiations unless I had overwhelming force at hand in support."

"I suppose there's no doubt that Sir Edmund will accept Sher Singh's submission on these terms?" asked Gerrard gloomily.

"None whatever, I should say, judging by the way he received them just now."

"And this is the end of it, then! Sher Singh gets all he wanted at the price of a few rupees to the heirs of the _badmashes_ he has bribed to take his guilt upon them."

"My dear fellow, you can prove nothing against him, and we have no power to bring him to trial. I believe you and I are fated to be the instruments of exemplary vengeance upon him eventually, ain't we, according to the Rani? Till then we must be content to see him flourishing like the green bay-tree."

"But we need not supply the bay-tree with water and the soil that suits it, and with a gardener to look after it and railings to keep off the goats," grumbled Gerrard.

"Oh, you are getting too horrid technical for me," said Charteris, with a yawn. "I don't know what you feel about turning in, Hal, but your unfortunate servants will certainly think they ain't going home till morning. I have been riding all day, you know."

Gerrard laughed, and the sitting broke up. The two friends hardly saw each other the next day, so closely was Charteris closeted with Sir Edmund Antony and his brother, discussing the affairs of Agpur, and when he was released, Gerrard was sent for, to throw the light of his experience on the present situation. It was dark when he got back to his quarters, and he started when Charteris bounced up out of the depths of a long chair.

"I thought you were never coming! Hal, I've seen her."

His tone was so instinct with rapture that Gerrard's heart stood still.

"Where?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"At the band. Driving with her mother. Lady Cinnamond was uncommon kind--let me ride on her side of the carriage. Hal, she blushed--blushed when she saw me! She was looking stunning--so pale and cool; she never has much colour in her cheeks, has she? She had on one of those worked muslin gowns, and a big floppy hat with black streamers to it, and black velvet round her neck--nothing pink or blue to take your eyes from her face."

"Yes?" muttered Gerrard, as Charteris paused in blissful contemplation of the picture he had evoked.

"Yes? oh, that was all. I rode beside her, and looked at her, and her hand lay on the side of the carriage quite close to me--I wanted to kiss it, but I didn't dare. And she let me hold it for a moment when I bade them good-day--at least, perhaps she didn't let me, but I did, anyhow--and she blushed, blushed divinely."

Gerrard sprang up and paced the verandah hastily. Charteris woke from his dream of bliss.

"Old boy, I'm sorry--'pon my word I am. But after all, she is free to choose, ain't she? With any other girl one wouldn't think much of a blush. But one never sees her change colour, and I came upon her suddenly, so she couldn't have been thinking of me before. I thought old Sir Arthur would never have done with congratulating me on my escape, and that sort of thing--and a man can't be rude to his prospective papa-in-law, can he? But when I saw the greys coming down the drive, and the two parasols in the carriage--why, I made myself scarce in no time, and the old boy positively beamed upon my departure."

"And having made sure of the lady and her parents both, when do you propose to clinch the matter?" demanded Gerrard savagely.

Charteris looked at him in surprise. "Why, Hal, you don't imagine that I meant to run away from our compact? We'll draw lots who shall speak first exactly as we arranged. Unless"--with sudden fierce suspicion--"you took your opportunity when you thought I was dead?"

"Bob!" cried Gerrard, so reproachfully that his friend could not doubt him. "I had given up all thoughts of it. I never went near her without talking of you."

"Oh!" said Charteris rather blankly. "I hope you haven't made her think I'm like a brute in a poetry-book? Because if so, she'll be disappointed."

"I can't help what she thinks," growled Gerrard. "I told her nothing that wasn't true."

"I don't suppose you did. But it's the finishing touches that count in these things, my boy. And if she chooses to fit me out with a halo and a pedestal--why, when she discovers the truth, I shall really be _finished off_. But after all," with reviving cheerfulness, "it ain't my fault if she is kind enough to endow me with imaginary virtues. She blushed, anyhow. And when a girl accepts a man, it's as if she gave him leave to teach her the difference between creatures in books, and fellows as they are. And if she's agreeable, why, so am I; with all my heart, says I. That's my theory."

"Bob, you are really in earnest? It isn't one of your jokes?"

"Jokes, indeed!" said Charteris, in high dudgeon. "I'll show you how much in earnest I am, Lieutenant Henry Gerrard. We'll go to business to-morrow, if you please."

"Then you wish to draw the lots to-night?"

"No, don't let us have any melodramatic nonsense with straws, or bits of wood of different lengths. We'll go down to the gateway to-morrow between one and two, when there's scarcely a creature about, and one shall look up the street, and the other down. Whoever can count twenty human beings first shall have first right to speak. Are you agreeable?"

"All serene. But what if we both call out at once?"