The Sirdar's Oath Part 24

Now they had gained the rock portal--towering up grim and frowning overhead, and the pursuers had nearly gained it too. But these last, the foremost of them, drew up a little way from the entrance. So did others who came up. It was evident they recognised the place, and the force of superst.i.tion was strong.

Crouched among the boulders the three fugitives could just see what was going on. One who seemed a leader was evidently urging them forward-- riding up and down their line haranguing and gesticulating vehemently.

At last six or seven men broke from the others, and, followed by these, the chief advanced towards the mouth of the chasm.

"Murad Afzul, _Huzoor_," whispered Mehrab Khan.

"It is his last quarter of an hour," grimly answered Raynier, sighting his rifle. And then an inspiration came to him, and he whispered some hurried instructions to Mehrab Khan. The Baluchi immediately left his side, and retired further into the chasm.

"Hilda, dearest, do you think you could hold the horses, in case they get a bit of a scare?" he said. "I have a plan which will save us, if anything will. Stand behind that elbow of rock with them."

Without a word she obeyed, and now the Gularzai were already within the mouth of the _tangi_, Murad Afzul leading. What followed was weirdly startling. The whole of the grim and gloomy chasm roared with the most appalling sounds, mingled with shriekings and wailings. To and fro-- tossed along those gigantic cliff walls the echoes bellowed, giving forth strange mouthings, and then, over all, from the dim inner recesses of the cavernous rift spake an awful voice.

"O unbelievers, violators of my sanctuary, retire, or ye die--die even as those three now lying here, whom none may find until the ending of the world. He who makes one step forward, that moment he dies. In the name of the Great, the Terrible One."

The suddenness of it, the awful appalling din, the sombre repute of the place, and the consciousness that they were knowingly venturing on sacrilege, had an effect upon the intruders which was akin to panic.

They stopped short, reining in their horses cruelly, lest they should accidentally make that one step forward, and their fierce s.h.a.ggy visages seemed petrified with the terror that was in them. But Murad Afzul's horse at that moment, wildly plunging, half stumbled on a round stone, and the jerk of the bit, and the savage sting of the hide whip, instinctively administered, caused it to take a bound forward. Then it stopped dead still, and its rider half stood up in his stirrups with a quick jerk, then, throwing up his arms, toppled heavily, and with a crash, on to the stones.

One terrified glance at the set face and glazing eyes, and the whole half-dozen venturesome ones turned and stampeded wildly from the terrible spot, muttering citations from the Koran to avert further evil.

What could be clearer? Their leader had made a forbidden step forward and--and he had died, even as the ghost of the holy one whose sanctuary it was, had threatened. He had died, stricken by the powers of the air at the bidding of the Syyed.

Raynier, his nerves all athrill with this pa.s.sing of the crisis, withdrew his rifle, feeling something of savage satisfaction and pride in his successful shot. But it did not at once occur to him that the wild and deafening din of the reverberations had so completely drowned the report of his piece that no shadow of a suspicion lay upon the minds of the now discomfited pursuers that their leader had met his death by mortal agency, or by any other than that of the powers of the unseen.

It was left to Hilda to suggest, and the idea was a rea.s.suring one, because it meant that no further pursuit would be undertaken. Her he found struggling with the bridles of the scared and refractory horses, and at the same time convulsively laughing.

"It was so comical," she explained. "Fancy our being able to turn that echo to such account. It was clever of you to hit upon that idea."

Then gravely, "Do you remember what I said that night, Herbert, the second time we were in here together? 'Something warns me there will come a day when our knowledge of this place will make all the difference between life and death.' Well, has it made that difference?"

"I should rather think so. But what puzzles me is how on earth you knew we were anywhere near the place. We entered it now, mind you, by the end furthest from the camp, and we never went outside that on either of those occasions."

"I knew it by that split rock and the little one beside it, rising up out of the nullah down there. I noticed them opposite this entrance the first time we were here."

"Wonderful! Do you know, Hilda, Haslam says there's something uncanny about you, and I begin to believe there is."

"Only _begin_ to believe?" And she laughed gaily, happily.

The comedy side of what had come near being tragedy did not appeal to Mehrab Khan in the least. They found that estimable Baluchi in a serious and gloomy vein. In the first place he had penetrated here and had thus incurred the consequent penalty; in the next by taking the voice of the dead Syyed he had committed an act of sacrilege. Raynier strove to rea.s.sure him.

"If Allah used this place as a means of saving our lives," he said, "he does not intend that it shall be the means of our losing them, and it was written that they should be saved here. Besides, O believer, it was upon the people of this country that the dead Syyed laid the curse, not upon us, who are not of this country."

And this, perhaps, was what went furthest towards rea.s.suring Mehrab Khan. He repeated sententiously,--

"It was written."

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

A DEED OF GIFT.

At Mazaran Hilda Clive was the heroine of the hour, and the station did not know which to do most--admire her pluck and resolution, or marvel how it could have regarded her all this while as of no account. She had done a wonderful thing, this quiet, retiring girl, on whom the popular verdict had been "Oh, so-so." She had ventured alone into the stronghold of one of the fierce, fanatical tribes then engaged in the border war, and had brought back their prisoner, the man whom they had doomed to death. She had saved his life.

But Hilda declared emphatically that she had done nothing of the kind-- on the contrary, her errand had failed signally. He had been released by a different and unexpected agency altogether, and it was only by accident that they had travelled back together. To this side of the story not much attention was given. The fact remained that she had set out to effect his release, and had returned with him, and not without him. And now the station metaphorically winked, and p.r.o.nounced Raynier a lucky fellow indeed.

Yes, but what about that other time when it had so p.r.o.nounced him, and the reason thereof? Well, on that head it had seen cause to change its mind. For Cynthia Daintree had not been careful to keep up her part.

She had flirted outrageously with Captain Beecher what time the man to whom she declared herself engaged was in daily peril of his life, and had incidentally offended more than one whose good word was worth having. Yet how would Raynier dispose of her, she having come all the way out from home; moreover, she would be rather a difficult subject to negotiate? Clearly there were complications ahead, and the station looked forward to no end of fun.

It was disappointed, however. Raynier, with a prompt.i.tude and decision for which she had not given him credit gave Cynthia to understand that he did not consider himself in the very least bound to her, nor had he since that last interview in the Vicarage garden. As for her action in coming out there to claim him, under the circ.u.mstances, he preferred not to express an opinion, for fear he might say too much.

He had antic.i.p.ated a wild and stormy scene. To his surprise she seemed to acquiesce. The only thing was that if he repudiated her after what she had given out, what sort of a figure would she cut? She had better let it be known that she had discovered they were not suited to each other, and so had better part, she suggested.

There was something in this. He could hardly show her up--for every reason. He was intensely annoyed, but finally agreed; resolving, however, that there was one person at any rate who should know the truth.

But now official business claimed Raynier's time and attention to the exclusion of all else. Reinforcements arrived at Mazaran, and field operations were to be opened immediately against the Gularzai, and on the eve of these, Raynier had the good fortune to capture, with the aid of Mehrab Khan and a few Levy Sowars, the _mullah_ Hadji Haroun, he having obtained secret information that that pestilent agitator was travelling in disguise and almost unguarded. This was a stroke of luck indeed. There was no question at headquarters of superseding him now, the more so that immediately afterwards he succeeded, through his friendship with Shere Dil Khan, in opening up communications with the Nawab. The Gularzai chief had been drawn into the war unwillingly, as we have seen. The tribes further along the border had suffered severely, and more reinforcements were moving up to reduce him. He had entered upon it mainly as an opportunity of wreaking his vengeance upon Raynier, only to find that the latter had saved the life of his son and successor. Shere Dil Khan, too, had cast doubts on the genuineness of the doc.u.ment used by the _mullah_ to secure the adherence of the Gularzai--in fact, believed it to be a downright forgery.

Raynier was an important personage at that juncture, and, in truth, he deserved any prestige he may have earned. For, again trusting to Mushim Khan's safe conduct, he had placed himself alone in the power of the Gularzai chief, with the result that he returned having obtained the Nawab's submission. The Gularzai had taken no very active part as yet in the rising, and the Government were only too glad to receive the submission of so important and powerful a chief as Mushim Khan, wherefore there was peace, and Raynier was marked out for recognition; albeit the military element cursed him roundly among themselves as one of those infernal meddling Politicals who had done them out of a nice little campaign.

Hilda Clive seemed to have become quieter and more retiring than ever, and the station--whose attempt to lionise her she had resolutely evaded--decided that anxiety about Raynier was her motive, for it was universally opined that "that would be a _bundobust_" once the border trouble was over.

One day she said to the Tarletons,--"Do you remember how scared you all were for fear I should go through the Syyed's _tangi_ with Mr Raynier?"

"Rather," said Haslam, who was there, helping Tarleton to reduce Mushim Khan--in theory.

"How long ago was that?"

They fell to discussion; deciding that it was quite two months.

"Well, then, I ought to be dead by now. The tradition says before the end of the second moon. And even when we were talking about the place, I had already been through it once. I have been through it twice since.

The third time it saved our lives, as you know."

The story of this latter event in its completeness they had agreed to keep to themselves, only giving out that the Gularzai had shrunk from following them into the _tangi_ from superst.i.tious motives.

"I told you I'd prove that superst.i.tion nonsensical," she went on, her eyes dancing with fun. "Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?"

"You'd already been through it before that night, Miss Clive?" said Haslam. "Well, I'm jiggered!"

"Yes. But what about the rule?" she persisted. "I'm not dead yet."

Snapped Tarleton, "Well, you can't expect there to be no exception to every rule, can you?"

Hilda had been giving herself over to business of late, for each mail brought her enclosures, bulky and blue, and of unequivocally legal aspect. With such doc.u.ments she would shut herself up in Tarleton's den, which he had made over to her for the purpose, and she was so engaged one morning, when Raynier was announced. He had returned to Mazaran the day before, and they had met--in public; but this visit was one of arrangement--of her arrangement.

Hilda looked up from the papers she had been busy with as he entered--in fact made a guilty and trepidatious attempt at sweeping them out of sight, which suggested a weakness entirely foreign to her.

"Well, how are things going?" she asked gaily.