The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 44

Stafford lifted his head. The man's natural reserve and conventionalism were borne down by the sense of his helplessness. He was fighting against a giant of egoism, as it seemed to him, of gross and criminal stupidity, for the lives of untold hundreds.

"You can not realize what you are doing," he said. "It is our one hope of holding the Rajah's hand, and with every moment the danger is increasing. As I came along the road I pa.s.sed crowds of natives on the way to the palace. Most of them were men from your mine, Travers, and they had an ugly look. They did not touch me, it is true, but I believe they are only waiting for Nehal Singh's order, and then it will be too late. Travers, we must do everything in our power to prevent him giving that order. I have promised Colonel Carmichael to do what I could. At twelve I must be back, or--"

Travers swung around. His face was livid.

"You told him--?"

"No, but I must. I can not keep my promise. You must set me free. I gave it you because you told me that I was not concerned. Now I am concerned, I dare not keep silence."

"My dear fellow, you must--that is, if you are a man of honor."

"Of what use is the secret to you?"

"That is my affair. There was a time when you were anxious enough to keep it."

"It was for Lois' sake. The two things were bound up together. She can not be spared any longer."

"You think not? I am of another opinion. I put my wife's peace of mind higher than your old-maidish alarms." Travers faced his companion with the a.s.surance of a man who feels that he has the whip-hand. His experience taught him that a man of certain orthodox principles has a very limited sphere of action. He runs in herds with hundreds of other men of the same mould, and under given circ.u.mstances has only one course of conduct open to him. Had Travers been in Stafford's place, no one living could have told what he would do. But Stafford had no choice--at least, so Travers judged.

"You are one of honor's Pharisees, my dear fellow," he said frankly.

"You can't get out of your promise, and you know it. You cling to the letter of the law. It is your way. You had better go back to the Colonel and tell him to manage the Rajah in his own style."

The clock on the table chimed the half-hour. It was ten minutes' full gallop back to the Colonel's bungalow. Stafford set his teeth in a white heat of despair.

"If you have no consideration for the Station, for your own wife, for your own country, at least consider yourself!" he exclaimed. "Are you blind to the danger? We have scarcely fifty men, and up there are thousands quietly waiting for the Rajah's signal. You must have seen them with your own eyes pouring through--"

"I saw any amount of dirty pilgrims, and got out of the way as fast as I could," was Travers' smiling retort.

Stafford stood baffled and helpless. For the first time he was able to recognize and appreciate a certain type of Englishman to which he himself to some extent belonged--an arrogant ignoramus who, encamped behind his wall of superiority, fears nothing because he sees nothing, and sees nothing because outside the walls there can not possibly be anything worth looking at. Nicholson had torn down Stafford's imagined security, and he stood aghast at his old insolent self-confidence as reflected in Travers' smiling face.

"To be quite honest with you," the latter went on, after a moment's pause, "I have very little faith in our dreadful danger. Admitted that I led the Rajah on a more than doubtful speculation, admitted that Miss Cary went further than she need have done, it is still most unlikely that his injured feelings are going to lead him to such a desperate step as to enter into conflict with the whole Empire.

Believe me, Stafford, the idea is ridiculous, and I have not the least intention of throwing up my own hard-won security--"

It was a bad slip, and he knew it. Stafford, who had stood with his face half averted, in an att.i.tude of irresolution, swung round.

"Your security?" he echoed.

Travers shrugged his shoulders. He had made a mistake, but he saw no reason to be afraid of Stafford or of any one in Marut.

"I said 'my security,'" he repeated.

Stafford clenched his fists. The expression on his gaunt, rugged face showed that he had understood the full import of Travers' words.

"You blackguard!" he said under his breath.

Travers turned scarlet.

"Mind yourself, Captain Stafford. You may find yourself outside the door quicker than you care for it!"

"You blackguard!" Stafford repeated furiously. "I haven't a better name for you. You have simply humbugged me with your lies about Lois and your devotion to her--"

Travers strode at him.

"How dare you!"

"Don't bl.u.s.ter, Travers! It can't hide what I see. You married Lois for her money--"

"Hold your infernal tongue!"

"And now you are afraid. Well, you shall have some cause." He picked up his helmet, which lay on the table. "I gave you my promise because you a.s.sured me it was for Lois' happiness, and I believed you.

According to my ideas, both of them were better left in ignorance. I did not know that you had your own motives--silly fool that I am!" He turned to hurry from the room. Travers barred his way.

"What are you going to do?"

"I shall tell the Colonel the truth!"

"It will break his heart."

"I do not believe it. Out of the way, Travers!"

"And then?"

"Rajah Nehal Singh shall be told."

"Have you considered the consequences?"

"I have."

"Lois will be ruined!"

"_You_ will be ruined. Lois will have my protection, thank G.o.d!"

The two men faced each other an instant in silence. Travers' face betrayed a curious complex emotion of desperation and shame. He had been called a blackguard, and the word had stung like the cut of a horse-whip. He had never believed it possible that any man should have the right to use such a term--to him, the embodiment of geniality, good-humor and good-nature. He did not believe even now that any one had the right. He was not an unprincipled man--not in the sense that he had ever consciously done wrong. He did not know what wrong was--his one conception being an act putting him within reach of the law; and of such an indiscretion he had never been guilty. Throughout his scheming he had always pictured himself as a complaisant Napoleon of finance, combining business with pleasure. His conduct toward Lois had been based on this standpoint. He was genuinely fond of her, and is there any law forbidding a man to lay firm hold upon his wife's money?

Yet Stafford had called him a blackguard, and Stafford was the world--the world of respectability of which Travers had believed himself a gifted member. For the moment the incomprehensible insult was more to him than the coming danger to which his plans were put.

"You look at me as though I had committed a crime!" he exclaimed, in a tone of injured protest.

"You have," Stafford answered steadily. "You have fooled me, playing on my prejudices, and G.o.d knows what other weaknesses. I won't say anything of that. I deserve my share of blame. But you have tricked and deceived a woman. You have deceived an honorable man into a dishonorable venture. You have brought disaster on your own country.

You are no more than a common adventurer. You are the parasite to whom we owe all our misfortunes, and--"

"Stafford, take care!"

"Out of the way! I am going to put an end to it all!"

Travers flung the excited man back. Shame is a dangerous poison in the blood of base natures. It is merely the precursor to a state of absolute license where self-control, self-respect are flung to the winds and the devil is set free to work his full, unchecked will.

Travers glared at Stafford, hating his upright bearing, his upright indignation with a violence to which murder would have been the only true expression.

"You are not going till I have your promise to hold your tongue!" he said between his teeth.