The Ruby Sword Part 22

Then came more logs. They were old sleepers which had been piled up beside the line, and were as dry as lucifer matches. On to them came a great heap of tattered paper--the return forms and books found in the station offices. The a.s.sailants could load up a great pyre thus without incurring the slightest risk to themselves--could set it alight, too.

That was what came of the British way of doing things--a heavily armoured and loop-holed door, and, alongside of it, an open and entirely unprotected window. Truly Upward had been right when he conjectured the Russians would have had a different way. No nation under the sun is more wedded to shortsightedness and red tape than that which is traditionally supposed to rule the waves.

Now indeed a feeling of blank despair came into the hearts of at any rate two out of the four as they watched these preparations. Vivien, fortunately, could not see them, for with splendid patience she sat quite still, and refrained from hampering her defenders, even with useless questions. The reek of paraffin rose up strong and sickening.

The a.s.sailants had flung another can of it upon the pile of combustibles. All this they could do without exposing themselves in the least.

"Heavens I are we to be roasted or smoked in a hole?" growled the Colonel. "Cannot we cut our way through?"

Campian said nothing. His thoughts were too bitter. He had some belief that these barbarians would not harm Vivien. But death had never been less welcome than at that moment.

"Could we not propose terms to them, Colonel? Offer a big ransom, say?"

"Nothing like trying. Der' Ali, ask the _budmashes_ how many rupees they want to clear out and leave us alone."

The bearer, who spoke Baluchi well, did as he was told. The reply came sharp and decided. "Not any."

"Try again, Der' Ali. Tell the fools they'll be none the better for killing us, and we'll promise to do nothing towards having them caught.

In fact, promise them anything."

Then Der' Ali, who was no fool, put the offer before them in its most tempting light. Everyone knew the Colonel Sahib. His word had never been broken, why should it be this time? The rupees would make them rich men for life, and would be paid with all secrecy. A Moslem himself, Der' Ali quoted the Koran voluminously. It was not for themselves that they feared death, it was on account of the mem-sahib, for if they were slain what would become of her? And what said the Holy Koran? "If ye be kind towards women, and fear to wrong them, G.o.d is well acquainted with what ye do."

For a time there was silence. The suspense of the beleaguered ones was terrible. Then the reply came.

"If the Colonel Sahib would give his promise to pay over the sum of five thousand rupees to an accredited messenger at a certain spot in eight days' time he and the mem-sahib and their servant should be spared. But the other sahib must come down and deliver himself into their hands."

"That's all right," said Campian cheerfully, when this had been rendered. "They want me as a hostage. Things are looking up. When they finger the rhino they'll turn me adrift again, and meanwhile I shall see something of the inner life of the wily Baluch."

"Tell them we'll double the sum if they let all four of us go," said the Colonel.

Der' Ali put this, but the reply of the leader was again prompt and decided. It was in the negative. The other sahib must come and deliver himself into their hands.

"The question is, can we trust them?" said the Colonel. "Will they keep to their conditions in any case? Once we are out of this we are at their mercy."

"Are we less so here?" said Campian. "A match put to that nice little pile and we shall be smoked or roasted in no time. No. Strike while the iron's hot, say I. Der' Ali, make them swear by all that they hold sacred to keep faith with us, and then I'll come down."

"Who is your leader, brothers?" called out the bearer.

"I, Ihalil Mohammed Khan," returned the same deep voice that had before spoken.

Then Der' Ali put to him the most binding oath he could call to mind, and Ihalil accepted it without hesitation. He bound himself by all the virtues of the Prophet, by the Koran, and by the holy Caaba, faithfully to observe the conditions he had laid down--in short, he almost swore too much.

"Say we accept, Der' Ali. I'm coming down."

"G.o.d bless you, my boy," said the Colonel, as he wrung the other's hand in farewell. "If it was only ourselves, I'd say let's all hang together. But for Vivien's sake. There, good-bye."

"Rather--so long, we'll say," was the cheerful reply. "I'll show up again in a few days."

Vivien said nothing. A silent pressure of the hands was the extent to which she could trust herself.

For all his a.s.sumed cheerfulness it was a critical moment for Campian, as once more he stood upon the floor of the waiting room, and, stumbling over the heaped-up combustibles, stepped outside into the full glare of daylight. His nerves were at their highest tension. The chances that he would be cut to pieces or not the moment he showed his face were about even. As in a flash, that question as to whether he was ever afraid of anything darted through his mind. At that moment he was conscious of feeling most horribly and unheroically afraid.

No one would have thought it to look at him, though--certainly not those into whose midst he now stepped.

"Salaam, brothers!" he said in Hindustani, with a glance at the ring of s.h.a.ggy scowling faces which hemmed him in.

The salute was sullenly returned, and then Ihalil, beckoning him to follow, led the way down the platform, surrounded by the whole party.

They pa.s.sed the body of the murdered policeman and that of the stationmaster, and at these some of the barbarians turned to spit, with muttered curses; and the platform, smeared and splattered with blood, was like the floor of a slaughter-house. Even the dirty white garments of the murderers were splashed with it.

Out through the gate at the end of the platform they went. Heavens, was the whole thing a dream--a nightmare? Why, it was less than an hour ago they had entered that gate all so light hearted and unthinking. He remembered the _badinage_ he had been exchanging with Nesta as they pa.s.sed in through it--and more than one reference as to meeting in Shalalai in a week or two. Now--who could say whether he would meet anybody again--in a week or two or ever? And then his sight fell upon that which caused him well nigh to give up hope.

In the shade before the station master's private quarters, a man was squatting--a wild, fierce-looking Baluchi. Before him the whole party now halted, treating him as with the deference due to a leader. But one glance at the grim, cruel face and eagle beak, and s.h.a.ggy knotted brows, sufficed. In him Campian recognised the man who had scowled so demoniacally upon him in the retinue of the Marri sirdar--the man he had wounded and lamed for life when set upon by the Ghazis in the Kachin valley. And this man was no other than the celebrated outlaw Umar Khan, and now, he was his prisoner.

And at that very moment it occurred to those left behind in the loft that any sort of stipulation as to the said prisoner being returned unharmed on the payment of the sum agreed upon had been entirely left out of the covenant.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

AT SHALALAI.

"By Jove, but it is good to be back again!" said Upward, in tones of intense satisfaction as he sat down to tiffin in his bungalow at Shalalai. "The garden is looking splendid, and then all the greenery in the different compounds after those beastly stones and junipers--I'm sick of the whole circus. Only a year or two more, thank goodness."

"Yes, it is always nice to be at home again," a.s.sented his wife. "Nesta must be sick of roughing it, too."

"Well, I won't say that," answered the girl. "I'll only agree that I am rather glad to be back again."

"So they will be at the club this afternoon," laughed Upward. "By the way, why don't those children come in? They are always late. It's a perfect nuisance."

A wrangle of voices, and the children did come in. Racket in hand, they were disputing vehemently as to the rights and wrongs of a game they had been obliged to break off in the middle of.

"Wonder how long Campian will stick at Jermyn's? I believe the old chap's getting a bit smashed there."

"Nonsense, Ernest," laughed his wife. "You're always thinking someone or other must be getting 'smashed.'"

"Why shouldn't he? She's a deuced fine girl that niece of Jermyn's--and then just think what a lot they'll see of each other. What do you think about it, Miss Cheriton?"

"Oh, I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Too black," put in Lily the irrepressible. "If he could run the gauntlet of Nesta all this time, I don't think he's likely to go smash there."

"Of course you're an authority on such matters, Lily," laughed her mother. "Ernest, you see now what notions you put into the children's heads."

"I don't want any tiffin," p.r.o.nounced Hazel. "I only want to get at those nectarines. They just are good. Bother camp! I like it much better here."

The large, lofty, cool room in which they were was hung around with trophies of the chase, all spoils of their owner's unerring rifle. One end of the room was hung with the skin of an immense tiger, draped, as it were, from ceiling to floor, the other with that of a somewhat smaller one, which had clawed a native out of a tree and killed him before Upward could get in a shot. Hard by was a finely marked panther-skin whose erewhile wearer had badly mauled Upward himself!

Panther and jungle cat and cheetul and others were all represented, and with horns of the blackbuck and sambur, tastefully disposed, produced an effect that was picturesque and unique. It served another purpose, too, as Upward used to say in his dry way. It gave people something to talk about when they came to tiffin and dinner. It was sure to set them comparing notes, or swearing they had seen or shot much bigger ones, and so forth. At any rate, it kept them going.

The bungalow was surrounded on three sides by a garden of which Upward was justly proud, for it was all of his own making. In front a trim lawn, bright with flower beds, and beyond this a tennis court, of which his neighbours did him the favour to make constant use. They likewise did him the favour to plant their bicycles, dogs, and other impedimenta, about his flower beds, or against the great crimson and purple convolvulus blossoms entwining his summer-house, whereat he fumed inwardly, but suffered in silence, from a misplaced good nature; and, after all, it was a little way they had in Shalalai. Peaches and nectarines and plums attained a high degree of excellence in their own department, likewise every kind of green vegetable--and the verandah was green and cool with all sorts of ferns.

"I wonder none of the garrison have been up, Miss Cheriton," he went on.