Part 25 (1/2)
”Anything I can do to help to bring that about I will.”
The days went by; and Wargrave, aided by his clean living, the devoted nursing that he received, and the cool, healthy mountain air, began to mend. Major Hunt had recovered and returned to duty, relieving the officer sent from Headquarters to command during his illness. Colonel Dermot had come back from Simla with Frank's appointment to the Political Department as his a.s.sistant in his pocket. The murdered man had long ago been laid to rest by his comrades; but his slayer still sat fettered in the one cell of the Fort awaiting the a.s.sembling of the General Court Martial for his trial, and seeing from his barred window the even routine of the life that had been his for three years still going on, but with no place in it for him.
The period of Wargrave's convalescence was a very happy time for him.
Muriel had remained a whole month after the eventful night; for Mrs.
Dermot declared that, with the care of her house and children, she had no time to nurse the subaltern, and the girl must stay to do it while he was in any danger. So she lingered in the station to do him willing service, wait on him, chat or read to him, give him her arm when he was first allowed to leave his room, and did it all with the bright, cheerful kindness of a friend, no more. She never alluded to his words to her; but her patient somehow guessed that she had not been angered by the revelation of the state of his feelings towards her. And from the tenderness of her manner to him, the unconscious jealousy that she displayed if anyone but she did any service for him, he began to half hope, half fear, that she cared a little for him in return. But even as he thought this he realised that he must not allow her to do so.
At last the time came when she had to return to her father down in the vast forest; and bravely as she said goodbye to everyone--and most of all to Frank--the tears blinded her as she sat on the back of the elephant that bore her away and saw the hills close in and shut from her gaze the little station that held her heart.
Wargrave, however, was not left to pine in loneliness after her departure. All day long, if they were allowed, the children stayed with him, Eileen smothering him with caresses at regular intervals. They told him their doings, confided their dearest secrets to him and demanded stories. And ”Fw.a.n.kie” racked his brains to recall the fairy tales of his own childhood to repeat to the golden-haired mites perched on his bed and gazing at him in awed fascination, the girl uttering little shrieks at all the harrowing details of the wicked deeds of Giant Blunderbore and the cruel deceit of the wolf that devoured Red Ridinghood.
But the subaltern, had a grimmer visitor one day. The orders came at last for Gul Mahommed to be sent to Calcutta to stand his trial without waiting for Wargrave's recovery, the latter's evidence being taken on commission. The prisoner begged that he might be allowed to see the wounded officer before he left; and, Frank having consented, he was brought to the subaltern's bedroom when he was marched out of the Fort on the first stage of his journey to the gallows.
It was a dramatic scene. The stalwart young Pathan in uniform with his wrists handcuffed stood with all the bold bearing of his race by the bedside of the man that he had tried to kill, while two powerful sepoys armed with drawn bayonets hemmed him in, their hands on his shoulders.
The prisoner looked for a moment at the pale face of the wounded man, then his bold eyes suffused with tears as he said:
”_Huzoor_! (The Presence!) I am sorry. Had I known that night it was Your Honour I would not have lifted my rifle against you. The Sahib has always been good to me, to all of us. My enemy I slew, as we of the _Puktana_ must do to all who insult us. That deed I do not regret.”
Wargrave looked up sorrowfully at the splendidly-built young fellow--barely twenty-one--who had only done as he had been taught to do from his cradle. Among Pathans blood only can wash away the stain of an insult. The officer felt no anger against him for his own injuries and regretted that false notions of honour had led him to kill a comrade and were now sending him to a shameful death.
”I am sorry, Gul Mahommed, very sorry,” he said. ”You were always a good soldier, and now you must die.”
The Pathan drew himself up with all the haughty pride of his race.
”I do not fear death, Sahib. They will give me the noose. But my father can spare me. He has five other sons to fight for him. If only the Sahib would forgive----.”
Wargrave, much moved, held out his hand to him. The prisoner touched it with his manacled ones, then raised his fingers to his forehead.
”For your kindness, Sahib, _salaam_!”
Then he turned and walked proudly out of the room and Wargrave heard the tramp of heavy feet on the rocky road outside as the prisoner was marched away on the long trail to the gallows. Two months later Gul Mahommed was hanged in the courtyard of Alipur jail in Calcutta before detachments of all the regiments garrisoning the city.
The subaltern had long chafed at the restraint of an invalid before Macdonald took him off the sick-list and he was free to wander again with Colonel Dermot in the forest and among the mountains. Before the hot weather ended Raymond came to spend three weeks with him and be initiated into the delights of sport in the great jungle.
When the long imprisonment of the rains came Wargrave began to suffer in health; for his wounds had sapped his strength more than he knew and Macdonald shook his head over him. Nor was he the only invalid; for little Brian grew pale and listless in the mists that enveloped the outpost constantly now, until finally the doctor decreed that his mother, much as she hated parting from her husband and her home, must take the children to Darjeeling. And he ordered the subaltern to go too.
Frank did not repine, after Mrs. Dermot had casually intimated that Muriel Benson was arranging to join her at the railway station and accompany her on a long visit to Darjeeling.
It was Wargrave's first introduction to a hill-station; and everything was a delightful novelty to him, from the quaint little train that brought them up the seven thousand feet to their destination in the pretty town of villas, clubs and hotels in the mountains, to the glorious panorama of the Eternal Snows and Kinchinjunga's lofty crests that rise like fairyland into the sky at early dawn and under the brilliant Indian moon.
As Mrs. Dermot could not often leave her children it was Muriel, who knew Darjeeling well, who became his guide. Together every day they set out from their hotel, together they scaled the heights of Jalapahar or rode down to watch the polo on the flat hill-top of Lebong, a thousand feet below. Together they explored the fascinating bazaar and bought ghost-daggers and turquoises in the quaint little shops. Together they went on picnics down into the deep valleys on the way to Sikkhim. They played tennis, rinked or danced together at the Amus.e.m.e.nt Club; and the ladies at the tea-tables in the great lounge smiled significantly and whispered to each other as the good-looking fair man and the pretty, dark-haired girl came in together when the light was fading on the mountains. Frank forgot cares. He ceased to brood unhappily--for it had come to that--on Violet, who, as her rare letters told him, had spent the Hot Weather in the Bombay hill-station of Mahableshwar and was now enjoying life during the Rains in gay Poona. She seldom wrote, and then but sc.r.a.ppily; and it seemed to him certain that she was forgetting him.
And he felt ashamed at the joy which filled him at the thought. Was he always destined to be only the friend of the girl he loved, the lover of the woman to whom he wished to be a friend?
CHAPTER XII
”ROOTED IN DISHONOUR”
Government House, Ganeshkind, outside Poona, the residence of the Governor of Bombay during the Rains, was blazing with light and gay with the sound of music; for His Excellency was giving a fancy dress ball.