Part 28 (2/2)
”But still, Chief, though Hunsa has an animal cunning, yet he could not make up such a story--he has heard it somewhere.”
Barlow felt his heart warm toward the grizzled old warrior as he, dropping the nebulous matter of k.u.mari, said: ”And to think, Captain Sahib, that but for the Gulab we would have slain you as the murderer of Amir Khan. As a Patan, even if I had wished it, I could not have fended the _tulwars_ from your body. And you were a brave man, such as a Pindari loves; rather than announce thyself as an Englay--the paper gone and thy mission failed--thou wouldst have stood up to death like a soldier.”
He put his hand caressingly on Barlow's knee, adding: ”By the Beard of the Prophet thou art a man! But all this, Sahib, is to this end; we hold the Gulab in reverence, as did Amir Khan, and if it is permitted, I would have her put in thy hands for her going. Those that were here in the camp with her fled at the first alarm, and my riders discovered to-day, too late, that they hid in an old mud-walled fort about three miles from here whilst my Pindaris scoured the country for them; then when my riders returned they escaped. So the Gulab is alone. I will send a guard of fifty hors.e.m.e.n and they will ride with thee till thou turnest their horses' heads homeward, and for the Gulab there will be a _tonga_, such as a Nawab might use, drawn by well-fed, and well-shod horses. That, too, she may keep to the end of her journey and afterwards, returning but the driver.”
”My salaams to you, Chief, for your goodness. To-morrow if it please you I will go with your promises to the British.”
”It is a command, Sahib--to-morrow. And may the Peace of Allah be upon thee and thy house always!”
He held out a hand and his large dark eyes hovered lovingly over the face of the Englishman.
CHAPTER XXVI
Captain Barlow walked along to the tent of Bootea to tell her of the arrangement that had been made for their leaving the camp so that she might be ready. He could see in the girl's eyes the reflection of a dual mental struggle, an ineffable sweetness varied by a changing cloud of something that was apprehension or doubt.
”The Sahib is a protector to Bootea,” she said. ”Sometimes I wondered if such men lived; yet I suppose a woman always has in her mind a vague conception that such an one might be. But always that, that is like a dream, is broken--one wakes.”
Prosaically taking the matter in hand Barlow said, ”You would wish to go back to your people at Chunda--is it not so?”
The girl's eyes flashed to his face, and her brows wrinkled as if from pain. ”Those who have fled will be on their way to Chunda, and they will tell of the slaying of Amir Khan. The Dewan will be pleased, and they will be given honour and rich reward; they will be allowed to return to Karowlee.”
”Yes,” Barlow interposed; ”that Hunsa goes not back will simply be taken as an affair of war, that he was captured and killed; there will be n.o.body to relate that you revealed the plot. When you arrive there you, also, will be showered with favours, and Ajeet Singh will owe his life to you; they will set him at liberty.”
”And as to Nana Sahib?” Bootea asked, and there was pathetic dread in her eyes.
”What is it--you fear him?”
”Yes, Sahib, he will claim Bootea; a Mahratta never keeps faith. There will be a fresh covenant, because he is like a beast of the jungle.”
Barlow paced back and forth the small confine of the tent, muttering.
”It's h.e.l.l!” He pictured the Gulab in the harem of Nana Sahib--in a gaudy prison chained to a serpent. To interfere on her behalf would be to sacrifice what came first, his duty as an officer of state, to what would be called, undoubtedly, an infatuation. Elizabeth would take it that way; even his superiors would call it at least inexpedient, bad form. For a British officer to be interested or mixed up with a native woman, no matter how n.o.ble the impulse, would be a shatterment of both official and personal caste.
”I won't allow that,” he declared vehemently, s.h.i.+fting into words his mental traverse.
Bootea had followed with her eyes his struggle; then she said: ”The Sahib has heard of the women of the Rajputs who, with smiles on their lips faced death, who, when the time of the last danger came were not afraid?”
”Yes, Gulab. But for you it is not that way. You have said that I am your protector--I will be.”
There was a smile on the girl's lips as she raised her eyes to Barlow's. ”It is not permitted, Sahib; the G.o.ds have the matter in their lap. For a little--yes, perhaps. It is the time of the pilgrimage to the shrine of Omkar at Mandhatta, and Bootea will make the pilgrimage; at the shrine is the priest that told Bootea of her reincarnations, as I related to the Sahib.”
A curious superst.i.tious chill struck with full force upon the heart of Barlow. Ka.s.sim's story of k.u.mari revivified itself with startling remembrance. Was this the priest that, to save k.u.mari's sacrifice, had wafted her by occult or drug method from one embodied form into another, from k.u.mari to Bootea? It was so confusing, so overpowering in its clutch that he did not speak of it.
The girl was adding: ”It is on the Sahib's way to Poona; there will be many from Karowlee at Mandhatta and I can return with them.”
This seemed reasonable to Barlow; she would there be in the company of people not at war. And then, erratically, rebelliously, he felt a heart hunger; but he cursed this feeling as being vicious--it was. He smothered it, shoving it back into a niche of his mind, thinking he had locked it up--had turned a key in the door of the closet to hide the skeleton.
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