The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier

The victim uttered a loud cry.

“The third sun! Why, Sirdar Sahib, that will be impossible. I can never have so much money collected in so short a time. Make it the sixth sun.”

Murad Afzul consulted a moment with his followers. Then he said, —

“Allah is merciful, and so, too, will I be. I will say then by the setting of the fifth sun after this one. Yet try not to play us any false trick, thou dog, for it will be useless, and for what it will mean to thyself, look on yonder and be assured,” and, as though to emphasise the chief’s words, he who held the horrible human skin shook it warningly and suggestively in the face of the thoroughly terrified hostage.

The Political Agent, having dined well in his evening camp, was going over some official papers by the light of the tent lamp.

“Oh, Sunt Singh,” he said, looking up as a chuprassi entered, “what became of that trader who was with us? I didn’t see him when we first camped.”

“Huzoor, he is camped just below the sowars’ tents, I believe.”

“Yes? You may go,” and the official resumed what he was doing, without further thought for the luckless Chand Lall, who certainly was not where the lying chuprassi had said.

Chapter Seven

A Surprise

Herbert Raynier ran lightly up the steps of his verandah, feeling intensely satisfied with himself and things in general.

Though summer, the air was delightfully balmy, and the glow of the sunset reddening the heads of the mountains surrounding the basin in which lay Mazaran, was soothing and grateful to the eye. The bungalow was roomy and commodious, and stood in the midst of a pleasant garden, where closing flowers distilled fragrant scents upon the evening air – all this sent his mind back in thankful contrast to hot, steaming, languid Baghnagar, its brassy skies and feverish exhalations, where even at this late hour the very crows lining the roof would be open-billed and gasping. And thus contrasting the new with the old order of things he decided for the fiftieth time that the luckiest moment of his life was when he opened the official letter – which met him on landing at Bombay – appointing him Political Agent at Mazaran.

Hardly less in contrast between the climate of his new station and the last, were the people with whom he now had to deal. There was nothing whatever in common between the meek subservient native he had hitherto ruled and the stalwart independence of these wild mountain tribes, whose turbulent and predatory instincts needed nice handling to keep in efficient control. But all this appealed to him vividly, and he threw himself into his new duties with an eager zest which caused those who had known his predecessor to smile. He recognised that here at least was a chance; here he might find scope for such latent ability which the stagnant routine of his old Department had been in danger of stifling altogether. In fact, he was inclined to regret the abnormally tranquil state of things, when Jelson, his predecessor, had congratulated him upon the fact that Mushîm Khan, the chief of the powerful, and often turbulent, Gularzai tribe, had become so amenable since the Government had created him a Nawab that the meanest bunniah might almost walk through the Gularzai country alone and with his pockets bulging with rupees, in perfect safety.

Herbert Raynier flung himself into a comfortable chair on the verandah and lighted a cheroot. He had half an hour to spare before it should be time to dress and go out to dinner, and how should such be better spent than in a restful smoke: yet, while enjoying this, his thoughts were active enough. His prospects, rosy as the afterglow which dwelt upon the surrounding peaks, kept him busy for a time, and over all was a sense of great relief. If he had saved the life of an unknown Oriental at the hands of a particularly brutal mob, assuredly he had been repaid to the full, for, but for that circumstance, matters would never have come to a head with Cynthia. He would still be bound hard and fast by a chain of which he only realised the full weight since he had broken it. For he had broken it – finally, irrevocably, unmistakably, he told himself. Since that last scene in the Vicarage garden he and Cynthia had exchanged no word. The remainder of that day had not been of a pleasant nature, and he had left by an early train on the following morning, to return three days later to India. No letter, either of farewell, or reproach or recrimination – as he had half feared – reached him at the last, and it was with feelings of genuine relief that he watched the shores of the mother country fade into the invisible.

Tarleton, the Civil Surgeon, at whose bungalow Raynier was dining, was somewhat of a trying social unit, in that he was never even by chance known to agree with any remark or proposition, weighty or trivial, put forward by anybody, or if there was no conceivable room for gainsaying such, why then he would append some brisk aggressive comment in rider fashion. As thus, —

“How do, Raynier? How did you come over? Didn’t walk, did you?”

“No. Biked.”

“Ho! Bicycle’s not much use up here, I can tell you.”

Raynier remarked that he found the machine useful for getting about the station with, and that the roads in and immediately around the same were rather good.

“Well, you didn’t expect to find them all rocks and stones, did you?” came the prompt rejoinder.

Tarleton was white-haired and red-faced, which caused him to look older than his actual years. Another of his peculiarities was that he was continually altering his facial appearance. Now he would grow a beard; then suddenly, without a word to anybody, would trim it down to what they call in Transatlantic a “chin-whisker,” or shave it altogether. Or, one day he would appear with a long, carefully-waxed moustache, and the next with that appendage clipped to the consistency of a toothbrush. And so on.

Just at this stage, however, Raynier, recognising that he was on the high road to cordially detesting the man, had laid himself out to be extra long-suffering.

“Wonder if those women ever mean to come in?” went on Tarleton, with a fidgety glance at the clock, for the two were alone in the drawing-room just before dinner.

“Oh, one has to give the ornamental sex a little ‘law,’” said the other, good-humouredly.

“Well, you can’t expect them to put on their clothes and all that as quickly as we can,” was the rejoinder to this accommodating speech. And just then “those women,” in the shape of Mrs Tarleton and a guest, entered. The first was a good-humoured, pleasant-looking little Irishwoman, the second —

“How d’you do, Miss Clive? Why, this is a surprise,” began Raynier, without waiting for an introduction.

“I like surprises,” laughed the hostess. “They’re great fun. We thought we’d give you one, Mr Raynier.”

“They are, if, as now, they are pleasant ones,” he answered.

“Why, Mr Raynier, I didn’t think that kind of speech-making was at all in your line,” said the “Surprise,” demurely.

She was a tallish girl, rather slight, with refined and regular features, which nineteen out of twenty pronounced “cold.” She had a great deal of dark brown hair, and very uncommon eyes; in fact, they were unequivocally and unmistakably green. Yet framed in their dark, abundant lashes, they might be capable of throwing as complete an attraction, a fascination, as the more regulation blue or hazel ones. She was not popular with men. Not enough “go” in her, they declared. Seemed more cut out for a blue-stocking.

She and Raynier had been fellow-passengers out; but had had little to say to each other on board. He had danced with her three or four times, which was rather remarkable in view of that being a form of exercise which he favoured but little. Both had this in common, that they held aloof from the usual ’board-ship amusements, yet they had not come together at all. It was only when they landed at Bombay, and the friends she had expected to meet her had not arrived, that Raynier, noticing the look of intense consternation, of bewilderment even, upon the girl’s face, as she realised how she was stranded, a total stranger in a very strange land, had come to the rescue – had even foregone his train and remained over until the next day to be of service to her. This he had done out of sheer kindness – the other passengers having gone their respective ways without giving her a thought – and having handed her over to her friends who had been unavoidably delayed, had bidden her good-bye and had gone his own – he, too, scarcely giving her another thought.

“Hilda says you were so kind to her at Bombay, Mr Raynier,” went on his hostess.

“Oh, no – that’s nothing, Mrs Tarleton. Glad to have been of any service, of course,” he replied, in that hurried, half-confused way to be expected of a man of his disposition under the circumstances.

“But it isn’t nothing,” struck in the girl, decidedly. “Do you know, Mrs Tarleton, Mr Raynier even waited till the next day to look after me. And it’s odd, because we hardly knew each other on the ship.”

“Oh, well,” mumbled Raynier, jerkily, “you can’t see anybody stranded like that – a lady especially – in a totally strange place without doing something to straighten things out for them.”

Hilda Clive smiled.

“None of the others seemed to be of that opinion, at any rate,” she said.

Snapped Tarleton, “Well, you can’t expect a lot of people just landed from a voyage to think about anything but themselves and their own belongings.”

For once Raynier felt frankly grateful to the contentious one – if only that it was sufficient for Tarleton to lay down a statement on any given subject to cause his ordinary hearers to drop that subject like a red-hot bar. Wherefore these promptly turned to another.

Sunt Singh and Kaur Singh, chuprassis, were aroused from the drowsy enjoyment of their hubble-bubbles by a very unwonted intruder in the Political Agent’s compound late at night, and were well-nigh speechless with supercilious amazement. The fat trader they had left on the road! See the Huzoor! At that time of night! It was the Police Station the fool wanted. Something of the highest importance? Let him come in the morning. It would keep until then. Besides, the Huzoor was out dining.

In a direful state of fear and perplexity Chand Lall, thus rebuffed, got out into the road again, and with a scared look over each shoulder, took his way as quickly as he could from the gate. But this was not quick, for even in the darkness it might have been seen that he walked with a painful limp. In the darkness too, something else might have been seen – two figures stealing along in the deeper shade of the tamarisk hedge. He whom they shadowed saw them not – at first – then having chosen their spot, they quickened their pace, and darting forward flung themselves upon him.

The yell which the assailed man opened his mouth to utter died in his throat as the white light of a long knife blade streaked before his eyes.

“Silence or thou art dead,” snarled a harsh voice. “So, dog, thou wouldst betray us?”

In the dirty-white turbans and hairy, hook-nosed faces, Chand Lall knew only too well who were these. Already they had begun to drag him swiftly along. Then in his frenzy of terror at the recollection of the fate he had escaped from and which certainly waited him now, even the fear of instant death did not avail. A loud, quavering shriek for aid rang from his lips.

But it died in a choking gasp. The white knife blade disappeared, to emerge again red – and this not once only. A corpse lay wallowing in the road, and two loosely-clad figures vanished into the darkness, even as they had come out of it.

Chapter Eight

The Mark of Murad Afzul

Raynier was wondering over several things. He was wondering how anyone living could stand Tarleton for life – as his wife did; how anyone could stand him for a week, or two or three – as his guest was doing; or for two or three hours – as he himself was trying to do. Then, constantly observing Hilda Clive – opposite him, for they were a party of four – he was wondering how it was that she had held out so little attraction to him hitherto. For nearly three weeks they had been pent up together in the close proximity of shipboard – yet he had hardly been aware of her existence. While he was looking after her at Bombay, she had seemed more attractive, but not much. Yet now, meeting her again and unexpectedly, he was conscious of this or that subtle trait which interested him.

Still, why had he not discovered it before? Time, opportunity – all had been favourable. He supposed it was that the recollection of Cynthia Daintree had left a bitter taste in his mouth, and that he had been passing through a misogynistic stage accordingly.

“I don’t believe these ‘budmashes’ are as quiet as they seem,” Tarleton was saying. “Or if they are, it’s because they are hatching devilment. I’ve been longer among them than you have, Raynier, and Mushîm Khan isn’t the sort to turn into a lamb all of a sudden, as he seems to have done lately.”