The flag of adventure CH :21

WELL AND TRULY LAID.

Still the storm tarried. Supper was served, and Eveleen made a pretence of eating, lest the servants should attribute her lack of appetite to fear. Then they went away to have their food—Ketty eating in self-righteous solitude, while Abdul Qaiyam fraternised with the boatmen, who had kindled a fire on the island to cook their rice. Eveleen envied them as they sat in the smoke, for it served to keep away mosquitoes and other flying pests, while she durst not light a candle for fear of filling the cabin with the winged intruders. Alone with her unconscious husband, she kept a dreary vigil, fearful of she knew not what. She remembered that Richard had seemed about to say something when the boat with the guards came up, but the momentary impulse had passed, and he had shown no inclination to speak since. What was it that had troubled him? Could it be that he had recognised any of the men? But even so, what could the guards do, even if ill-disposed? They might intend robbery, but the modest belongings of the pair would be poor booty compared with the danger of provoking the certain vengeance of the Bahadar Jang. Or if they were indeed adherents of the Khans, their object might be simply to avenge the wrongs of their former masters; and Eveleen shuddered as she remembered what had befallen an invalid officer, on his way down the river, at the hands of some of Khair Husain Khan's servants. Dragged from his boat shivering with fever, the sick man had pleaded with the robbers, as he thought them, to leave him his clothes, because he was so cold, and they had responded by cutting off his head. Sir Harry had acted as might have been expected of him, informing the Khan he would hang him from the round tower of the Fort unless the guilty servants were given up. They were produced in an hour, and suffered the penalty their master escaped, though it went sorely against the grain with Sir Harry to spare Khair Husain and punish his tools. That example ought to serve as a salutary warning, surely?

But Eveleen could not take comfort. The servants had returned and made things ready for the night, and she had lain down on her bed, though knowing she could not sleep. Every sense seemed to be more than commonly alive, as though the coming storm, which had lulled Richard into lethargy, merely stimulated her. Theoretically no one was awake within miles of her—for what was the use of posting sentries on an uninhabited island in the middle of a wide river?—but the air was full of little unaccountable noises. A feeble soughing wind that went and came, distant irritable growlings of the storm, the rattling, rather than rustling, of the withered grass and rushes—these sounds she could identify, but there were others whose meaning eluded her. Of course it was only the lapping of the water that sounded like whispers, and when one might think some one had dropped a weapon it was merely the snapping off of a dead branch by its own weight; but she wished they would not happen. The blinds at the ends of the cabin were rolled up to allow the free passage of air, and she lay looking out at the leaden sky, with no companionable stars to brighten it, and listening to the sounds, and there fell upon her at last an agony of terror. It had always been her boast that she did not know what nerves were, but she would never make it again. The beating of her own heart sounded to her like the rise and fall of a tremendous piston, such as she had once heard in a Dublin factory, filling the whole earth and sky; and as she cowered before its relentless thud, she trembled with cold, though the slightest movement made her aware that her whole frame was streaming with perspiration. She who had been afraid of nothing was afraid of everything—the place, the time, the weather, the solitude, the company, the silence, the sounds,—what she saw and what she did not see.

She shook herself angrily free from the overmastering terror at last—or at any rate, which perhaps showed equal courage, she acted as if she did. Struggling from the bed and to her feet—for she found she must put forth all her strength, as though she were really being held down by a powerful hostile hand,—she threw on a dressing-gown and groped her way forward. The old bearer, curled up like a dog beside his master, heard her and looked up curiously: she saw his bright eyes like a dog's in the dark, lighted by some gleam behind her, perhaps the ashes of the dying fire on the shore. She stood looking out, but there was nothing to see. Dark sky, dark water—a perfect pall of darkness brooding over everything,—and on her left a slightly deeper darkness which showed the position of the island and its ragged grass and shrubs. The voices of the night were whispering as before, and again she felt that terrible sensation of helplessness. Once she opened her lips to pray, but her pride was not broken yet. "And how would I pray," she asked herself sharply, "when I know every bit of it's my own doing?"

She staggered as she spoke, and caught at the framework of the cabin to steady herself. What had made the boat lurch suddenly—some wave which was the result of the storm higher up, its precursor here? She looked more narrowly at the water. Was it fancy, or did she see round things moving in it? And surely there were strange amorphous shapes where there had been none before? Her heart stood still. The change, if change there was, was so soundless, so ghostly. But the thought of the supernatural passed from her mind with a shock. The boat was moving. Not merely swaying at its moorings as the current tried to suck it away from the protecting island, but moving out into the stream and leaving the island behind. Wild thoughts of crocodiles rushed into her mind. Could they possibly bite through stout ropes and tow a boat along, or even leave it to float at its own sweet will? Impossible; there must be human agency at work. With Eveleen to think was to act, and kneeling precariously at the side of the boat, she leaned over the gunwale and clutched at one of the round objects she had thought she saw. The yell of horror which came from it told her what the sense of touch told also, that it was a human head. The boat was surrounded by swimming men, who were moving it away from the island—presumably it was also being towed by a rope. But what the great shapeless objects were, which she seemed to see beyond the heads, she could not tell, nor did she trouble to conjecture. Whether she or the man she had grasped was the more astonished might be doubtful, but she had the advantage of position. Catching up an earthen water-pot which stood outside the cabin for the sake of coolness, she hurled it in the direction of the yell, and was on her feet in a moment and under the mat roof. When she came out, Richard's pistols were in her hand, and she fired one in the direction of the island as a signal. She could not believe that Mr Firozji was concerned in any plot that might be toward, and if he was a man at all he would come to the rescue with those guards of his.

The immediate response to her signal was a startling one. She had barely time to recharge the pistol, working clumsily in the dark, before there was a hasty movement of men aft—whether the boatmen or the swimmers she could not tell, nor was she much concerned to know. At the moment she was more conscious of Abdul Qaiyam's heavy breathing close beside her as he asked in a bewildered voice whether the Beebee had shot anybody than of her possible assailants. Hurriedly she thrust the ammunition pouch at him.

"Load when I pass y'a pistol!" she said sharply, and then called out in her imperfect Persian to the men in front that if any one came nearer she would shoot him. One man sprang forward, and she fired at him point-blank. The blind shot in the dark must have taken effect, for the man cried out and fell forward. Confused cries of rage and protest came from the rest, and Eveleen held her hand. For the moment she had thought of discharging all the three shots she had left into the group, in the hope of driving them overboard at once, but the imprudence of leaving herself defenceless, even for a moment, was reinforced by mystification. The whole thing was like a bad dream—the shapes in the water, the moving crowd dark against the dark sky, the eager talking in an unknown tongue. If it was Persian, her knowledge of the language was quite inadequate to cope with it. She stooped a moment towards Abdul Qaiyam as he handed her the recharged pistol.

"Speak to them!" she said imperiously. "Ask them who they are—what they want. Tell them we are well armed, and can see them though they can't see us."

The old man was too much terrified to obey immediately, and she thrust at him impatiently with her foot. Then his quavering voice made itself heard—"Brothers!" and the men in front appeared to listen. One of them stepped forward a little.

"Stand back, or I fire!" said Eveleen quickly, and the bearer repeated the words in Persian. As he spoke, she remembered suddenly that she must be visible to any one able to see through the cabin from end to end, and she sank on her knees, resting the barrel of the heavy pistol on the back of a camp-chair which she pulled noiselessly towards her. Crouching thus, she was invisible to those in front, and a barrier—if a frail one—between Richard and the enemy. But were they enemies, or was there some absurd mistake? She could not decide, but she felt fairly certain that what they had been speaking was not Persian, though the spokesman—who had withdrawn a pace or two hastily before her threat—was using that language with Abdul Qaiyam.

"These are very bad people," the old man murmured to her at last, and she listened without turning her head. "Kajia tribe—they come to steal the boat—everything."

"Nonsense! they'll not do anything of the sort. Where will the Parsee be, now? letting this kind of thing happen instead of coming to help us."

To her amazement the meek voice of Mr Firozji answered her—apparently from somewhere close at hand. In her bewilderment she suffered her gaze to stray for a moment, and discerned dimly that he was just outside the boat, but seemingly not in the water. At least, his voice was on a level with the gunwale, though there was no grating sound to show that another boat was rasping alongside. The mad incomprehensibility of the situation was more incomprehensible than ever.

"The Beebee beholds in me a son of misfortune," he said pathetically. "The Kajias have deceived me. They have stolen the boat, so as to carry away the Sahib, the Beebee, myself, the servant people—all."

"And what may those guards of yours be about, to let them do it? Call them, can't you? Shout!"

"The Kajias would slay me," in affright. "The guards are asleep."

"Much good they are! But what do the Kajias want to do with us? We'd be no good to them to steal."

"Are they not taking us to their camp?" he suggested doubtfully.

"Well, they won't, then. Tell them to go back and leave us on the island, and take the boat if they want it."

"They say the water will soon be rising, and we should all be drowned. They refuse to leave us."

"Sure they're very considerate! Well, tell them we won't go to their camp—or if we do, there'll be precious few of them will take us there. I have plenty of shots here, and I'll use them all first."

"What does the Beebee please to desire?" was the question asked after some interchange of conversation between Mr Firozji and the captors. Eveleen had employed the interval in thinking hard. She did not believe the Kajias meant to take their victims to their camp—or if they did, it was merely for the sake of killing them more at their leisure. It was in the highest degree unlikely that they would leave witnesses alive to testify against them, or provoke Sir Harry further by attempting to hold them to ransom. No, what they had no doubt intended was to tow the boat out of earshot of the sleepy guards on the island, and then cut the throats of all on board, and gut the vessel and send her adrift, in the comfortable conviction that nothing but unrecognisable fragments would survive the storm. This seemed the more certain from their bringing with them the means of getting to shore again, for the mysterious shapes—on one of which Mr Firozji was uncomfortably poised, like a river-god in difficult circumstances—were obviously the mashaks, or inflated skins, with the help of which the tribes on the banks were in the habit of making such short voyages as they found necessary. How they had managed to abstract the poor little man from his own boat, under the eyes of his servants, was a mystery, but everything was mysterious to-night.

He repeated his question as Eveleen hesitated a moment.

"Why, let them take us over to the other side," she answered—the desire to be as far as possible from the Kajias conquering all other considerations. "I'd rather choose the desert than their camp."

"There is no time. They are afraid of the storm." Mr Firozji's voice sounded as if he was frightened himself.

"Well, they may say whether they'll be shot, or drowned in the storm. I'd much rather be drowned——" She stopped suddenly, for the second pistol, which had lain beside her knee, was hastily withdrawn, and a shot rang out behind her. Then she laughed rather wildly, for the deferential voice of the old bearer murmured—

"This humble one made bold to fire at one of the sons of wickedness who was climbing into the boat behind the Beebee's back."

"Quite right!" she said, still laughing, then turned sharply upon Mr Firozji. "Tell them they are wasting time. If the storm overtakes us 'twill be their fault. I'm tired of this. Let them make up their minds."

Again there was a prolonged conversation, and apparently the Kajias gave a grudging assent to the condition. "If the Beebee is determined to drown all of us and the Kajias too, she must," remarked Mr Firozji sourly as he scrambled on board the boat, having taken the opportunity of putting in a word for himself in the course of the negotiations. Yet Eveleen had the idea that he was not really displeased, and she wondered whether he could possibly be in league with the Kajias after all. But the notion seemed so absurd that she banished it again, though disregarding coldly his hints that the night air was unhealthy, and refusing to invite him into the cabin. The Kajias—or the boatmen—or perhaps they were the same: it was impossible to see—were very busy, working with an alacrity rather surprising in the circumstances. There was a slight chill breeze to be felt now, and they were hoisting the sail, and also getting out their poles. Were they really indifferent which bank they landed on, or were they plotting further treachery? As noiselessly as she could, Eveleen supplemented the chair which served her as a parapet by such other pieces of furniture and packages as she could reach, and whispered to Abdul Qaiyam to do the same at the other end of the cabin, entrusting him with one of the pistols. In feeling about, she came across Ketty, who had preserved such an unwonted silence during the stirring events of the last half-hour that her mistress had forgotten all about her. But she had been employing her time to advantage, as Eveleen discovered when she found her dressing-case open and largely denuded. Her handmaid had been removing such fittings as were of convenient size, and concealing them about her person.

"What in the world are you doing, Ketty?" The tone would have been louder but for prudential reasons.

"What madam doing without her things?" was the self-righteous reply, calculated to make Eveleen repent her unjust suspicions. Were they really unjust? she wondered.

"Well, I hope y'are taking care of the Sahib as well," she said. "He needs much more than I do."

The sniff with which Ketty replied suggested that she considered this would be trespassing on Abdul Qaiyam's province, but her mistress had no time to see whether she was obeying or not, for there were other things to think of. The tardy storm was coming up at last, heralded by the breeze which was taking the boat across the stream. Great drops of rain were falling like bullets on the cabin roof, and the air was full of a hissing noise. The boat was in the main stream now, and the boatmen drew in their poles, and evidently settled down to hold tight and hope for the best. The river seemed bewitched, cross-currents driving the boat now this way, now that, and the men who were managing the clumsy sail had no easy task. The vessel was not built for rough weather, her draught being too shallow and her deck-load too heavy. She bounced and bobbed about, shipping a good deal of water, and hurling all the loose things in the cabin from side to side with every lurch. Fearful of a surprise, Eveleen durst not leave her post even to see that Richard was safe, and had to take what comfort she could from the knowledge that his charpoy was fixed to the deck. By the sounds she heard, she gathered that the two servants were in the throes of sea-sickness, and she wondered dismally what would happen if she herself were prostrated by it as on the voyage from Bombay. But her mental preoccupation probably saved her, and she was able to maintain her watch. Sheets of rain were falling now, and she was soaked to the skin, but did her best to shelter the pistol under the wadded quilt she dragged from her bed. The lightning was almost continuous, and whenever the howling and shrieking of the wind would allow, the rolling thunder filled up any pauses. The boat appeared to have embarked with enthusiasm on a series of experiments—now trying to stand on her head, now on her tail, and then seeing how far she could heel over without actually dipping gunwale under. It was wonderful that the mast did not go, though the great sail had been partly torn and partly cut away, and replaced by a tiny one which just kept the vessel before the wind. By the flashes of the lightning Eveleen noted grimly the miserable huddled figures forward, and guessed that the Kajias were not particularly happy in their conquest.

"If only there was a man on board worth a halfpenny—barring my poor Ambrose," she said to herself, "we'd retake the ship in no time. But who is there at all? Firozji is no mortal use; if Bearer can fire a pistol, that's the most he can do; and as for the boatmen, if they ain't Codgers themselves, they're every bit as bad. Indeed and they're worse, for they ain't sea-sick."

Her self-communing was interrupted by a tremendous clap of wind, which came down on the boat as though determined to end her gambols at one blow. But once more she righted herself, though the cabin roof was torn bodily from its supports and carried gaily down the river. Eveleen's heart failed her until she had assured herself, by groping and feeling, that Richard and the two servants were still there. The roar and crack had been so overwhelming that for the moment she fully believed the boat had broken in two, and they were all so wet already that the exposure to the rain hardly signified. Moreover, the loss of the mast and the cabin made the boat decidedly steadier, though Eveleen was less grateful for this than might have been expected, since she saw distinct signs of returning animation among the captors when the lightning made them visible. Could they be nearing the shore? she wondered. How long they had been tossing about, yet on the whole forging eastwards, she could not tell, but now that the lightning was less continuous, it seemed to her that between the flashes the darkness was not quite so in tense. It was a poor prospect—to be turned out on an unknown shore with a sick man and two frightened servants; but the expectation of treachery was so strong in her mind that she would have been thankful if they had been already there. Certainly it was not goodwill on the part of the Kajias that had induced them to undertake a voyage of so much danger and difficulty to get rid of their prisoners, with the prospect of another even more difficult and dangerous in getting back to their own side of the river; what then was it? It was not fear. During her tempestuous vigil she had seen that clearly. Her bluff before the storm had been spirited, but at any moment she might have been rushed from behind and thrown overboard, or a man on a mashak, shooting at the sound of her voice in the dark, might have crippled or killed her without the slightest risk to himself. It could hardly be vengeance, since—though it might involve more suffering to your captives to maroon them on the barren shore where they had mistakenly asked to be placed than to kill them and dispose of their bodies in the river—their sufferings, which you would not see, would hardly be sufficient compensation for the risk to yourself involved in getting them there. Mr Firozji, too. A certain complacence about the little man's manner led Eveleen to the conclusion that the greater part of his merchandise must consist in precious stones hidden about his person, so that he could regard lightly the loss of all the rest. But if she could guess this, so could the Kajias, and were they really going to allow him to escape with it? The whole thing—like all the events of the night—was beset with riddles, and all that could be done was to keep a sharp watch against surprise. But in what direction? Eveleen did not know where to look, and moreover, the unceasing strain of the last few hours was telling upon her. She had been soaked so repeatedly that she could hardly remember what it was to feel dry and warm; she was aching in every limb, and—what was worse—her eyes would hardly keep open. In spite of the misery of body and anxiety of mind which had already endured so long, she began to find her eyelids closing involuntarily and imperceptibly, when she knew she ought to redouble her vigilance of the night now that dawn would soon give her enemies the advantage. She had no longer even the shelter of the cabin from which to fire, and her poor attempt at a barricade had been disintegrated long ago, and its component parts strewn upon the waters. She turned her head with difficulty, and saw—yes, the light must be increasing, since now she could see dimly Richard's white face as he lay stark and stiff, like a dead man, on the charpoy, which was fortunately fixed against the framework of the cabin at the corner where it had suffered least, the old bearer crouched beside him, one hand clenched on the pistol, and Ketty hunched up, like a little old monkey, nearer to herself. They were defenceless but for the two pistols—even if the charges were not too damp to fire. The Kajias could shoot them down without the slightest risk, or—supposing their matchlocks also were useless, or their powder too precious to waste on such game—kill them with their knives with little danger to themselves. Why had they not done it long ago?

With equal difficulty Eveleen turned again towards them, where they sat huddled in the bow, with the boatmen as a sort of neutrals between, and Mr Firozji, with chattering teeth, crouching alone as though disowned by all parties. The men in the bows were beginning to lose something of their despairing attitude—taking an interest in things again, and exchanging a word or two with one another. She could see them, though in the driving rain she could not hear them; and she tried to pierce the veil of moisture ahead, and see if land were visible. But as yet she could see nothing but a grey expanse of angry water, yellow in streaks with sand, and bearing on its bosom uprooted trees and brushwood, with the grey sky overhead and the grey curtain of rain between. She tried to collect her thoughts and devise some way of getting Richard ashore—when they reached the shore. But what kind of shore would it be—high and rocky, or the endless flat land over which the flooded river must now be crawling relentlessly? How could she decide till she knew?

The end came suddenly—so suddenly that for the moment she thought she must have been asleep, and missed what led up to it. The boatmen had their poles out again, the keel was grating on ground of some sort, and yet there was still nothing to be seen but the river and the rain. But to the accustomed eyes of the Kajias more must have been visible, for they were standing up and talking eagerly. She noticed indifferently what big strapping fellows they were—picturesque despite their drenched clothes and shapeless turbans, and the ringlets, of which they were ordinarily so proud, lying limp and straight on their shoulders and mingling with their beards. The absurd reflection occurred to her that the rain must have washed them a little clean, which would be a strange experience to them. One of them turned round and kicked Mr Firozji, saying something to him, and the old Parsee stumbled up from the deck and addressed Eveleen in his beautiful Persian, which she found so difficult to understand.

"The boat can go no farther—the water is shallow——" his words tumbled over one another. "The boatmen will carry the Beebee ashore, if she will promise not to shoot."

"Let them take the Sahib first," said Eveleen promptly, then hesitated. How could she let them carry Richard away out of her sight, not knowing where they were taking him? Better go first herself. And yet how could she know how roughly they might handle him if she and her pistol were not there? "Won't you go first yourself?" she asked eagerly. "Then you can see that they put Major Ambrose down carefully, and I will come last."

Mr Firozji's face was ashy. "I fear—I greatly fear," he stammered. "I have the conviction that they will kill me if I leave the Sahib and the Beebee."

Clearly there was no help here. She must take the risk. She turned to Abdul Qaiyam. "Watch over the Sahib, bearer; see that they carry him properly on the charpoy. Fire the pistol if they are rough, and I will come back. I can't be any wetter than I am," she added to herself, and rather wondered that the captors should offer to put her ashore instead of letting her wade. But when she was mounted on the shoulders of a sturdy boatman, with another close at hand in case of accidents, she saw how bad the footing was, and how confusing the currents even in this shallow water. Just as they started she heard a resounding splash, and looking round, was touched to see that Ketty had deliberately thrown herself—or rather let herself—into the water from the boat's side, and was struggling after her, clutching the scanty drapery of the second boatman. The water was up to the old woman's chest, but she pushed on bravely, and though the men on board laughed, they did not attempt to stop her.

How far the two men waded Eveleen did not know. The boat was only dimly visible as a misty shape through the falling rain when they reached land as suddenly as they had discerned it earlier. It was land in the sense of not being covered with water, but it resembled nothing so much as a sandbank left bare, though not dry, by the retreating tide. Yet apparently it was not an island, for it seemed to rise slightly on the side away from the boat, and to continue rising; and when Eveleen felt her feet on firm ground once more, her spirits went up with a bound. Anything was better than that dreadful boat and the company it carried, and when the rain stopped—which it must do soon now—they would quickly be dry and comfortable, and could look for some village where there was food and shelter to be found. She said as much to Ketty as they stood looking after the two men, whose forms were soon swallowed up in the driving rain. Most incomprehensibly, Ketty laughed; but before Eveleen could demand the reason, her cheerful anticipations were rudely contradicted by the sound of a shot from the boat, with cries and the muffled noise of a struggle. Unheeding Ketty's agonised entreaties and attempt to hold her fast, she dashed into the water and began to wade back. The boat seemed farther away than she had been—and surely the boatmen were poling her off? Eveleen gave a great cry as the truth burst upon her, then struggled on again, though with failing strength, hindered by her clothes and the treacherous sand. Somehow or other she reached the boat when the water was up to her shoulders, and clung convulsively to the gunwale, shrieking to her husband to wake, to escape, to save himself, to save her. Mr Firozji lay on the deck in a pool of blood, and the murderers were already stripping off his clothes in search of booty. In front of his master stood Abdul Qaiyam—a most unheroic hero, with the pistol wavering in a shaking hand, and a face grey with fear. A man with a tulwar sprang at Eveleen as she clung to the side, and brought down his weapon with a horrible sweep. In terror she relaxed her grasp just in time, and fell back into the water with a loud cry of despair.