The Coming Conquest of England
Page 6
“But this monstrosity, Mrs. Irwin, will be past and gone as soon as you indignantly repudiate the suggestion of your abandoned husband?”
“Between him and me—yes, that is true. But I am not at all certain if the Maharajah’s infatuation will then have really ceased to exist. My Indian handmaid has been told by one of her countrymen to warn me of a danger that threatens me. The man did not tell her wherein this danger consists, but I am at a loss to know from what quarter it should threaten, if not from the Maharajah.”
Heideck shook his head incredulously.
“You have certainly nothing to fear in that quarter; he knows full well that he would have the whole of the British power against him dared he only—be it with one word—attempt to wrong the wife of an English officer. He would be a sheer madman to allow things to come to that pass.”
“Well, after all, he may have some despotic insanity in him. We must not forget that the time is not so far distant when all these tyrants disposed absolutely of the life and death and body and soul of their subjects. Who knows, too, what my husband—But perhaps you are right. It may only be a foolish suspicion that has upset me; and it is just for this reason that I did not wish to speak about it to any of my husband’s messmates. I have opened my heart to you alone. I know that you are an honourable man, and that nobody will learn from your mouth what we have spoken about during this past hour.”
“I am very much indebted to you, Mrs. Irwin, for your confidence, and should be only too willing to do what I could to relieve your anxiety and trouble. You are apprehensive of some unknown danger, and you are this night, in your husband’s absence, without any other protection but that of your Indian servants. Would you permit me to remain close by, until tomorrow daybreak?”
With a blush that made her heart beat faster, Edith Irwin shook her head.
“No! no! that is impossible; and I do not think that here, in the protection of my house and among my own servants, any mishap could befall me. Only in case that something should happen to me at another time and at another place, I would beg of you to acquaint Colonel Baird with the subject of our conversation this evening; people will then perhaps better understand the connexion of things.”
And now Heideck perfectly understood why she had chosen to make him, a stranger, her confidant; and he thought that he understood also that it was not so much of an attempt on the part of the Maharajah as of her own husband’s villainy that the unhappy young wife was afraid. But his delicate feelings restrained him from saying in outspoken language that he had comprehended what she wished to convey. It was after all enough that she knew she could rely upon him; and of this she must have been already sufficiently convinced, although it was only the fire of his eyes that told her so, and the long, warm kiss that his lips impressed upon the small, icy-cold hand which the poor young lady presented to him at parting.
“You will permit me to pay you another call tomorrow, will you not?”
“I will send you word when I expect you. I should not care for you to meet my husband; perhaps he has some idea that you are friendly inclined towards me; and that would be sufficient to fill him with suspicion and aversion towards you.”
She clapped her hands, and as the Indian handmaid entered the room to escort the visitor to the door, Heideck had to leave her last remark unanswered. But, as on the threshold he again turned to bow his farewell, his eyes met hers, and though their lips were dumb, they had perhaps told one another more in this single second than during the whole time of their long tete-a-tete.
VI
THE OUTRAGE
When Heideck stepped into the garden he was scarcely able to find his way, but having taken a few steps his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and the pale light of the stars showed him his path.
The garden was surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of cactus plants, low enough to allow a tall man to look over. On having closed the wooden gate behind him, Heideck stood and gazed back at the brightly illuminated windows of the house. In the presence of the charming woman he had manfully suppressed his feelings. No rash word, betraying the tempest that this nocturnal conversation had left surging in his bosom, had escaped his lips. He had not for a moment forgotten that she was the wife of another, and it would be an infamy to covet her for his wife so long as she was tied to that other. But he could not disguise from himself the fact that he yearned towards her with a passionate love. He was to-day, for the first time, conscious that he loved this woman with a passion that he had never before felt for another; but there was nothing intoxicating or pleasurable in this self-confession. It was rather a feeling of apprehension of coming difficulties and struggles that would beset him in his passion for this charming creature. Had she not needed his protection, and had he not promised to remain on the spot to assist her, he would have escaped in rapid flight from this struggle within him. Yet, under the existing circumstances, there could be no question of his doing this. He had only himself to blame for having given her the right to count upon his friendship; and it was a behest of chivalry to deserve her confidence. Incapable of tearing himself from the place, where he knew his loved one remained, Heideck must have stayed a quarter of an hour rooted to the spot, and just when he had resolved—on becoming conscious of the folly of his behaviour—on turning homewards, he perceived something unusual enough to cause him to stay his steps.
He saw the house-door, which the Indian maid had a short time before closed behind him, open, and in the flood of light which streamed out into the darkness, perceived that several men dressed in white garments hurried, closely following each other, up the steps.
Remembering Mrs. Irwin’s enigmatical references to a danger which possibly threatened her, and seized by a horrible dread of something about to happen, he pushed open the garden gate and rushed towards the house.
He had not yet reached it, when the shrill cry of a woman in distress fell upon his ear. Heideck drew the revolver he always carried from his pocket and sprang up the steps at a bound. The door of the drawing-room, where he had shortly before been in conversation with the Captain’s wife, was wide open, and from it rang the cries for help, whose desperate tones brought home to the Captain the certainty that Edith Irwin was in the gravest peril. Only a few steps, and he saw the young English lady defending herself heroically against three white-dressed natives, who were evidently about to carry her off. Her light silk dress was torn to shreds in this unequal struggle, and so great was Heideck’s indignation at the monstrous brutality of the assailants that he did not for a moment hesitate to turn his weapon upon the tall, wild-looking fellow, whose brown hands were roughly clutching the bare arms of the young lady.
He fired, and with a short, dull cry of pain the fellow reeled to the ground. The other two, horror-stricken, let go their victim. One of them drew his sabre from the sheath and rushed upon the German. Heideck could not fire a second time, being afraid of harming Edith, and so he threw the revolver down, and with a rapid motion, for which his adversary was fully unprepared, caught the arm of the Indian which was raised to strike. Being much more than his match in physical strength, he wrested the sabre with a quick jerk from his grasp. The man, now defenceless, gave up the struggle and like his companion, who had already in silent, cat-like bounds made his escape, hurried off as fast as his legs would carry him.
Heideck did not pursue him. His only thoughts were for Edith, and his fears were that she had perhaps received some hurt at the hands of these bandits. In the same moment that the violent hands of the Indians had let her loose, she had fallen down on the carpet, and her marble-pale face looked to Heideck as that of a dead person. Whilst, curiously enough, neither Edith’s screams for help nor the crack of the shot had had the effect of summoning any one of her servants to her aid, now, when the danger was over, all of a sudden a few scared brown faces peered in through the open door; and the peremptory order that Heideck addressed in English to the terrified maid brought her back to her sense of duty to her mistress.
Under their joint attentions, Edith soon opened her eyes, and gazed with bewildered looks around her. But on seeing lying on the floor the corpse of the Indian whom Heideck had shot, her consciousness returned with perfect clearness.
Shaking off the last traces of faintness with a firm will, she got up.
“It was you who saved me, Mr. Heideck! You risked your life for me! How can I thank you enough?”
“Solely, madam, by allowing me to conduct you at once to the Colonel’s house, whose protection you must necessarily claim until your husband’s return. Whoever may have been the instigator of this hellish plot—whether these rogues were common thieves or whether they acted on orders, I do not feel myself strong enough, single-handed, to accept the responsibility for your security.”
“You are right,” Edith replied gently. “I will get ready at once and go with you—but this man here,” she added, shivering, “is he dead, or can something be done for him?”
Heideck stooped down and regarded the motionless figure. A single look into the sallow, drawn face, with the dilated, glassy eyes, sufficed to assure him that any further examination was useless.
“He has got his reward,” he said, “and he has no further claim upon your generous compassion; but is there no one to help me get the body away?”
“They are all out,” said the maid; “the butler invited them to spend a jolly evening with him in the town.”
Edith and Heideck exchanged a significant look; neither of them now doubted in the least that the audacious attack had been the result of a plot to which the Indian servants were parties, and each guessed that the other entertained the same suspicion as to who was the instigator of the shameful outrage.
But they did not utter a syllable about it. It was just because they had been brought as near to each other by the events of this night as fate can possibly bring two young beings of different sex, that each felt almost instinctively the fear of that first word which probably would have broken down the last barrier between them. And Captain Irwin’s name was not mentioned by either.
VII
THE MAHARAJAH
It was noon the next day when Captain Irwin stepped out of the Colonel’s bungalow and turned towards home. The interview with his superior officer appeared to have been serious and far from pleasant for him, for he was very pale. Red spots were burning on his cheeks, and his deep-set eyes flashed darkly, as though with suppressed wrath. A few minutes later the Colonel’s horse was led to the door, and a company of lancers under the command of a sergeant rode into the courtyard.
The commander came out in full uniform, and, placing himself at the head of the company, galloped towards the Maharajah’s palace.
The cavalry drew up before the palace gates, and Colonel Baird shouted out in a loud commanding voice to the servants lounging at the door that he wished to speak to the Maharajah.
A few minutes passed, and a gorgeously attired palace official made his appearance with the answer that His Highness could not receive at present; the Colonel would be informed as soon as the audience could be granted.
The commander leapt from the saddle, and with jingling spurs walked firmly into the palace, trailing his sword noisily over the marble floor.
“Tell the Prince I desire to see him at once,” he called out in a threatening voice to the palace officials and servants who followed him in evident embarrassment. It was evident that no one dare disobey such a peremptory command. All gates flew open before the Englishman, and he had hardly to wait a minute in the anteroom before the Prince consented to receive him. On a small high-raised terrace of the ground floor the Maharajah sat at luncheon. He purposely did not change his easy attitude when the English resident approached, and the glaring look which his dark eyes cast at the incomer was obviously intended to intimidate.
With his helmet on his head and his hand resting on his sword the Colonel stood straight before the Prince.
“I desire to have a few words with you, Maharajah!”
“And I have instructed my servants to inform you that I am not at your service. You see I am at luncheon!”
“That, in your case, is no reason for refusing to receive the representative of His Britannic Majesty. The message you sent me was an insult, which, if repeated, will have to be punished.”
In a transport of rage the Prince sprang up from his chair. He hurled an abusive epithet into the Colonel’s face, and his right hand sought the dagger in his belt. The attendant, who was about to serve up to his master a ruddy lobster on a silver dish, recoiled in alarm. But the Colonel, without moving an inch from his place, placed the silver hunting whistle that hung from his shoulder to his mouth. Two shrill calls, and at once the trotting of horses and the rattle of arms was audible. The high, blue-striped turbans of the cavalry and the pennons of their lances made their appearance under the terrace.
“Call my bodyguard!” cried the Prince, with a voice hoarse with rage.
But in a voice of icy calm the Colonel retorted, “If you summon your bodyguard, Maharajah, you are a dead man. That would be rebellion; and with rebels we make short shrift.”
The Prince pressed his lips together; the rage he had with the greatest difficulty suppressed caused his body to quiver as in a paroxysm of fever, but he had to realise that he was here the weaker, and without a word more he fell back again into his chair.
The Colonel stepped to the balcony of the terrace.
“Sergeant Thomson!” he called down into the park.
Heavy steps were heard on the marble stairs, and the man summoned, followed by two soldiers, stood at attention before his superior officer.
“Sergeant, do you know the gentleman sitting at that table?”
“Yes, sir! It is His Highness the Maharajah.”
“If I gave you orders to arrest this gentleman and bring him to camp, would you hesitate to obey?”
The sergeant regarded his superior officer as if the doubt of his loyal military obedience astonished him. He at once gave the two soldiers who were with him a nod and advanced a step further towards the Prince, as though at once to carry out the order.
“Stop, sergeant!” cried the Colonel. “I hope that His Highness will not let matters go as far as that. You are perhaps ready now, Maharajah, to receive me?”
The Indian silently pointed to the golden chair at the other end of the table. At a sign from the Colonel the sergeant and the two soldiers withdrew.
“I have a very serious question to put to you, Maharajah.”
“Speak!”
“Last evening, during Captain Irwin’s absence, several rascals entered his house with the intention of committing an act of violence on the person of the Captain’s wife. What do you know about the matter, Maharajah?”
“I do not understand, Colonel. What should I know?”
“Perhaps you would be well advised to try and remember. Do you mean to tell me that you now hear of this business for the first time?”
“Certainly! I have not heard a word about it until now.”
“And you have not been told that one of the assailants who was killed on the spot was one of your servants?”
“No. I have a great many servants, and I am not responsible for their actions, if they are not done by my orders.”
“But this is exactly what I believe to have been the case. You will hardly expect me to believe that one of your servants would have dared to make such an attack on his own initiative. Unfortunately, the other villains have escaped, but one of them left behind him a sabre belonging to a man in your bodyguard.”
It was evident that the Maharajah had a ha
rd struggle to keep his composure. Endeavouring to conceal his rage behind a supercilious smile, he answered—
“It is beneath my dignity, Colonel, to answer you.”
“There can be no question of dignity justifying you in a refusal to answer the British resident, when he demands it. You are dealing not with an ordinary British officer, but with the representative of His Majesty the Emperor of India. It is your duty to answer, as it is mine to question you. A refusal might have the most serious consequences for Your Highness; for the Government Commissioners that would be despatched from Calcutta to Chanidigot on my report might be but little impressed by your dignity.”
The Indian set his teeth and a wild passionate hate flashed from his eyes, but, at the same time, he probably reflected that he would not have been the first of the Indian princes to be deprived of the last remnant of sham sovereignty for a paltry indiscretion.
“If you consider it necessary to make a report to Calcutta, I cannot prevent your doing so; but I should think that the Viceroy would hesitate before giving offence to a faithful ally of England, and at the very moment when he has to ask him to despatch his contingent of auxiliary forces.”
“Since you refer to this matter—whom have you appointed to command your force?”
“My cousin, Tasatat Maharajah.”
“And when will he start?”
“In about four weeks, I hope.”
The officer shook his head.
“That would be much longer than we can allow. Your force is to join my detachment, and I am starting at latest in a fortnight from now.”
“You are asking what is impossible. At present we have not a sufficient number of horses, and I do not know where to procure two thousand camels in such a short time; and I have not nearly enough ammunition for the infantry.”
“The requisite ammunition can be provided by the arsenal at Mooltan and debited to your account, Highness. As for the horses and camels, you will, no doubt, be able to furnish them in time, if you take the trouble. I repeat that in a fortnight all must be ready. Do not forget that the punctual execution of these orders is in a way an earnest of your fidelity and zeal. Every unwarranted delay and all equivocation on your part will be fatal to you.”