Read Ebook: The Ruby Sword: A Romance of Baluchistan by Mitford Bertram Piffard Harold Illustrator

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Ebook has 1157 lines and 66180 words, and 24 pages

"What is it, Bhallu Khan?" said Upward, as the voice and the light of the lantern revealed the chief forest guard.

Now Bhallu Khan was inclined to be long-winded in his statements. It was raining smartly, and Upward grew impatient.

"Eh! another shot!" cried Upward, now thoroughly startled. "Why, what the devil is the meaning of it?" This last escaped him in English--and it brought the whole party around him, now all ears, regardless of the rain. Only Nesta was out of it--not understanding Hindustani.

"Yes, let's go!"--cut in Lily. "Hurrah! here's a new excitement!"

"Let's go!" echoed her father sharply. "To bed, you mean. So off you go there, both of you. Come--clear in--quick! Likely one wants a lot of children fooling about in the dark on a night like this."

Heedless of their grumbling protest, Upward dived into his tent, and, quickly arming himself with his magazine rifle and revolver, he came forth. Bhallu Khan he instructed to bring another of the forest guard to accompany them while a third was left to look after the camp.

In the darkness and rain they took their way along the bank of the flood--Upward hardly knowing what he was expecting to find. The country was wild, and its inhabitants wilder still. Quite recently there had been an upheaval of lawlessness among a section of the powerful and restless Marri tribe. What if some bloody deed of vendetta, or tribal feud, had been worked out here, almost at his very door? He stumbled along through the wet, coarse tussocks, peering here and there as the forest guard held the lantern before him--his rifle ready. He hardly expected to find anything living, but there was a weird creepiness about this nocturnal quest after something sinister and mysterious that moved him by sheer instinct to defensive preparation. Twice he started, as the dark form of a half-stranded tree trunk with its twisted limbs suggested the find of some human body--ghastly with wounds--distorted with an agonising death. Suddenly Bhallu Khan stopped short, and with a hurried and whispered exclamation held up the lantern, while pointing to something in front.

Something which lay half in, half out of the water. Something which all felt rather than saw had had life, even if life were no longer in it. No tree trunk this time, but a human body. Dead or alive, however, they were only just in time, for even as they looked the swirl of an eddy threw a volume of water from the middle of the trunk right over the neck--so quickly had the flood risen.

"Here--give me the lantern--And you two pull him out, sharp," said Upward.

This, to the two stalwart hillmen, was but the work of a moment. Then an exclamation escaped Bhallu Khan.

"It is a sahib!" he cried.

Upward bent over the prostrate form, holding the light to the face. Then it became his turn to start in amazement.

"Good God! it's Campian!" he exclaimed--"Campian himself. But how the devil did he get here like this, and--Is he alive or dead?"

THE FOREST CAMP.

Campian awoke, feeling fairly restored, though as he opened his eyes after his sound and heavy sleep he could hardly recall where he was, or what had happened--nor in fact, did he particularly care whether he could recall it or not. This frame of mind lasted for some time, then his faculties began to reassert themselves. The events of the previous night came back to him--the long, wearisome journey, the exhausted steed, the sudden onslaught of the Ghazis, the pursuit--then that last desperate effort for life--the rolling flood, the jezail shot, and-- oblivion. Now a thought struck him. Where was he? In a tent. But whose tent? Was he a captive in the hands of his recent assailants? Hardly. This was not the sort of treatment he would have met at their hands, even if the unmistakably European aspect of all the fittings and tent furniture did not speak for themselves. And at that moment, as though to dispel all further grounds of conjecture, the purdah was moved aside and somebody stole softly in. Campian closed his eyes, surveying this unexpected visitant through the lids. Then he opened them.

"That you, Upward, or am I dreaming?"

"It's me right enough, old chap. How are you feeling--eh? A bit buzzy still? How's the head?"

"Just as you put it--a bit buzzy. But I say, where are we?"

"In camp, at Chirria Bach."

"So? And where the devil might Chirria Bach be? I was bound for Gushki. Thought you were there."

"Didn't you get my letter at Shalalai, saying we were going into camp?" said Upward.

"Not any. I got one--There was nothing about camp in it--It told me to come on to Gushki. But I fell in with two Johnnies there who were going on a chikor shoot, and wanted me to cut in--I did--hence concluded to find my way here across country instead of by the usual route. I'm fond of that sort of thing, you know."

"Where are your things--and how is it you are all alone? This isn't the country to ride around in like that--all alone--I can tell you."

"So I've discovered." And then he narrated the events of the previous day's journey up to the time of his falling unconscious in the riverbed.

"Rather. But, I say, Upward, I shot one of those brigands. Likely to be trouble raised over that?"

Upward looked grave. "You never can tell," he said. "You see, in a case of that sort, the Government has a say in the matter. Don't give away anything about the shooting to anybody for the present, and we'll think over what is best to be done--or not done--Perhaps you only winged your man."

"I hope so, if it will save any further bother. But, it's a dashed cool thing assailing a peaceable traveller in that way. There's no sort of war on here?"

"No, but the fact of your being alone and unarmed--unarmed, at least, so far as they could see--was a temptation to those devils. They hate us like poison since we took over the country and prevented them--or tried to prevent them--from cutting each other's throats, so they are not likely to let slip an opportunity of cutting ours instead."

"And after that first shot, practically I was unarmed, thanks to the swindling rascality of the British huckster in guaranteeing ammunition that jammed in the pistol. No more co-operative stores for me, thanks."

Meanwhile in another tent Nesta Cheriton and the two younger girls were discussing the somewhat tragic arrival of the expected guest. To the former, however, his personality appealed more than the somewhat startling manner of his arrival.

"But what is he like, Lily?" she was saying--not quite for the first time.

"Oh! I told you before," snapped Lily, waxing impatient, and burying her nose in a book--She was wont to be petulant when disturbed in the midst of an absorbing tale.

"He's rather fun," replied Hazel. "He isn't young, though. He's not as old as father--still he isn't young."

"I expect he's quite an old fogey," said Lily. "I don't want to talk about him any more," which reply moved Hazel to cackle elfishly, while cutting weird capers expressive of the vein mischievous.

"Rather. He's quite an old fogey. Isn't he, Lily?"

"I wish you'd shut up," snapped that young person. "Can't you see I want to read?"

But later on, viz about tiffin time, Campian being recovered enough to put in an appearance, Nesta found good and sufficient reasons for the reversal of her former verdict. As Hazel had said, the new arrival was not young; yet her own term, "quite an old fogey," in no sense applied. And the reversal of her said verdict took this form: "He'll do."

"Last time we saw each other we hardly reckoned to meet in such tragic fashion, did we, Mrs Upward?" said Campian, as they sat down to tiffin. "I only hope I haven't drawn down the ire of a vast and vendetta nourishing tribe upon your peaceful camp."

"Oh, we're not nervous. The people who attacked you belong in all probability right the other end of the country," she answered, easily.

"I sent over to Gushki to let the political agent know about it," said Upward. "Likely they'll send back a brace of Levy sowars to have a look round. Not that that'll do any good, for these darned `catch-'em-alive-ohs' are all tarred with the same brush. They're raised in the same country, you see."

"Seems to me a right casual section this same country," said Campian. "You are all never tired of laying down what entirely unreliable villains these border tribes are, yet you simply put yourselves at their mercy. I'll be bound to say, for instance, that there's no such thing as a watch kept over this camp at night, or any other."

"No, there isn't Tinkles here, though, would pretty soon let us know if any one came too close."

"Yes, but not until they were on you. Say four or five like those who tackled me--or even more--made up their minds to come for you some night, what then? Why, they'd be in the tents hacking you to bits before you had time to move a finger."

"Ghazis don't go to work that way, Campian. They come for you in the open, and never break out with the premeditation a rush upon a camp would involve."

"I've often thought the same," struck in Nesta. "I get quite nervous sometimes, lying awake at night. Every sound outside makes me start. Fancy nothing between you and all that may be in that horrible darkness, but a strip of canvas. And the light seems to make it worse. I can never shake off the idea that I can be seen."

"Why don't you put out the light then, Miss Cheriton?"

"Because I'm more frightened still to be in the dark. Ah now--you're laughing at me"--she broke off, in a pretty gesture of protest.

The stranger was contemplating her narrowly, without seeming to. Good specimen of her type was his decision, but these fair haired, blue-eyed girls, though pretty enough as pictures, have seldom any depth. Self conscious at every turn, though not aware of it, or, at any rate of showing that she was. Pretty? Oh, yes, no mistake about that--knows what suits her, too.

Whether this diagnosis was entirely accurate remains to be seen--that its latter part was, a glance at Nesta left no doubt. She was attired in white and light blue, which matched admirably her eyes and golden hair, and she looked wonderfully attractive. The suspicion of sunbrown which darkened her complexion had the effect of setting off the vivid whiteness of her even teeth when she smiled. And then her whole face would light up.

"What would you like to do this afternoon, old chap?" said Upward, as tiffin over, the bearer placed the cheroot box on the table. "Don't feel up to going after chikor, I suppose?"

"Well, I don't know. I think I do. But I left my shot gun down at Chotiali with my other things."

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