Читать книгу The Way of an Eagle - Ethel M. Dell - Страница 16

There came again the running rattle of rifle-firing from the valley below the fort, and Muriel Roscoe, lying on her couch, pressed both hands to her eyes and shivered. It seemed impossible that the end could be so near. She felt as if she had existed for years in this living nightmare of many horrors, had lain down and had slept with that dreadful sound in her ears from the very beginning of things. The life she had led before these ghastly happenings had become so vague a memory that it almost seemed to belong to a previous existence, to an earlier and a happier era. As in a dream she now recalled the vision of her English school-life. It lay not a year behind her, but she felt herself to have changed so fundamentally since those sunny, peaceful days that she seemed to be a different person altogether. The Muriel Roscoe of those days had been a merry, light-hearted personality. She had revelled in games and all outdoor amusements. Moreover, she had been quick to learn, and her lessons had never caused her any trouble. A daring sprite she had been, with a most fertile imagination and a longing for adventure that had never been fully satisfied, possessing withal so tender and loving a heart that the very bees in the garden had been among her cherished friends. She remembered all the sunny ideals of that golden time and marvelled at herself, forgetting utterly the eager, even passionate, craving that had then been hers for the wider life, the broader knowledge, that lay beyond her reach, forgetting the feverish impatience with which she had longed for the day of her emancipation when she might join her father in the wonderful glowing East which she so often pictured in her dreams. Of her mother she had no memory. She had died at her birth. Her father was all the world to her; and when at last he had travelled home on a brief leave and taken her from her quiet English life to the strange, swift existence of the land of his exile, her soul had overflowed with happiness.

Nevertheless, she had not been carried away by the gaieties of this new world. The fascinations of dance and gymkhana had not caught her. The joy of being with her father was too sacred and too precious to be foregone for these lesser pleasures, and she very speedily decided to sacrifice all social entertainments to which he could not accompany her. She rode with him, camped with him, and became his inseparable companion. Undeveloped in many ways, shy in the presence of strangers, she soon forgot her earlier ambition to see the world and all that it contained. Her father's society was to her all-sufficing, and it was no sacrifice to her to withdraw herself from the gay crowd and dwell apart with him.

He had no wish to monopolise her, but it was a relief to him that the constant whirl of pleasure about her attracted her so little. He liked to have her with him, and it soon became a matter of course that she should accompany him on all his expeditions. She revelled in his tours of inspection. They were so many picnics to her, and she enjoyed them with the zest of a child.

And so it came to pass that she was with him among the hills of the frontier when, like a pent flood suddenly escaping, the storm of rebellion broke and seethed about them, threatening them with total annihilation.

No serious trouble had been anticipated. A certain tract of country had been reported unquiet, and General Roscoe had been ordered to proceed thither on a tour of inspection and also, to a very mild degree, of intimidation. Marching through the district from fort to fort, he had encountered no shadow of opposition. All had gone well. And then, his work over, and all he set out to do satisfactorily accomplished, his face towards India and his back to the mountains, the unexpected had come upon him like a thunderbolt.

Hordes of tribesmen, gathered Heaven knew how or whence, had suddenly burst upon him from the south, had cut off his advance by sheer immensity of numbers, and, hemming him in, had forced him gradually back into the mountain fastnesses through which he had just passed unmolested.

It was a stroke so wholly new, so subtly executed, that it had won success almost before the General had realised the weight of the disaster that had come upon him. He had believed himself at first to be involved in a mere fray with border thieves. But before he reached the fort upon which he found himself obliged to fall back, he knew that he had to cope with a general rising of the tribes, and that the means at his disposal were as inadequate to stem the rising flood of rebellion as a pebble thrown into a mountain stream to check its flow.

The men under his command, with the exception of a few officers, were all native soldiers, and he soon began to have a strong suspicion that among these he numbered traitors. Nevertheless, he established himself at the fort, determined there to make his stand till relief should arrive.

The telegraph wires were cut, and for a time it seemed that all communication with the outside world was an impossibility. Several runners were sent out, but failed to break through the besieging forces. But at last after many desperate days there came a message from without—a scrap of paper attached to a stone and flung over the wall of the fort at night. News of the disaster had reached Peshawur, and Sir Reginald Bassett, with a hastily collected force, was moving to their assistance.

The news put heart into the garrison, and for a time it seemed that the worst would be averted. But it became gradually evident to General Roscoe that the relieving force could not reach them in time. The water supply had run very low, and the men were already subsisting upon rations that were scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of life. There was sickness among them, and there were also many wounded. The white men were reduced to four, including himself, the native soldiers had begun to desert, and he had been forced at last to face the fact that the end was very near.

All this had Muriel Roscoe come through, physically scathless, mentally torn and battered, and she could not bring herself to realise that the long-drawn-out misery of the siege could ever be over.

Lying there, tense and motionless, she listened to the shots and yells in the distance with a shuddering sense that it was all a part of her life, of her very being, even. The torture and the misery had so eaten into her soul. Now and then she heard the quick thunder of one of the small guns that armed the fort, and at the sound her pulses leaped and quivered. She knew that the ammunition was running very low. These guns did not often speak now.

Then, during a lull, there came to her the careless humming of a British voice, the free, confident tread of British feet, approaching her door.

She caught her breath as a hand rapped smartly upon the panel. She knew who the visitor was, but she could not bring herself to bid him enter. A sudden awful fear was upon her. She could neither speak nor move. She lay, listening intently, hoping against hope that he would believe her to be sleeping and go away.

The knock was not repeated. Dead silence reigned. And then quickly and decidedly the door opened, and Nick Ratcliffe stood upon the threshold. The light struck full upon his face as he halted—a clever, whimsical face that might mask almost any quality good or bad.

"May I come in, Miss Roscoe?" he asked.

For she had not moved at his appearance. She lay as one dead. But as he spoke she uncovered her face, and terror incarnate stared wildly at him from her starting eyes. He entered without further ceremony, and closed the door behind him. In the shaded lamplight his features seemed to twitch as if he wanted to smile. So at least it seemed to her wrought-up fancy.

He gazed greedily at the plate of rice on the table as he came forward. "Great Jupiter!" he said. "What a sumptuous repast!"

The total freedom from all anxiety or restraint with which he made this simple observation served to restore to some degree the girl's tottering self-control. She sat up, sufficiently recovered to remember that she did not like this man.

"Pray have some if you want it," she said coldly.

He turned his back on it abruptly. "No, don't tempt me," he said. "It's a fast day for me. I'm acquiring virtue, being conspicuously destitute of all other forms of comfort. Why don't you eat it yourself? Are you acquiring virtue too?"

He stood looking down at her quizzically, under rapidly flickering eyelids. She sat silent, wishing with all her heart that he would go away.

Nothing, however, was apparently further from his thoughts. After a moment he sat down in the chair that her father had occupied an hour before. It was very close to her, and she drew herself slightly away with a small, instinctive movement of repugnance. But Nick was sublimely impervious to hints.

"I say, you know," he said abruptly, "you shouldn't take opium. Your donkey of an ayah ought to know better than to let you have it."

Muriel gave a great start. "I don't"—she faltered. "I—I—"

He shook his head at her, as though reproving a child. "Pussy's out," he observed. "It is no good giving chase. But really, you know, you mustn't do it. You used to be a brave girl once, and now your nerves are all to pieces."

There was a species of paternal reproach in his tone. Looking at him, she marvelled that she had ever thought him young and headlong. Almost in spite of herself she began to murmur excuses.

"I can't help it. I must have something. I don't sleep. I lie for hours, listening to the fighting. It—it's more than I can bear." Her voice quivered, and she turned her face aside, unable to hide her emotion, but furious with herself for displaying it.

Nick said nothing at all to comfort her, and she bitterly resented his silence. After a pause he spoke again, as if he had banished the matter entirely from his mind.

"Look here," he said. "I want you to tell me something. I don't know what sort of a fellow you think I am, though I fancy you don't like me much. But you're not afraid of me, are you? You know I'm to be trusted?"

It was her single chance of revenge, and she took it. "I have my father's word for it," she said.

He nodded thoughtfully as if unaware of the thrust. "Yes, your father knows me. And so"—he smiled at her suddenly—"you are ready to trust me on his recommendation? You are ready to follow me blindfold through danger if I give you my hand to hold?"

She felt a sharp chill strike her heart. What was it he was asking of her? What did those words of his portend?

"I don't know," she said. "I don't see that it makes much difference how I feel."

"Well, it does," he assured her. "And that is exactly what I have come to talk about. Miss Roscoe, will you leave the fort with me, and escape in disguise? I have thought it all out, and it can be done without much difficulty. I do not need to tell you that the idea has your father's full approval."

They were her father's own words, but at sound of them she shrank and shivered, in sheer horror at the coolness with which they were uttered. He might have been asking her to stroll with him in the leafy quiet of some English lane.

Could it be, she asked herself incredulously, could it be that her father had ever sanctioned and approved so ghastly a risk for her? She put her hand to her temples. Her brain was reeling. How could she do this thing? How could she have permitted it to be even suggested to her? And then, swift through her tortured mind flashed his words: "There will be an end. I have had to face it to-night." Was it this that he had meant? Was it for this that he had been preparing her?

With a muffled exclamation she rose, trembling in every limb. "I can't!" she cried piteously, "oh, I can't! Please go away!"

It might have been the frightened prayer of a child, so beseeching was it, so full of weakness. But Nick Ratcliffe heard it unmoved. He waited a few seconds till she came to a stand by the table, her back towards him. Then with a sudden quiet movement he rose and followed her.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "But you can't afford to shirk things at this stage. I am offering you deliverance, though you don't realise it."

He spoke with force, and if his aim had been to rouse her to a more practical activity, he gained his end. She turned upon him in swift and desperate indignation. Her voice rang almost harsh.

"How can you call it deliverance? It is at best a choice of two horrible evils. You know perfectly well that we could never get through. You must be mad to suggest such a thing. We should be made prisoners and massacred under the very guns of the fort."

"I beg your pardon," he said again, and his eyelids quivered a little as if under the pressure of some controlled emotion. "We shall not be made prisoners. I know what I am saying. It is deliverance that I am offering you. Of course you can refuse, and I shall still do my utmost to save you. But the chances are not equal. I hope you will not refuse."

The moderation of this speech calmed her somewhat. In her first wild panic she had almost imagined that he could take her against her will. She saw that she had been unreasonable, but she was too shaken to tell him so. Moreover, there was still that about him, notwithstanding his words, that made her afraid to yield a single inch of ground lest by some hidden means he should sweep her altogether from her precarious foothold. Even in the silence, she felt that he was doing battle with her, and she did not dare to face him.

With a childish gesture of abandonment, she dropped into a chair and laid her head upon her arms.

"Oh, please go away!" she besought him weakly. "I am so tired—so tired."

But Ratcliffe did not move. He stood looking down at her, at the black hair that clustered about her neck, at the bowed, despairing figure, the piteous, clenched hands.

A little clock in the room began to strike in silvery tones, and he glanced up. The next instant he bent and laid a bony hand upon her two clasped ones.

"Can't you decide?" he said. "Will you let me decide for you? Don't let yourself get scared. You have kept so strong till now." Firmly as he spoke, there was somehow a note of soothing in his voice, and almost insensibly the girl was moved by it. She remained silent and motionless, but the strong grip of his fingers comforted her subtly notwithstanding.

"Come," he said, "listen a moment and let me tell you my plan of campaign. It is very simple, and for that reason it is going to succeed. You are listening now?"

His tone was vigorous and insistent. Muriel sat slowly up in response to it. She looked down at the thin hand that grasped hers, and wondered at its strength; but she lacked the spirit at that moment to resent its touch.

He leaned down upon the table, his face close to hers, and began to unfold his plan.

"We shall leave the fort directly the moon is down. I have a disguise for you that will conceal your face and hair. And I shall fake as a tribesman, so that my dearest friend would never recognise me. They will be collecting the wounded in the dark, and I will carry you through on my shoulder as if I had got a dead relation. You won't object to playing a dead relation of mine?"

He broke into a sudden laugh, but sobered instantly when he saw her shrink at the sound.

"That's about all the plan," he resumed. "There is nothing very alarming about it, for they will never spot us in the dark. I'm as yellow as a Chinaman already. We shall be miles away by morning. And I know how to find my way afterwards."

He paused, but Muriel made no comment. She was staring straight before her.

"Can you suggest any amendments?" he asked.

She turned her head and looked at him with newly-roused aversion in her eyes. She had summoned all her strength to the combat, realising that now was the moment for resistance if she meant to resist.

"No, Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, with a species of desperate firmness very different from his own. "I have nothing to suggest. If you wish to escape, you must go alone. It is quite useless to try to persuade me any further. Nothing—nothing will induce me to leave my father."

Whether or not he had expected this opposition was not apparent on

Nick's face. It betrayed neither impatience nor disappointment.

"There would be some reason in that," he gravely rejoined, "if you could do any good to your father by remaining. Of course I see your point, but it seems to me that it would be harder for him to see you starve with the rest of the garrison than to know that you had escaped with me. A woman in your position is bound to be a continual burden and anxiety to those who protect her. The dearer she is to them, so much the heavier is the burden. Miss Roscoe, you must see this. You are not an utter child. You must realise that to leave your father is about the greatest sacrifice you can make for him at the present moment. He is worn out with anxiety on your behalf, literally bowed down by it. For his sake, you are going to do this thing, it being the only thing left that you can do for him."

There was more than persuasion in his voice. It held authority. But Muriel heard it without awe. She had passed that stage. The matter was too momentous to allow of weakness. She had strung herself to the highest pitch of resistance as a hunted creature at bay. She threw back her head, a look of obstinacy about her lips, her slight figure straightened to the rigidity of defiance.

"I will not be forced," she said, in sharp, uneven tones. "Mr. Ratcliffe, you may go on persuading and arguing till doomsday. I will not leave my father."

Ratcliffe stood up abruptly. A curious glitter shone in his eyes, and the light eyebrows twitched a little. She felt that he had suddenly ceased to do battle with her, yet that the victory was not hers. And for a second she was horribly frightened, as though an iron trap had closed upon her and held her at his mercy.

He walked to the door without speaking and opened it. She expected him to go, sat waiting breathlessly for his departure, but instead he stood motionless, looking into the dark passage.

She wondered with nerves on edge what he was waiting for. Suddenly she heard a step without, a few murmured words, and Nick stood on one side. Her father's Sikh orderly passed him, carrying a tray on which was a glass full of some dark liquid. He set it down on the table before her with a deep salaam.

"The General Sahib wishes Missy Sahib to have a good night," he said. "He cannot come to her himself, but he sends her this by his servant, and he bids her drink it and sleep."

Muriel looked up at the man in surprise. Her father had never done such a thing before, and the message astonished her not a little. Then, remembering that he had shown some anxiety regarding her appearance that evening, she fancied she began to understand. Yet it was strange, it was utterly unlike him, to desire her to take an opiate. She looked at the glass with hesitation.

"Give him my love, Purdu," she said finally to the waiting orderly.

"Tell him I will take it if I cannot sleep without."

The man bowed himself again and withdrew. To her disgust, however,

Nick remained. He was looking at her oddly.

"Miss Roscoe," he said abruptly, "I beg you, don't drink that stuff. Your father must be mad to offer it to you. Let me take the beastliness away."

She faced him indignantly. "My father knows what is good for me better than you do," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't profess to be a sage. But any one will tell you that it is madness to take opium in this reckless fashion. For Heaven's sake, be reasonable. Don't take it."

He came back to the table, but at his approach she laid her hand upon the glass. She was quivering with angry excitement.

"I will not endure your interference any longer," she declared, goaded to headlong, nervous fury by his persistence. "My father's wishes are enough for me. He desires me to take it, and so I will."

She took up the glass in a sudden frenzy of defiance. He had frightened her—yes, he had frightened her—but he should see how little he had gained by that. She took a taste of the liquid, then paused, again assailed by a curious hesitancy. Had her father really meant her to take it all?

Nick had stopped short at her first movement, but as she began to lower the glass in response to that disquieting doubt, he swooped suddenly forward like a man possessed.

For a fleeting instant she thought he was going to wrest it from her, but in the next she understood—understood the man's deep treachery, and with what devilish ingenuity he had worked upon her. Holding her with an arm that felt like iron, he forced the glass back between her teeth, and tilted the contents down her throat. She strove to resist him, strove wildly, frantically, not to swallow the draught. But he held her pitilessly. He compelled her, gripping her right hand with the glass, and pinning the other to her side.

When it was over, when he had worked his will and the hateful draught was swallowed, he set her free and turned himself sharply from her.

She sprang up trembling and hysterical. She could have slain him in that instant had she possessed the means to her hand. But her strength was more nearly exhausted than she knew. Her limbs doubled up under her weight, and as she tottered, seeking for support, she realised that she was vanquished utterly at last.

She saw him wheel quickly and start to support her, sought to evade him, failed—and as she felt his arms lift her, she cried aloud in anguished helplessness.

What followed dwelt ever after in her memory as a hideous dream, vivid yet not wholly tangible. He laid her down upon the couch and bent over her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort of the powerless body to be free. She had a confused impression also that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall. In the end, her horror faded, and she saw him as through a mist bending above her, grim and tense and silent, controlling her as it were from an immense distance. And even while she yet dimly wondered, he passed like a shadow from her sight, and wonder itself ceased.

Half an hour later Nicholas Ratcliffe, the wit and clown of his regiment, regarded by many as harebrained or wantonly reckless, carried away from the beleaguered fort among the hostile mountains the slight, impassive figure of an English girl.

The night was dark, populated by terrors alive and ghastly. But he went through it as one unaware of its many dangers. Light-footed and fearless, he passed through the midst of his enemies, marching with the sublime audacity of the dominant race, despising caution—yea, grinning triumphant in the very face of Death.