CHAPTER VIII
FACE TO FACE
Mrs. Carmichael turned up the light with a steady hand. Her gaunt, harsh features were expressionless.
"Well, what news, Captain Nicholson?" she said. "You can say it outright. I am not afraid." She turned as she spoke and looked around her. "Are your nerves strong enough, Mrs. Berry? If not, pull yourself together. We can only die once, and there's nothing to whimper about."
Mrs. Berry, who sat cowering in the corner of the sofa, lifted her grey face. The clumsy lips tried to move, but no sound came forth except an inarticulate murmur. Mrs. Carmichael shrugged her shoulders as one does at an irresponsible child. "Well?" she repeated.
Nicholson came farther into the room, so that he stood within the circle of lamp-light. In a rapid glance he had taken in the occupants, and their attitudes were to him what symptoms are to a quick-sighted doctor. Mrs. Cary sat in an arm-chair, bolt upright, her hands clasped before her, her small eyes fixed straight ahead. Beatrice stood at her side, almost in an attitude of protection, pale, but otherwise calm and apparently indifferent. As he had entered, Lois had been preparing some food at a side table. She now came closer, and her dark, serious eyes rested penetratingly on his face, so that he felt that, even if he had thought of deceiving them as to the true state of affairs, it would have been in vain as far as she was concerned. As for Mrs. Carmichael, she stood in her favorite position—her arms akimbo, her chin tilted at an angle which lent her whole expression something bulldog and defiant. The atmosphere of danger with which the little drawing-room was filled acted differently upon each temperament, but upon this typical soldier's wife the effect was to arouse in her all the primitive passions, the fighting instinct, the love of struggle against heavy odds.
"Come!" she exclaimed, as Nicholson still remained silent. "Do you think, because one or two of us are a bit 'nervy', that we are really afraid? Not in the least. For my part, if I've got to die, I shall take good care that one or two of those black heathen come with me!" She flung open a drawer, and, taking out a revolver, thumped it energetically upon the table. "Now then, Captain!"
"My dear lady, I never doubted your courage," Nicholson answered, "and my news is not so hopeless as you suppose. I spoke with Nehal Singh." He saw Beatrice start and glance in his direction with an expression of sudden suspense in her fine eyes. "What he said left me no option. There could be no idea of coming to terms. At the same time it seems that he has no desire for a general massacre. His sole ambition is to drive us out of the country. He has given us till midnight to escape—those who want to."
"Does he think we are going to be got rid of as easily as that?" Mrs. Carmichael broke in. "Do you think that I have forgotten those months when George was fighting around Marut? Do you think I have forgotten all the fine fellows that laid down their lives to take the place and put an end to the disgrace of being held at bay by a horde of heathen? And now we are to run away like sheep? Not if George listens to me!"
"You need have no fear," Nicholson answered. "Not a man of us is going to leave Marut alive. But you ladies—"
"Well, what about us 'ladies'?" in a tone as though the description had been an insult.
"I have just told you—Nehal Singh gives you till midnight to get away."
Mrs. Carmichael snapped her lips together in a straight, uncompromising line.
"Very much obliged to His Highness, I'm sure, but I stay with the regiment," she said.
Nicholson could not repress a smile at this description of her husband, but there was something more than amusement in his brightening eyes.
"Thank you, Mrs. Carmichael, I knew that would be your answer. But it is my duty to ask the others—to give them their choice. There is little hope for those who remain." He could not bring himself to turn to the cowering figure upon the sofa. There is a shame which is not personal, and he was passionately ashamed for that quivering bulk of fear, for that greedy hope which he felt rather than saw creep up into the livid face. He looked at Lois. Her head was lifted and the fiery enthusiasm which spoke out of every line of the small dark face transformed her from a saddened woman back to the girl who never played a losing game but she won it, point by point, by pluck and daring.
"If I shan't be a bother, I wish to stay with you all," she said with studied simplicity. But her tone was eloquent.
"A brave comrade is always welcome," he answered. "Your husband—" He hesitated, and then concluded in a low voice: "Your husband offered to go with you. He is waiting outside with the horses." He avoided her eyes, but her tone betrayed to him the pain that he had unwillingly caused her.
"Please tell Archie that I will not let him sacrifice himself for me. I know that he will wish to remain, and I, too, wish to remain. We are all English, and who knows how little or how much we are all to blame for this disaster? We must share it together."
Something like a sigh of relief passed Nicholson's compressed lips, but he said nothing. In duty bound, he dared not offer encouragement nor plead for the fulfillment of his hopes. With mixed feelings he turned to Beatrice. Possessed as he now was of all the details of her conduct, he could not but lay at her door the consequences of a frivolous and heartless action. But her pitiless self-denunciation at the meeting, her present quiet and dignity, subdued in him all scorn and anger. Courage saluted courage as their eyes met.
"And you, Miss Cary?"
"Lois has already answered for me," she said. "If there was any justice in this world, I alone should suffer; but one can never suffer alone, it seems. The least I can do is to stand by you all." Her tone revealed all the remorse and suffering of which human nature is capable. It stirred in him a sudden impulsive pity. He crossed the room with outstretched hand.
"You are a brave woman."
She smiled bitterly, but the color rushed to her cheeks.
"Thank you. You have paid me the only compliment for which I care. But it is a small thing to take one's punishment without crying. After all, death isn't the worst."
She saw him glance doubtfully at her mother, and she bent down to the frozen face, speaking now gently but distinctly, as though to a suffering invalid whose ears had been dulled with pain.
"Mother, what do you want to do? There is still time—and Captain Nicholson says there is no hope for those who remain. You must not be influenced by my choice."
Mrs. Cary looked up into her daughter's face with a perplexed frown. She seemed scarcely to have heard what had been said to her, not even to have been aware that any escape was possible. She felt for Beatrice's hand, and taking it in her own, stroked it with pathetic helplessness.
"A bad mother!" she said absently. "Well, perhaps I was. Yes, no doubt—and you think so, too, though you never said anything. It was always position I wanted. Now it's all gone. What is it, dear? Why do you look at me like that? I haven't said what I oughtn't, have I?"
"No, no. Only Captain Nicholson wants to know—will you stay or go? We could get some of the servants to go with you. You will be safe then."
Mrs. Cary shook her head.
"Are you—what are you going to do?"
A childish smile twisted the heavy face.
"I'd like to stay with you, Beaty. We have always stuck together, haven't we?" She lay back with her head against Beatrice's shoulder. "You always were so clever, Beaty. I'm sure it will be all right. You'll see your poor mother through." The eyelids sank; she dropped into a drowse of complete mental and physical breakdown, and for a moment no one spoke. Mrs. Carmichael had shifted from her defiant attitude, and her hard, set face expressed a grim satisfaction not unmixed with pity.
"Now, Mrs. Berry, what about you?" she said. "Captain Nicholson has wasted enough time with you women. You must make up your mind—if you've got one," she concluded, in a smothered undertone.
Mrs. Berry drew herself up from her cowering position. Her teeth were still chattering with terror, but Nicholson saw that the crisis of panic was over. There was a curious look of obstinate resolve on the usually weak and silly face.
"If all the men are remaining, I suppose my husband remains, too?" she asked.
"Yes; he is helping Colonel Carmichael with the defenses."
Wonderful indeed are the volte-faces of which a character is capable! Nicholson, to whom human nature was a book of revelations, watched with a sense almost of awe this mean, petty and brainless woman, who a moment before had been whimpering with fear, smooth out her skirts and arrange her hair as though death were not sitting at her elbow.
"I am sure," she said, in a sharp voice which still trembled, "I can do what Mrs. Cary can do. I shall stay—please tell Percy so, with my love. And I should like to see him if possible before the end."
Nicholson bowed to her, and for the first time in their acquaintance the salute had a genuine significance.
"I am proud to have such countrywomen!" he said, and then added in a low tone as he passed Lois: "The cathedral is nearly finished."
She nodded.
"It could not have been better finished," she said bravely. "And you see I was right—when there is a noble building in the midst of them, people grow ashamed of their mud-huts. They pull them down and begin their own cathedrals—even when it is too late."
His eyes wandered instinctively toward the woman on the couch.
"Yes, you were quite right." He went to the curtained doorway, where he found Mrs. Carmichael waiting for him, a quaint figure enough with her sleeves rolled back, her skirts tucked up above her ankles, the revolver stuck brigand-wise in her belt.
"I'm coming with you," she said coolly. "I can shoot as straight as most of you, and a good deal better than George. I might be of some use."
"You would be of use anywhere," he returned sincerely, "but, if I may say so, you will be of more use here. Your courage will help the others. As for us, we have fifty of my Gurkhas, and they will do all that can be done. I will let you know what is happening. At present you are safest here."
She sighed.
"Very well. And if any one is hurt, send him around. I have plenty of bandages."
"Yes, of course."
It was a merely formal offer and acceptance. Both knew that it would be scarcely worth while to bandage men already in their full health and strength marked out for death. Nicholson went out, closing the door after him, and once more an absolute stoic silence fell upon the little company. In moments of crisis, it is the strict adherence to the habits of a lifetime which keeps the mind clear and the nerve firm. Lois went on quietly preparing some sandwiches, which in all probability would never be eaten, and Mrs. Carmichael resigned martial occupation for the cutting-out of a baby's pinafore for an East-end child whom she had under her special patronage. But her mind was active and, stern, self-opinionated martinet that she was, she could not altogether crush the regrets that swarmed up in this last reckoning up of her life's activity. Better had her charity and interest been centered on the dirty little children whom she had indignantly tolerated on her compound! Better for them all would it have been had each one of them sought to win the love and respect of the subject race! Then, perhaps, they would not have been deserted in this last hour of peril.
Mrs. Carmichael glanced at Beatrice Cary with a fresh pricking of conscience. What, after all, had she done to deserve the chief condemnation? She had played with fire. Had they not all played with fire? She had looked upon a native as a toy fit to play with, to break and throw away. Did they not all, behind their seeming tolerance and Christian principles, hide an equal depreciation? Was she even as bad as some? How many men revealed to their syces their darkest moods, their lowest passions? How many women were to their ayahs subjects for contemptuous Bazaar gossip. They were all to blame, and this was the harvest, the punishment for the neglect of a heavy responsibility. The thought that she had been unjust was iron through Mrs. Carmichael's soul, for above all things she prided herself on her fairness. She pushed her work away and went over to Beatrice's side. Mrs. Cary's head still rested against the aching shoulder, and Mrs. Carmichael made a sign to let her improvize a cushion substitute. Beatrice shook her head.
"No, thank you," she whispered, glancing down at the flushed, sleeping face. "We have done each other so little real service that I am glad to be able to do even this much. I don't suppose it will be for long. How quiet everything is!"
Mrs. Carmichael looked at the clock on the writing-table.
"It is not yet midnight," she said. "Probably the Rajah is keeping his promise." Her expression relaxed a little. "Don't tire yourself," she added bruskly to Mrs. Berry, who had been fanning the unconscious woman's face with an improvized paper fan. "I don't think she feels the heat."
The missionary's wife continued her good work with redoubled energy. It was perhaps one of the few really unselfish things which she had ever done in the course of a pious but fundamentally selfish life, and it gave her pleasure and courage. The knowledge that some one was weaker than herself and needed her was new strength to her new-born heroism.
"It is so frightfully hot," she said half apologetically. "Why isn't the punkah-man at work?"
"The 'punkah-man' has bolted with the rest of them," Mrs. Carmichael answered. "I dare say I could work it, though I have never tried."
"It is hardly worth while to begin now," Beatrice observed, and this simple acknowledgment that the end was at hand received no contradiction.
Once again the silence was unbroken, save for the soft swish of the fan and Mrs. Cary's heavy, irregular breathing. Yet the five women who in the full swing of their life had been diametrically opposed to one another were now united in a common sympathy. Death, far more than a leveler of class, is the melting-pot into which are thrown all antagonisms, all violent discords of character. The one great fact overshadows everything, and the petty stumbling-blocks of daily life are forgotten. More than that still—it is the supreme moment in man's existence when the innermost treasures or unsuspected hells are revealed beyond all denial. And in these five women, hidden in two cases at least beneath a mass of meanness, selfishness and indifference, there lay an unusual power of self-sacrifice and pity. Death was drawing near to them all, and their one thought was how to make his coming easier for the other. When the silence grew unbearable, it was Mrs. Carmichael who had the courage to break it with a trivial criticism respecting the manner in which Lois was making the sandwiches.
"You should put the butter on before you cut them," she said tartly, "and as little as possible. I'm quite sure it has gone rancid, and then George won't touch them. He is so fussy about the butter."
Mrs. Berry looked up. The perspiration of physical fear stood on her cold forehead, but her roused will-power fought heroically and conquered.
"And, please, would you mind making one or two without butter?" she said. "Percy says all Indian butter is bad. Of course, it's only an idea of his, but men are such faddy creatures, don't you think?"
"They wouldn't be men if they weren't—" Mrs. Carmichael had begun, when she broke off, and the scissors that had been snipping their way steadily through the rough linen jagged and dropped on the table. She picked them up immediately and went on with an impatient exclamation at her own carelessness. But the involuntary start had coincided with a loud report from outside in the darkness, and a smothered scream.
Lois put down her knife.
"Won't you come and help me?" she said to Beatrice. "Your mother will not notice that you have gone."
Beatrice nodded, and letting the heavy head sink back among the cushions, came over to Lois' side.
"How brave you are!" she said in a whisper. "You seem so cool and collected, just as though you believed your sandwiches would ever be eaten!"
"I am not braver than you are. Look how steady your hand is—much steadier than mine."
Beatrice held out her white hand and studied it thoughtfully.
"I am not afraid," she said, "but not because I am brave. There is no room for fear, that is all." She paused an instant, and then suddenly the hand fell on Lois'. The two women looked at each other. "Lois, I am so sorry."
"For me?"
"For you and every one. I have hurt so many. It has all been my fault. I would give ten lives if I had them to see the harm undone. But that isn't possible. Oh, Lois, there is surely nothing worse than helpless remorse!"
The hand within her own tightened in its clasp.
"Is it ever helpless, though?"
"I can't give the dead life—I can't give back a man's faith, can I?"
The light of understanding deepened in Lois' eyes.
"Beatrice—I believe I know!"
"Yes, I see you do. Do you despise me? What does it matter if you do? It has been my fear of the world and its opinion that helped to lead me wrong. Isn't it a just punishment? I have ruined both our lives. Lois, I couldn't help hearing what Captain Nicholson said to you. It explained what you said to me about building on the ruins of the past. That was what he did—he built a beautiful palace on me—and I wrecked it. I failed him."
"Have you really failed him?"
"Lois, I don't know—I am beginning to believe not. But it is too late. I meant to clear away the rubbish—and build. But there is no time."
"You have done your best."
"Oh, if I could only save him, Lois! He was the first man I had ever met whom I trusted, the first to trust me. I owe him everything, the little that is good in me. It had to come to life when he believed in it so implicitly. And he owes me ruin, outward and inward ruin."
Lois made no answer. With a warm, impulsive gesture she put her arms about the taller woman's neck and, drawing the beautiful face down to her own, kissed her. Beatrice responded, and thus a friendship was sealed—not for life but for death, whose grim cordon was with every moment being drawn closer about them.
The sound of firing had now grown incessant. One report followed another at swift, irregular intervals, and each sounded like a clap of thunder in the silent room. Mrs. Cary stirred uneasily in her sleep, a low, scarcely audible groan escaped the parted lips, as though even in her dreams she was being pursued by fear's pitiless phantom. Her self-appointed nurse continued to fan her with the energy of despair, the poor livid face twitching at every fresh threatening sound. Mrs. Carmichael still pretended to be absorbed in her pinafore, but the revolver lay on the table, ready to hand, and there was a look in the steady eyes which boded ill for the first enemy who should confront her. Lois and Beatrice continued their fruitless task.
A woman's courage is the supreme victory of mind over matter. It is no easy thing for a hero to sit still and helpless while death rattles his bullet fingers against the walls and screams in voices of hate and fury from a distance which every minute diminishes. For a woman burdened with the disability of a high-strung nervous system, it is a martyrdom. Yet these women, brought up on the froth of an enervating, pleasure-seeking society, held out—held out with a martyr's courage and constancy—against the torture of inactivity, of an imagination which penetrated the sheltering walls out into the night where fifty men writhed in a death-struggle with hundreds—saw every bleeding wound, heard every smothered moan of pain, felt already the cold iron pierce their own breasts. The hours passed, and they did not yield. They had ceased from their incongruous tasks, and stood and waited, wordless and tearless.
As the first grey lights of dawn crept into the stifling room they heard footsteps hurrying across the adjacent room, and each drew herself upright to meet the end. Mrs. Carmichael's hand tightened over the revolver, but it was only Mr. Berry who entered. The little missionary, a shy, society-shunning man, noted for doing more harm than good among the natives by his zealous bigotry and ignorance of their prejudices, stood revealed in a new light. His face was grimed with dirt and powder, his clothes disordered, his weak eyes bright with the fire of battle.
"Do not be afraid," he said quickly. "There is no immediate danger. I have only been sent to warn you to be ready to leave the bungalow. The front wall is shot-riddled, and the place may become indefensible at any moment. When that time comes, you must slip out to the old bungalow. Nicholson believes he can hold out there."
"My husband—?" interrupted Mrs. Carmichael.
"Your husband is safe. In fact, all three were well when I left. If I wasn't against such things, I should say it was a splendid fight—and every man a hero. The Rajah—"
"The Rajah—?"
Mr. Berry looked in stern surprise at the pale face of the speaker.
"The Rajah has a charmed life," he said somberly. "He is always in the front of his men—we can recognize him by his dress and figure—he is always within range, but we can't hit him. Not that I ought to wish his death, though it's our only chance." He put his hands distractedly to his head. "Heaven knows, it's too hard for a Christian man! Every time I see an enemy fall, I rejoice—and then I remember that it is my brother—" He stopped, the expression on his face of profound trouble giving way to active alarm. "Hush! Some one is coming!"
A second time the door opened, and Travers rushed in. Lois saw his face, and something in her recoiled in sick disgust. Fear, an almost imbecilic fear, was written on the wide-open, staring eyes, and the hand that held the revolver trembled like that of an old man.
"Quick—out by the back way!" he stammered incoherently. "I will lock the door—so. That will keep them off a minute. They are bound to look for us here first. Nicholson is retiring with his men—they are going to have a try to bring down the Rajah. It's our one chance. It may frighten the devils—they think he's a god. I believe he is, curse him!" All the time, he had been piling furniture against the door with a mad and feverish energy. "Help me! Help me!" he screamed. "Why don't you help? Do you want to be killed like sheep?"
Lois drew him back by the arm.
"You are wasting time," she said firmly. "Come with us! Why, you are hurt!"
He looked at the thin stream which trickled down the soiled white of his coat. A silly smile flickered over his big face.
"Oh, yes, a scratch. I hardly feel it. It isn't anything. It can't be anything. There's nothing vital thereabouts, is there, Berry?"
The missionary shrugged his shoulders. He had flung open the glass doors which led on to the verandah, and the brightening dawn flooded in upon them.
"Come and help me carry this poor lady," he said. "We have not a minute to lose."
Travers tried to obey, but he had no strength, and the other thrust him impatiently on one side.
"Mrs. Carmichael, you are a strong woman," he appealed. Between them they managed to bring Mrs. Cary's heavy, unconscious frame down the steps. It was a nerve-trying task, for their progress was of necessity a slow one, and the sound of the desperate fighting seemed to surround them on every side. It was with a feeling of intense relief that the little party saw Nicholson appear from amidst the trees and run toward them.
"That's right!" he cried. "Only be quick! They are at us on all sides now, but my men are keeping them off until you are out of the bungalow. The old ruin at the back of the garden is our last stand. Carmichael is there already with a detachment, and is keeping off a rear attack. I shall remain here."
"Alone?" Berry asked anxiously.
"Yes. I believe they will ransack the bungalow first. When they come, the Rajah is sure to be at their head, and—well, it's going to be diamond cut diamond between us two when we meet. I know the beggars and their superstition. If I get in the first shot, they will bolt. If he does—"
"You are going to shoot him down like a rat in a trap!" Beatrice burst out passionately.
The others had already hurried on. With a gentle force he urged her to follow them.
"Or be shot down myself," he said. "Leave me to do my duty as I think best."
She met his grave eyes defiantly, but perhaps some instinct told her that he was risking his life for a poor chance—for their last chance, for without a word she turned away, apparently in the direction which her companions had already taken.
As soon as she was out of sight, Nicholson recharged his smoking revolver, and stood there quietly waiting. His trained ear heard the firing in front of the bungalow cease. He knew then that his men were retiring to join Colonel Carmichael, and that he stood alone, the last barrier between death and those he loved. The sound of triumphant shouting drew nearer; he heard the wrenching and tearing of doors crashing down before an impetuous onslaught, the cling of steel, a howl of sudden satisfaction. His hand tightened upon his revolver; he stood ready to meet his enemy single-handed, to fight out the duel between man and man. But no one came. A bewildering silence had followed upon the last bloodthirsty cry. It was as though the hand of death had fallen and with one annihilating blow beaten down the approaching horde in the high tide of their victory. But of the two this strange stillness was the more terrible. It penetrated to the little waiting group in the old bungalow and filled them with the chill horror of the unknown. Something had happened—that they felt.
Lois crept to the doorway and peered out into the gathering daylight. Here and there, half hidden behind the shelter of the trees, she could see the khaki-clad figures of the Gurkhas, some kneeling, some standing, their rifles raised to their dark faces, waiting like statues for the enemy that never came. A dead, petrified world, the only living thing the sunshine, which played in peaceful indifference upon the scene of an old and a new tragedy! Lois thought of her mother. By the power of an overwrought imagination she looked back through a quarter of a century to a day of which this present was a strange and horrible repetition. For a moment she lived her mother's life, lived through the hours of torturing doubt and fear, and when a stifled cry called her back to the reality and forced her to turn from the sunlight to the dark room, it was as though the dead had risen, as though her dreams had taken substance. She saw pale faces staring at her; she saw on the rusty truckle-bed a figure which rose up and held out frantic, desperate arms toward her. But it was no dream—no phantom. Mrs. Cary, wild-eyed and distraught, struggled to rise to her feet and come toward her.
"Where is Beatrice?" she cried hysterically. "Where is Beatrice? I dreamed she was dead!—It isn't true! Say it isn't true!"
Lois hurried back. In the confusion of their retreat she had lost sight of Beatrice, and now a cold fear froze her blood. She called her name, adding her voice to the half-delirious mother's appeal; but there was no answer, and as she prepared to leave the shelter of the bungalow to go in search of the lost girl, a pair of strong hands grasped her by the shoulders and forced her back.
"Lois, stand back! They are coming!"
Colonel Carmichael thrust her behind him, and an instant later she heard the report of his revolver. There was no answering volley. A dark, scantily-clad figure sprang through the trees, waving one hand as though in imperative appeal.
"Don't fire—don't fire! It's me!"
The Colonel's still smoking revolver sank, and the supposed native swayed toward him, only to sink a few yards farther on to the ground. Carmichael ran to his side and lifted the fainting head against his shoulder.
"Good God, Geoffries! Don't say I've hit you! How on earth was I to know!"
"That's all right, Colonel. Only winded—don't you know—never hurried so much in life. Have been in the midst of the beggars—just managed to slip through. O Lor', give me something to drink, will you?" Colonel Carmichael put his flask to the parched and broken lips. "Thanks, that's better. We got your message, and are coming on like fun. The regiment's only an hour off. You never saw Saunders in such a fluster—it's his first big job, you know." He took another deep draft, and wiped his mouth with the corner of his ragged tunic. "I say—don't look at me, Miss Lois. I'm not fit to be seen." He laughed hoarsely. "These clothes weren't made in Bond Street, and Webb assured me that the fewer I had the more genuine I looked. I say, Colonel, this is a lively business!"
Colonel Carmichael nodded as he helped the gasping and exhausted man into the bungalow.
"Too lively to be talked about," he said. "I doubt if the regiment isn't going to add itself to the general disaster."
"Oh, rot!" was the young officer's forgetful lapse into disrespect. "The regiment will do for the beggars all right. They didn't expect us so soon, I fancy. Just listen! I believe I've frightened them away already. There isn't a sound."
Colonel Carmichael lifted his head. True enough, no living thing seemed to move. A profound hush hung in the air, broken only by Mrs. Cary's pitiful meanings.
"Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, where are you?"
Geoffries turned his stained face to the Colonel's.
"Beatrice! That's Miss Cary, isn't it? Anything happened to her?"
Colonel Carmichael shrugged his shoulders with the impatience of a man whose nerves are overstrained by anxiety.
"I don't know—we've lost her," he said. "We must do something at once. Heaven alone knows what has happened."
No one indeed knew what had happened—not even the lonely man who waited, revolver in hand, for the final encounter on whose issue hung the fortunes of them all.
Only one knew, and that was Beatrice herself as she stood before the shattered doorway of the Colonel's drawing-room, amidst the debris of wrecked, shot-riddled furniture, face to face with Nehal Singh.