CHAPTER XII
As Barlow led the Gulab within the bungalow she drew, as a veil, a light silk scarf across her face.
Upon the floor of the front room a bearer, head buried in yards of pink cotton cloth, his puggri, lay fast asleep.
As Barlow raised a foot to touch the sleeper in the ribs the girl drew him back, put the tips of her finger to her lips, and pointed toward the bedroom door.
Barlow shook his head, the flickering flame of the wick in an iron oil-lamp that rested in a niche of the wall exaggerating to ferocity the frown that topped his eyes.
But Bootea pleaded with a mute salaam, and raising her lips to his ear whispered, "Not because of what is not permitted—not because of Bootea—please."
With an arm he swept back the beaded tendrils of a hanging door-curtain, the girl glided to the darkness of the room, and Barlow, lifting from its niche the iron lamp, followed. Within, she pointed to the door that lay open and Barlow, half in rebellion, softly closed it. As he turned he saw that she had dropped from their holding cords the heavy brocaded silk curtains of the window.
His limbs were numb from the long ride with the weight of the girl's body across his thighs; he was tired; he was mentally distressed over the messengers he had failed to locate, and this, the almost forced intrusion of Bootea into his bedroom, the closed door and the curtained windows, her doing, was just another turn of the kaleidoscope with its bits of broken glass of a nightmare. He dropped wearily into a big cane-bottomed Hindu chair, saying; "Little wilted rose, cuddle up on that divan among the cushions and rest, while you tell me why we sit in purdah."
The girl dragged a cushion from the divan, and placing it on the floor beside his chair, sat on it, curling her feet beneath her knees.
Barlow groaned inwardly. If his mind had not been so lethargic because of the things that weighted it, like the leaden soles upon a diver's boots, he would have roused himself to say, "Look here, a chap can't pull a girl who is as sweet as a flower and as trusting as a babe, out of trouble and then make bazaar love to her; he can't do it if he's any sort of a chap." All this was casually in his mind, but he let his tired eyes droop, and his hand that hung over the teak-wood arm of the chair rested upon the girl's shoulder.
"Bootea will soon go so that the Sahib may sleep, for he is tired," she said; "but first there is something to be said, and I have come close to the Sahib because men not alone whisper in the dark but they listen."
The hand that rested on Bootea's shoulder lifted to her cheek, and strong fingers caressed its oval.
"Would the Sahib sleep, and would his mind rest if he knew where the two who rode are?"
Barlow sat bolt upright in the chair, roused, the lethargy gone, as if he had poured raw whisky down his throat. And he was glad, the closed door and the drawn curtains were not now things of debasement. Curious that he should care what this little Hindu maid was like, but he did. His hand now clasped the girl's wrist, it almost hurt in its tenseness.
"Yes, Gulab,"—and he subdued his voice,—"tell me if you know."
"They are dead upon the road beyond where you saved Bootea."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"It was too late, Sahib; and if you had gone there they would have killed you."
"Who?"
"That, I cannot tell."
"You must, Gulab."
"No, Bootea will not."
Barlow stared angrily into the big eyes that were lifted to his, that though they lingered in soft loving upon his face, told him that she would not tell, that she would die first; even as he would have given his life if he had been captured by tribesmen and asked to betray his fellow men as the price of liberty.
He threw himself back wearily in the chair. "Why tell me this now,—to mock me, to exult?" he said, reproach in his voice.
"But it is the message, Sahib, that is more than the life of a sepoy, is it not?"
Again he sat up: "Why do you say this—do you know where it is?"
She drew from beneath her bodice the sandal soles, saying: "These are from the feet of the messenger who is dead. The one the Sahib beat over the head with his pistol dropped them,—and he was carrying them for a purpose. The Sahib knows, perhaps, the secret way of this land."
In the girl's hand was clasped the knife from her girdle, and she tendered it, hilt first: "Bootea knows not if they are of value, the leather soles, but if the Sahib would open them, then if there are eyes that watch the curtains are drawn."
Barlow revivified, stimulated by hope, seized the knife and ran its sharp point around the stitching of the soles. Between the double leather of one lay a thin, strong parchment-like paper.
He gave a cry of exultation as, unfolding it, he saw the seal of his Raj. His cry was a gasp of relief. Almost the shatterment of his career had lain in that worn discoloured sole, and disaster to his Raj if it had fallen into the hands of the conspirators.
In an ecstasy of relief he sprang to his feet, and lifting Bootea, clasped her in his arms, smothering her face in kisses, whispering: "Gulab, you are my preserver; you are the sweetest rose that ever bloomed!"
He felt the pound of her heart against his breast, and her eyes mirrored a happiness that caused him to realise that he was going too far—drifting into troubled waters that threatened destruction. The girl's soul had risen to her eyes and looked out as though he were a god.
As if Bootea sensed the same impending evil she pushed Barlow from her and sank back to the cushion, her face shedding its radiancy.
Cursing himself for the impetuous outburst Barlow slumped into the chair.
"Gulab," he said presently, "my government gives reward for loyalty and service."
"Bootea has had full reward," the girl answered.
He continued: "We had talk on the road about the Pindaris; what did they who whisper in the dark say?"
"That the chief, Amir Khan, has gathered an army, and they fear that because of an English bribe he will attack the Mahrattas; so the Dewan has brought men from Karowlee to go into the camp of the Pindaris in disguise and slay the chief for a reward."
This information coming from Bootea was astounding. Neither Resident
Hodson nor Captain Barlow had suspected that there had been a leak.
"And was there talk of this message from the British to—?" Barlow checked.
"To the Sahib?" Bootea asked. "Not of the message; but it was whispered that one would go to the Pindari camp to talk with Amir Khan, and perhaps it was the Sahib they meant. And perhaps they knew he waited for orders from the government."
Then suddenly it flashed upon Barlow that because of this he had been marked. The foul riding in the game of polo that so nearly put him out of commission—it had been deliberately foul, he knew that, but he had attributed it to a personal anger on the part of the Mahratta officer, bred of rivalry in the game and the fanatical hate of an individual Hindu for an Englishman.
"Now that a message has come will the Sahib go to the Pindari camp?"
Bootea persisted.
"Why do you ask, Gulab?"
"Not in the way of treachery, but because the Sahib is now like a god; and because I may again be of service, for those who will slay Amir Khan will also slay the Sahib."
"Gulab,—"
Barlow's voice was drowned by yells of terror in the outer room.
"Thieves! Thieves have broken in to rob, and they have stolen my lamp! Chowkidar, chowkidar! wake, son of a pig!"
It was the bearer, who, suddenly wakened by some noise, had in the dark groped for his lamp and found it missing.
"Heavens!" the Captain exclaimed. "Now the cook house will be empty—the servants will come!" He rubbed a hand perplexedly over his forehead. "Quick, Gulab, you must hide!"
He swung open a wooden door between his room and a bedroom next. Within he said: "There's a bed, and you must sleep here till daylight, then I will have the chowkidar take you to where you wish to go. You couldn't go in the dark anyway. Bar the door; you will be quite safe; don't be frightened." He touched her cheek with his fingers: "Salaam, little girl." Then, going out, he opened the door leading to the room of clamour, exclaiming angrily, "You fool, why do you scream in your dreams?"
"God be thanked! it is the Sahib." The bearer flopped to his knees and put his hands in abasement upon his master's feet.
Jungwa had rushed into the room, staff in hand, at the outcry. Now he stood glowering indignantly upon the grovelling bearer.
"It is the opium, Sahib," he declared; "this fool spends all his time in the bazaar smoking with people of ill repute. If the Presence will but admonish him with the whip our slumbers will not again be disturbed."
The bearer, running true to the tenets of native servants, put up the universal alibi—a flat denial.
"Sahib, you who are my father and my mother, be not angry, for I have not slept. I observed the Sahib pass, but as he spoke not, I thought he had matters of import upon his mind and wished not to be disturbed."
"A liar—by Mother Gunga!" The chowkidar prodded him in the ribs with the end of his staff, and turning in disgust, passed out.
"Come, you fool!" Barlow commanded, returning to his room, and, sitting down wearily upon the bed, held up a leg.
The bearer knelt and in silence stripped the putties from his master's limbs, unlaced the shoes, and pulled off the breeches.
When Barlow had slipped on the pyjamas handed him, he said: "Tell the chowkidar to come to me at his waking from the first call of the crows."