Herbert Raynier ran lightly up the steps of his verandah, feeling intensely satisfied with himself and things in general.
Though summer, the air was delightfully balmy, and the glow of the sunset reddening the heads of the mountains surrounding the basin in which lay Mazaran, was soothing and grateful to the eye. The bungalow was roomy and commodious, and stood in the midst of a pleasant garden, where closing flowers distilled fragrant scents upon the evening air—all this sent his mind back in thankful contrast to hot, steaming, languid Baghnagar, its brassy skies and feverish exhalations, where even at this late hour the very crows lining the roof would be open-billed and gasping. And thus contrasting the new with the old order of things he decided for the fiftieth time that the luckiest moment of his life was when he opened the official letter—which met him on landing at Bombay—appointing him Political Agent at Mazaran.
Hardly less in contrast between the climate of his new station and the last, were the people with whom he now had to deal. There was nothing whatever in common between the meek subservient native he had hitherto ruled and the stalwart independence of these wild mountain tribes, whose turbulent and predatory instincts needed nice handling to keep in efficient control. But all this appealed to him vividly, and he threw himself into his new duties with an eager zest which caused those who had known his predecessor to smile. He recognised that here at least was a chance; here he might find scope for such latent ability which the stagnant routine of his old Department had been in danger of stifling altogether. In fact, he was inclined to regret the abnormally tranquil state of things, when Jelson, his predecessor, had congratulated him upon the fact that Mushîm Khan, the chief of the powerful, and often turbulent, Gularzai tribe, had become so amenable since the Government had created him a Nawab that the meanest bunniah might almost walk through the Gularzai country alone and with his pockets bulging with rupees, in perfect safety.
Herbert Raynier flung himself into a comfortable chair on the verandah and lighted a cheroot. He had half an hour to spare before it should be time to dress and go out to dinner, and how should such be better spent than in a restful smoke: yet, while enjoying this, his thoughts were active enough. His prospects, rosy as the afterglow which dwelt upon the surrounding peaks, kept him busy for a time, and over all was a sense of great relief. If he had saved the life of an unknown Oriental at the hands of a particularly brutal mob, assuredly he had been repaid to the full, for, but for that circumstance, matters would never have come to a head with Cynthia. He would still be bound hard and fast by a chain of which he only realised the full weight since he had broken it. For he had broken it—finally, irrevocably, unmistakably, he told himself. Since that last scene in the Vicarage garden he and Cynthia had exchanged no word. The remainder of that day had not been of a pleasant nature, and he had left by an early train on the following morning, to return three days later to India. No letter, either of farewell, or reproach or recrimination—as he had half feared—reached him at the last, and it was with feelings of genuine relief that he watched the shores of the mother country fade into the invisible.
Tarleton, the Civil Surgeon, at whose bungalow Raynier was dining, was somewhat of a trying social unit, in that he was never even by chance known to agree with any remark or proposition, weighty or trivial, put forward by anybody, or if there was no conceivable room for gainsaying such, why then he would append some brisk aggressive comment in rider fashion. As thus,—
“How do, Raynier? How did you come over? Didn’t walk, did you?”
“No. Biked.”
“Ho! Bicycle’s not much use up here, I can tell you.”
Raynier remarked that he found the machine useful for getting about the station with, and that the roads in and immediately around the same were rather good.
“Well, you didn’t expect to find them all rocks and stones, did you?” came the prompt rejoinder.