“These hills are a maze,” she explained with a sweeping gesture of her whip that effectually upset the hitherto irreproachable behaviour of the horse she was riding. She reined him back with difficulty.
“I forgot I mustn’t do that. Captain André told me he couldn’t bear to have a whip whiffled about his ears,” she said laughingly. “Some of the gorges are wider than this, perfect camping grounds,” she continued, after she had soothed her mount’s ruffled sensibilities. “Very often a Sheik will camp here on his way to Algiers. Extraordinarily interesting they are, especially the ones who come from the far south—the wildest creatures, with hordes of fierce retainers who look as if they would think nothing of murdering one just for the sheer fun of it. But they are always very nice to us—they like the English. I am ashamed to say I have learned very little Arabic but when we meet them I smile and say ‘Anglaise’ and they get quite excited and salaam and grin and chatter like magpies. Then, again, we come here and may ride for miles and never see a soul for days together.”
“That is what one thinks on the Frontier but the beggars are there all the time, right enough,” said Meredith with a quick smile. “You will be riding over a bit of country that you wouldn’t think could afford cover for a cat and ping goes a bullet past your head. If they weren’t such thundering bad shots I, for one, should have been a goner years ago.” He laughed light-heartedly, and Mrs. Chalmers glanced at him curiously, marvelling, as she had marvelled frequently in the last fortnight, at the hazardous life that is some men’s portion and the fatalistic indifference it usually engenders. During his short visit she had listened with wonder and amazement to her cousin’s reluctant account of his work on the Border.
To Meredith it was the Great Game. Now, quite suddenly, she wondered what it would mean to the woman he might make his wife.
“I don’t believe, after all, Micky, that men like you ought to marry,” she said pensively. Meredith laughed at the patently regretful tone of her voice, for her matchmaking proclivities were notorious.
“I’m quite sure of it,” he replied promptly, and unwillingly Mrs. Chalmers was obliged to laugh with him.
But further conversation became for the time impossible. The rough track they were following grew narrower and less perceptible until it suddenly vanished altogether and the horses slithered and slipped down to the rocky bed of the dry watercourse at the bottom of the defile. The pass was bearing steadily towards the south and Doctor Chalmers who was some little distance ahead of them had already disappeared from sight behind a jutting angle of rock where the hill curved abruptly. Following in single file they reached the sharp bend and rounding it close under the stark cliff face, emerged into a wider, less rugged valley that stretched on the one hand far up into the mountains and on the other led to open country. A quarter of a mile away, at the entrance of the valley, Doctor Chalmers was waiting for them. Scrambling out of the river bed they spurred their horses, racing to join him, and as they neared he turned in the saddle beckoning vigorously. “You’re in luck, Micky,” he shouted, “there’s your man.” And following his pointing finger they saw a small party of horsemen galloping towards the mountains. The leader, who was riding slightly in advance of his escort, was distinguished from his white-clad followers by an embroidered blue cloth burnous that billowed round him in swelling folds. With a little thrill of excitement Mrs. Chalmers glanced quickly at her cousin, and decided for the second time that day that men were queer creatures. They never did what one expected them to do. A little more than half-an-hour ago Micky had expressed a great wish to meet again the friend of his youth. The wish unexpectedly fulfilled, it was to be supposed that his inward gratification would take some outward and visible form. He sat instead motionless on his fretting horse, scowling at the approaching horsemen, his underlip sucked in beneath his trim brown moustache, in very obvious hesitation.
It was Doctor Chalmers who rode forward and waved his hand with a welcoming shout. And for a moment it seemed as if his greeting was going to pass unrecognised. The horsemen were nearly abreast of them, riding at a tremendous pace, another moment they would have swept past. Then, with a powerful jerk that sent the bright bay straight up into the air spinning high on his hind legs, the leader checked his mount suddenly. It was a common trick among the Arabs which Mrs. Chalmers had often witnessed, but she never watched it without a quickening heartbeat, and she gave a little sigh of relief now as the horse came down without the ugly backward tremble she had seen once and dreaded to see again. She was conscious of a feeling of extreme embarrassment at the near presence of the man whose mysterious personality she had discussed freely with her circle of acquaintances during the last five years, but who now appeared to her in a new and totally different light. Her warm impulsive heart had been touched by Micky Meredith’s story and a hot wave of discomfort passed over her as she recollected the idle gossip she had both countenanced and participated in. She determined to delay the inevitable meeting with the much criticised Mystery-man until the first greeting and explanations between the two old friends were over. Leaving Meredith to go alone, she lingered behind under pretext of re-arranging her habit, and for some minutes she bent over her perfectly adjusted safety skirt pulling and patting it into further order while her fidgety horse wheeled and backed impatiently at the forced stand. Then she rode forward with unusual diffidence to join the three men who, dismounted, were deep in conversation. They drew apart at her coming and Meredith effected the necessary introduction.
In response to Mrs. Chalmers’ murmured greeting the tall picturesque-looking man who had turned almost reluctantly towards her replied briefly and bowed with grave, unsmiling aloofness that seemed consistent with the Arab robes he wore so naturally. She had a swift glimpse of a lean brown clean-shaven face, of a pair of dark blue sombre eyes that did not quite meet her own, and then her husband’s genial voice broke the threatening silence.
“Sir Gervas is camping in the neighborhood, Mollie. He wants Micky to wait over until the later train. We shall have to push on as I promised to be in Algiers early this evening,” he explained, preparing to remount. “Your train leaves Blidah at eleven, Micky,” he added. “And, Carew, the horse is André’s. See that he gets back all right to the cavalry barracks, will you? Ready, Mollie? Then take hold of that beast of yours. We shall have to run for it.”