And Fate was so far kind to Marrion that she had little trouble in finding out the news she desired to hear. A sort of local rag in French and English was published in which, for equivalent of a penny, she learnt that Marmaduke's regiment was still camped six miles out among the hills and that he was still in command. From her verandah she could actually see the very place where he must be. Once, indeed, as she was hurrying along the quay in the ordinary dress of the Turkish gad-about woman she caught a sight of Andrew Fraser, tall, gaunt, serious as usual, looking on distastefully at one of the many drunken rows that occurred every day. The temptation to go up and speak to him was great, but she stuck to her plan and passed on. When she had really done something she would write and tell Marmaduke she was at hand, but not till then. Possibly, had she seen him instead of Andrew Fraser she might not have been so firm; for a glance would have shown her that she could have been of use. In truth, the inaction, the constant fret of feeling that all initiative is of no avail, was beginning to tell on Marmaduke Muir. He also looked down of an evening on the white pall that covered the Lake of Death, and wondered--without one shadow of fear, but from simple curiosity--whether the levels of life would meet his eyes again. And they seemed such low levels now! Yes, he had missed something in his life! What was it? These, however, were very secret thoughts. To the little coterie of careless men of which he was the centre, he was, as ever, the mainspring of everything. Even the divisional commander sought his sympathy as day after day the orders for the front tarried, and day after day the regimental chaplain grew busier and busier. For cholera was rampant in the camps as in the town, and every evening the "Dead March in Saul" echoed out through the hills and over the purple crocuses.
"Nothing will stop it, sir," said the young colonel quietly, "except orders for Sebastopol. The men are dead sick of waiting and so am I; that is the truth."
And still the orders lingered on the way. The waiting army did its best to pass the time. Marmaduke took to tying flies, and thereinafter thrashed the hill streams with ill success. And he played cricket with the men, though it was ill finding a proper pitch on the steep hill-side where they were encamped; and he had to keep his men from those low levels as much as he could, being rewarded for his care by the fact that his battalion suffered less from the scourge than any other. Though this was not to be wondered at, seeing that it was commanded by one whose cheery youth and strength seemed to defy Fate.
"The Cornel's face is mair tae the purpose nor your pills, doctor," said a young recruit fighting his best for life. "I'll just tak a sup o' it, if ye please, and leave tither alane for fowk as likes them."
Yet that same face often showed a touch of weariness in it when, after his wont, Marmaduke would climb the hill behind his hut in order to smoke his solitary after-breakfast cigar at the foot of a scarp whence the most astounding view of God's world was to be had. Hills and still more hills. Seas and still more seas; lakes and still more lakes. Flowers and still more flowers.
"It is the inaction, Mac," he said to his old friend of the regimental club one day after mess dinner. They had been perforce laughing at the plight of a braw Hielandman who had been brought up to orderly-rooms that day from the general guard, clad in Zouave trousers and jacket, kepi and all complete; only the chequered hose of his own uniform remaining to betray the drunken bout on which he had been engaged.
"I noo 'im by 'is legs, sir," said the sergeant solemnly, "so I brought 'im along."
"Ton my soul, I can't help sympathising with the poor beggars," he went on. "Why the devil can't they give the men something to do besides getting drunk? Here is the tenth of August and, so far as I can see, I might be off grouse-shooting on the twelfth. Good Lord, what wouldn't I give to be on Braemore with my dogs! They're the best----"
And he began, in true sportsman style, over the virtues of his setters; whereat others joined in with tales of their own. So, heartened up, they all repaired to Marmaduke's favourite vantage ground to finish their cigars.
It was a perfect evening. The day had been hot, but with the sun setting a little cool sea-breeze had sprung up which seemed to freshen even the very flowers that had flagged with the sun's heat. They sat, growing more and more silent as the day died down; and, indeed, what lay before their eyes was sufficient to make most men hold their peace; for it was beautiful exceedingly. The far Euxine fading grey into a pearl-grey sky. Overhead and behind them the rose-pink pennons of the departing sun floating on the unfathomable clearness of space. Within the bay great ships of war showed, half-hidden in the evening haze which turned the squalid city into dreamland.