"Gad!" he muttered as he sank exhausted into a chair, "there isn't much fear of Shunker so long as I've a stick in my hand. Hullo! what's that? Something rustled under the table. Here, Budlu! quick, lights! It may be a snake! Confound the servants; they're never to be found!"
He stopped and drew his hand over his forehead two or three times. Just then Budlu, entering with the lamp, stooped to pick something from the floor. It was a note for a thousand rupees, crisp and crackling.
Colonel Stuart looked at it in a dazed sort of way, then burst into a roar of laughter and put it in his pocket-book. "My fair perquisite, by Jove! and it will come in useful to-night at écarté. Budlu, give me the little bottle. I must steady my nerves a bit if I'm to play with Raby."
[CHAPTER VII.]
People who talk of the still Indian night can scarcely do so from experience, for, especially during the hot weather, darkness in the East is vocal with life. The cicala shrills its loudest, the birds are awake, and the very trees and plants seem to blossom audibly. Go round an Indian garden at sunset and it is a sepulchre; the roses shrivelled in their prime, the buds scorched in the birth, the foliage beaten down by the fierce sun. Visit it again at sunrise and you will find it bright with blossom, sweet with perfume, refreshed with dew. That is the work of night; what marvel then if it is instinct with sound and movement! Never for one hour does silence fall upon the world. The monotonous beat of some native musician's drum goes on and on; a village dog barks, and is answered by another until seventy times seven; a crow takes to cawing irrelatively; the birds sing in snatches, and the Indian cock, like that of scriptural story, crows for other reasons besides the dawn.
The long-legged rooster who habitually retired to sleep on the summit of Colonel Stuart's cook-room, had, however, legitimate cause for his vociferations, and dawn was just darkening the rest of the sky when the sudden flapping of his wings startled the horse of an early wayfarer who came at a walk down the Mall.
It was Philip Marsden setting out betimes for a two days' scour of the district in search of the very mules out of which Shunker Dâs had hoped to make so much profit. Most men, carrying ten thousand rupees with them, would have applied for a treasure-chest and a police guard; but Major Marsden considered himself quite sufficient security for the roll of currency notes in his breast-pocket. As he quieted the frightened horse, his close proximity to the Commissariat office reminded him that he had forgotten to apply for a certain form on which he had to register his purchases; the omission would entail delay, so he anathematised his own carelessness and was riding on, when a light in the office-windows attracted his attention. It was early for any one to be at work, but knowing how time pressed in all departments under the strain of war, he thought it not improbable that some energetic babu was thus seeking the worm of promotion, and might be able to give him what he required. Dismounting, lest his horse's tread should disturb the sleepers in the house by which he had to pass, he hitched the reins to a tree, and made his way towards the office; not without a kindly thought of the girl, forgetful of care, who lay sleeping so near to him that, unconsciously, he slackened his step and trod softly. He had been as good as his word, and that very day the doctor was to go over and prescribe immediate change. Change! he smiled at the idea, wondering what change could stem the course of the inevitable.
As he drew near he saw that the light came, not from the office, but from its chief's private room. He hesitated an instant; then a suspicion that something might be wrong made him go on till he could see through the open door into the room. Thefts were common enough in cantonments, and it was as well to make sure. Through the chick he could distinctly see a well-known figure seated at the writing-table, leaning forward on its crossed arms.
"Drunk!" said Philip Marsden to himself with a thrill of bitter contempt and turned away. The bearer would find the Colonel and put him decently to bed long before the girl was up. Poor Belle! The little platform where she had stood but the night before was faintly visible, bringing a recollection of her pale face and sad appeal. "It is father,"--the first words she had ever said to him; the very first! He retraced his steps quickly, set the chick aside, and entered the room. The lamp on the table was fast dying out, but its feeble flicker fell full on the Colonel's grey hair, and lit up the shining gold lace on his mess-jacket. Silver, and gold, and scarlet,--a brilliant show of colour in the shabby, dim room. A curious smell in the air and a great stillness made Philip Marsden stop suddenly and call the sleeper by name. In the silence which followed he heard the ticking of a chronometer which lay close to him. He called again, not louder, but quicker, then with swift decision passed his arm round the leaning figure and raised it from the table. The grey head fell back inertly on his breast, and the set, half-closed eyes looked up lifelessly into his.
"Dead," he heard himself say, "dead!"--dead, not drunk. As he stood there for an instant with the dead man's head finding a resting-place so close to his heart, the wan face looking up at him as if in a mute appeal, a flame of bitter regret for his own harsh judgment seemed to shrivel up all save pity. The great change had come, to end poor Belle's anxieties. And she? Ah! poor child, who was to tell her of it?