"So may I. Look on it as my last request, Major. I'd sooner trust you than any one in the wide world. You would be certain to do what I would like."
"Should I? I'm not so sure of myself. Look here, Dick! I didn't mean to tell you, but perhaps it is best to have it out, and be fair and square. The fact is we are rivals." He laughed cynically at his hearer's blank look of surprise. "Yes,--don't be downcast, my dear fellow; you've a better chance than I have, any day, for she dislikes me excessively; and upon my word, I believe I'm glad of it. Let's talk of something more agreeable. Ah, there goes the bugle."
He started to his feet, leaving Dick a prey to very mixed emotions, looking out with shining eyes over the dim blue plains which rolled up into the eastern sky. It must be a mistake, he felt. His hero was too perfect for anything else; and she? Something seemed to rise in his throat and choke him. So nothing further was said between them till on the northern skirts of the hills they stood saying good-bye. Then Dick with some solemnity put a blue official envelope into his friend's hand. "It's the will, Major. I think it's all right; I got the bâbu to witness it. And of course the--the other--doesn't make any difference. You see I shall write and tell her it is all a mistake."
The older man as he returned the boyish clasp felt indescribably mean. "Don't be in a hurry, Dick," he said slowly. "You can think it over and give it me when you join us, for join us you must. I won't take it till then, at all events. As for the other, as you call it, the mistake would be to have it changed. Whatever happens she will never get anything better than what you give her, Dick--never!--never! Good-bye; take care of yourself."
As he watched the young fellow go swinging along the path with his head up, he told himself that others beside Belle would be the losers if anything happened to Dick Smith; who, for all the world had cared, might at that moment have been lying dead-drunk in a disreputable bazaar. "There is something," he thought sadly, "that most men lose with the freshness of extreme youth. It has gone from me hopelessly, and I am so much the worse for it." And Dick, meanwhile, was telling himself with a pang at his heart that no girl, Belle least of all, could fail in the end to see the faultlessness of his hero.
[CHAPTER XI.]
The sun had set ere Dick reached the narrowest part of the defile where, even at midday, the shadows lay dark; and now, with the clouds which had been creeping up from the eastward all the afternoon obscuring the moon, it looked grim and threatening. He was standing at an open turn, surprised at the warmth of the wind that came hurrying down the gully, when the low whistling cry of the marmot rang through the valley and died away among the rocks. A second afterwards the whizz of a bullet, followed by the distant crack of a rifle, made him drop in his tracks and seek the shelter of a neighbouring boulder. Once again the marmot's cry arose, this time comparatively close at hand. To answer it was the result of a second's thought, and the silence which ensued convinced Dick that he had done the right thing. But what was the next step? Whistling was easy work, but how if he met some of these musical sentries face to face? Perhaps it would be wiser to go back. He had almost made up his mind to this course when the thought that these robbers, for so he deemed them, might out of pure mischief have tampered with his beloved wires came to turn the balance in favour of going on. A disused path leading by a détour to the southern side branched off about a mile further up; if he could reach that safely he might manage to get home without much delay. Only a mile; he would risk it. Creeping from his shelter cautiously he resumed his way, adopting the easy lounging gait of the hill-people; rather a difficult task with the inward knowledge that some one may be taking deliberate aim at you from behind a rock. More than once, as he went steadily onwards, the cry of a bird or beast rose out of the twilight, prompting his instant reply. "If they would only crow like a cock," he thought, with the idle triviality which so often accompanies grave anxiety, "I could do that first-class."
Yet he was fain to pause and wipe the sweat from his face when he found himself safely in the disused track, and knew by the silence that he was beyond the line of sentries. A rough road lay before him, but he traversed it rapidly, being anxious to get the worst of it over before the lingering light deserted the peaks. As he stood on the summit he was startled at the lurid look of the vast masses of cloud which, rolling up to his very feet, obscured all view beyond. They were in for a big storm, he thought, as he hurried down the slopes at a break-neck pace; with all his haste barely reaching the shanty in time, for a low growl of thunder greeted his arrival, and as he pulled the latch a faint gleam of light showed him the empty room. He called loudly; darkness and silence: again, as he struck a match; light, but still silence. Quick as thought, Dick was at the signaller, and the electric bell rang out incongruously. Tink-a-tink-a-tink was echoed from the eastward. But westward? He waited breathlessly, while not a sound returned to him. Communication was broken; the wires had possibly been cut, and Dick stood up with a curiously personal sense of injury. His wires tampered with out of sheer mischief! Yet stay! Might it not be something more? Where the devil had the bâbu hidden himself? After fruitless search an idea struck him, and he signalled eastward once more. "Repeat your last message, giving time at which sent." With ears attuned to tragedy Dick awaited the reply. "6 P.M. To north side. 'Will send cocoa-nut oil and curry stuff by next mail.'"
The echo of Dick's laughter, as he realised that but an hour or so before the bâbu had been putting the telegraph to commissariat uses, was the last human sound the shanty was to hear for many a long day. For the next moment's thought roused a sudden fear. The bâbu had doubtless gone over the Pass with the troops for the sake of company; that was natural enough, but if he was still in the north shanty awaiting Dick's return, why had he not answered the signal sent westward? It could not be due to any break in the wire, unless the damage had been done after dark, for he had been able to telegraph eastward not so long ago. Was there more afoot than mere mischief?
It was not a night for a dog to be out in, and as Dick stood at the door he could see nothing but masses of cloud hurrying past, softly, silently. Then suddenly a shudder of light zig-zagged hither and thither, revealing only more cloud pierced by a few pinnacles of rock.