The latter's heart knew its first throb of fear when the signal he sent down the severed wire brought no reply. After all, was the outcome of long months of labour, the visible embodiment of what was best in him, about to fail in time of need? Again and again he signalled, urgently, imperiously, while his whole world seemed to wait in breathless silence. Failure! No, no, incredible, impossible; not failure after all! Suddenly, loud and clear, came an answering trill, bringing with it a joy such as few lives know. A shout from above, a bullet whistling past him; scarcely fair that, when his hands were busy, and his mind too, working methodically, despite those yelling fiends tearing down the slope. "Major from Dick--treachery." Something like a red-hot iron shot through his leg as he knelt on the cliff, a clear mark against the sky. Lucky, he thought, it was not through his arm. "For God's sake--" He doubled up in sudden agony but went on "Stand fast."
There was still a glint of life left in him when Afzul Khân, coming up behind the butchers, claimed the death-blow. Their eyes met. "Fire--from--heaven!" gasped Dick, and rolled over dead. The Pathan put up his knife gloomily. "It is true," he said with an oath. "I knew he was that sort; he has beaten us fairly."
An hour afterwards, heralded by winged clouds flushed with the ceaseless race of day, the steady sun climbed the eastern sky and looked down brightly on the dead body of the lad who had given back his spark of divine fire to the Unknown. Perhaps, if bureaucracy had not seen fit to limit genius within statutory bounds, Dick Smith might have left good gifts behind him for his generation, instead of taking them back with him to the storehouse of Nature. And the sun shone brightly also on Belle Stuart's bed; but not even her dreams told her that her best chance of happiness lay dead in the snow. She would not have believed it, even if she had been told.
[CHAPTER XII.]
It was a walled garden full of blossoming peach-trees, and chequered with little rills of running water beside which grew fragrant clumps of golden-eyed narcissus. In the centre was a slender-shafted, twelve-arched garden-house, with overhanging eaves, and elaborate fret-work, like wooden lace, between the pillars. On the sides of the stone daïs on which the building stood trailed creepers bright with flowers, and in front of the open archway serving as a door lay the harmonious puzzle of a Persian carpet rich in deep reds and yellows. Easy-chairs, with a fox-terrier curled up on one of them, and a low gipsy table ominously ringed with marks of tumblers, showed the presence of incongruous civilisation.
From within bursts of merriment and the clatter of plates and dishes, without which civilisation cannot eat in comfort, bore witness that dinner was going on. Then, while the birds were beginning to say good-night to each other, the guests came trooping out in high spirits, ready for coffee and cigars. All, with one exception, were in the khâki uniform which repeated washing renders, and always will render, skewbald, despite the efforts of martial experts towards a permanent dye. Most of the party were young and deeply engrossed by the prospect of some sky-races, which, coming off next day, were to bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant close. One, a lanky boy with pretensions to both money and brains, was drawing down on himself merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former stables he had owned.
"Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dearest friend. "I give you my word they were all screws. Stable, indeed! Call it your tool-chest, Samuel, my boy."
Lieutenant Samuel Johnson, whose real name of Algernon, bestowed on him by his godfathers and godmothers in his baptism, had been voted far too magnificent for everyday use, blinked his white eyelashes in evident enjoyment of his own wit as he retorted: "Well, if they were screws I turned 'em myself. You buy yours ready made."
"Well done, Samivel! Well done! You're improving," chorused the others with a laugh.
"You might lend me that old jest-book, Sam, now that you've got a new one," replied his opponent calmly. "I'm running short of repartees,--and of cigars, too, bad cess to the Post! By Jove! I wish I had the driving of those runners; I'd hurry them up!"