Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

“Truly the wisdom of my lord is great!” responded Abd-ur-Rahim, a smile of gratification curling his white moustache, while an officer behind him muttered to a companion some words in Ethiopian which sounded to Stratford like, “It is not so easy to hoodwink the soldier as the man of many words,” a remark which was distinctly unjust to the listener. He made no sign of having heard it, however, but went on speaking to Abd-ur-Rahim in Arabic.

“There is only one thing I should like to say before we accept your hospitality, Abd-ur-Rahim. It is our habit to guard with great jealousy the women of our party. I believe your own custom in Ethiopia is much the same, and you will not, therefore, take it amiss if we surround them closely while on our march with you?”

“Surely not,” responded Abd-ur-Rahim, somewhat puzzled. “The customs of my lord’s land are even as our own, and his care for the household of his master gives the lie to the shameless tales that have been told me as to the habits of his nation. I have even heard it said that in Khemistan the women of the English go about unveiled!”

Stratford was saved from the necessity of either confirming or denying this tremendous accusation by the approach of Dick and Kustendjian, whom he presented formally by name to Abd-ur-Rahim, mentioning the rank held by each in the Mission. The old man looked at them in some surprise.

“Are these all the English that are with my lord?” he asked. “I heard that he had three white men under him.”

“There is one other,” said Stratford, “a youth; but we have seen nothing of him since the storm broke upon us, and we fear that he has missed his way and been lost.”

“Let not my lord be troubled about the young man,” said Abd-ur-Rahim. “The storm did not last long enough for him to have come to any harm. Surely he has but taken shelter in some cave or hollow of the rocks, and my young men shall go in search of him, and bring him again to my lord.”

Having acknowledged this offer in suitable terms, Stratford and the rest returned to superintend the arrangement of their party under the new conditions. The tent was taken down and packed on its camel again, the mules were harnessed afresh to the litter which carried Sir Dugald; the ladies, mere masses of white linen, were helped to their saddles; the diminished cavalcade of baggage-animals was ranged in order, and the column was ready to start. Stratford considered it only polite and expedient that he should ride beside Abd-ur-Rahim, much to the annoyance of Dick, who brought up again the memory of the murdered Macnaghten, and urged sotto voce that if any one’s life was to be risked, Kustendjian’s was the one that could be best spared. Stratford laughed at the idea, and retained his place, and the other two rode on either side of the litter, with the ladies following close behind them, while Ismail Bakhsh and his men formed a modest bodyguard. The household servants and the few muleteers and camel-men who had not been scattered by the stampede followed with the baggage-animals, and before and behind and all around, when the column had advanced into the open plain, came Abd-ur-Rahim’s wild soldiery. A few stray mules and camels were picked up by the way and added to the cavalcade, and presently the procession wound round a spur of the cliffs, and began to ascend the winding road which led up to the hill-fortress of Bir-ul-Malik, the stronghold of Fath-ud-Din.

The town itself was small in extent, and it was evident that the garrison formed the larger proportion of its inhabitants, for the rock-hewn streets were almost deserted when Abd-ur-Rahim passed through the gate with his guests. The town-walls surrounded a considerable area on the summit of the cliff, and this in its turn sloped upwards at its further extremity, on which was erected the citadel, which thus commanded the town on one side and a sheer declivity on the other. Towards this fortification the procession made its way, Dick glancing grimly at the tortuous streets and massive walls of the town as he rode, and muttering to himself that he and his party were in a trap which would take a good deal of getting out of. Passing in at the gate of the citadel, they found themselves in a large courtyard, above which rose a pile of buildings, constructed on and in the sloping face of the rock, the roofs of those lower down forming terraces by which the higher ones could be approached. The lower range of dwellings appeared to form the quarters of the garrison and servants, and those next above them the abodes of the officers, while the highest pile of buildings was evidently intended as the residence of the governor of the city. It was in this building, Abd-ur-Rahim intimated, that he had caused a lodging to be prepared for the illustrious English party; and Stratford, while appreciating the honour done him, felt that he could readily have dispensed with it, since escape would be out of the question save by passing all the lower dwellings and the inner and outer circuit of defences, the only alternative being the possibility of finding some means of descending the precipitous cliff on the other side.

It was necessary to dismount in the courtyard, and to ascend to the Governor’s palace by a winding path cut in the rock and varied by several flights of steps. There was considerable difficulty in conveying Sir Dugald’s litter up this path, and what remained of the luggage had also to be carried up piece by piece, at a large expenditure of time and trouble. When the palace was once reached, however, there was no fault to find with the rooms allotted to the Mission. It was evident that they had remained uninhabited for some time, and they were rather dirty, rather dilapidated, and particularly bare of furniture; but they were large and airy, and, as Stratford and Dick noticed with great satisfaction, the apartments appropriated to the ladies, which had formed part of the original harem, could only be approached by a passage from their own portion of the building. Behind, they looked out on a terrace formed by the top of the ramparts, beneath which the cliff fell steep and unbroken to the desert below. It was an alarming experience to come suddenly to the brink of this declivity, from which the unwary were protected merely by a crumbling parapet, and Rahah only consented to contemplate it when standing at least six yards from the edge, and holding firmly to her mistress’s clothes.