Peace with Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

“That is quite true, Miss Keeling. North is treating us all very shabbily. I hope you will put it to him at lunch. He leaves us after the mid-day halt, you know.”

But Miss Keeling did not choose to do anything of the kind, and when Sir Dugald appealed to her to join in condemning North’s desertion, she smiled pleasantly as she answered, that no doubt Major North feared lest the attraction of his presence at Fort Rahmat-Ullah should distract the attention of the visitors from the less interesting duties which ought to engross them. The remark was intended to make Dick uncomfortable; and when Georgia saw that he was raging inwardly over the construction she had put upon his motives, absurd though it was, she felt happier, as having in some degree repaid him for the disappointment he had inflicted upon her, although, when he had ridden away, still fuming, she was filled with compunction, and spent some time in solitude and self-reproach, which meant bemoaning her own touchiness and calling herself names.

Her sorrow was not allowed to sleep, for at Fort Rahmat-Ullah everything around seemed calculated to recall Dick to her memory. The scenes connected with his great exploit were held in universal reverence, and from the officers of the detachment quartered in the fort nothing was heard but lamentations over his absence. On the very first evening the new-comers were swept away by the general wave of enthusiasm, and allowed themselves to be personally conducted round the walls, in order to have the different localities rendered memorable by the siege pointed out to them. But this was merely an informal inspection, for the next morning an old European sergeant, who had taken part in the Relief of Lucknow, and was now employed as some kind of clerk in the fort, made his appearance, and expressed a readiness to act as cicerone during a second tour of the place.

“Evidently,” said Stratford, “the thing to do here is to make the circuit of the walls once a-day, each time with a different guide.”

“We shall get together a good collection of the different legends which are beginning to crystallise round North’s exploit,” said Dr Headlam, who was a student of folk-lore. “I suppose we must go, or we shall hurt this old chap’s feelings. He regards North as something like a demigod.”

“I think once round the walls is enough for me,” said Sir Dugald, “so I must hope that the tutelary deity of the place will not be very furious at my neglect when we meet him again. What do the ladies intend to do?”

“Oh, we are going, of course,” said Lady Haigh, promptly, unfurling a huge white umbrella. “I always make a point of seeing and hearing everything I can about everybody.”

Sir Dugald sighed almost imperceptibly, and buried himself once more in his Ethiopian grammar, while the rest started out under the guidance of the old soldier. Constant practice on every new-comer who came in his way had made the sergeant perfect in the tale he had to tell. He knew exactly the points at which his hearers would be thrilled with horror or touched with sympathy, and he enjoyed keeping them on the rack of suspense when he reached a crisis in his story. He had been in the fort himself at the time of the siege, and Georgia held her breath as he described the wearing terror of the night-attacks, and the uneasiness of the long days, troubled by fears of the enemy without and of famine within the walls. Then she saw, as clearly as if she had been present, the little group of officers gathered in a shadowy corner of the ramparts one morning before night had given place to day. Dick was among them, disguised as one of the fair-skinned hillmen often met with along the Khemistan frontier, and he was going out alone, taking his life in his hand, in the forlorn hope of getting through the enemy and bringing help to the fort. So slight was the prospect of success that none but those who happened to be on the ramparts when he started knew of his expedition; and the women in the place, who were not told about it for fear of raising baseless hopes only to be dashed again, thought that he had been killed in a night sortie and his body not recovered. One by one his fellows gripped his hand and bade God keep him in his enterprise; then he was let down swiftly to the ground outside by means of a rope suspended in the shadow of the turret, and before the rope could be drawn up his form had melted into the shadows around.

Almost immediately on setting out he was met by perhaps the gravest of the perils he was to encounter. Descending a rugged hill into a dry watercourse, which he hoped would afford him a measure of cover, the loose stones rolling under his feet betrayed him to the drowsy watchman of a party of the enemy, who were sleeping, wrapped in their mantles, round a smouldering fire. They were between him and the fort, and there was no hope of retreat; but as the sentry’s bullet came skipping over the rocks past him, and the sleepers, on the alert at once, sat up and grasped their weapons, Dick’s resolution was taken. With a cry of joy he rushed towards the fire and inquired eagerly and incoherently in Khemistani whether the fort had fallen and he was too late to take his part in the plundering. The party upon whom he had chanced were all good Moslems, and their rage was extreme on discovering by his dress that the intruder was a hillman, and that they had been awakened because a wretch of an idolater was trying to get a share of their booty. He was driven from their camp with blows and curses, and ordered to tell his people that any further attempt to participate in the expected spoils would be met with force of arms. The same ruse helped him again and again during the day. On sighting a part of the enemy, he had only to approach them humbly and detail what had happened to him, asking for redress, when the same fate would befall him immediately on his mentioning what his crime had been. Every chase took him farther from the fort and nearer to civilisation, and at last he fell in with a small party of hillmen, fleeing from the hated Moslems into territory which was still British, who allowed him to join himself to them.

But this meeting landed him in another danger, for although he could speak the hill dialect well enough to pass muster with the lowlanders, he could not deceive those whose native tongue it was. For some time he parried questions by declaring that he belonged to a different tribe; but the hillmen grew more and more suspicious, thinking that he must be a spy from the camp of their hereditary foes. They kept a close watch on him, and he gathered that they intended to deliver him up to the first British patrol they came across. This would have suited his purpose excellently but for the extremely slow rate at which his new friends travelled, and he seized the first opportunity that offered itself of eluding their vigilance and striking off across country to the nearest fort. His late entertainers pursued him; but he reached the fort first and delivered his message, so that when the hillmen arrived they were electrified to behold him in uniform assisting in the preparations for the relief expedition. Thence his course had been, as Fitz Anstruther remarked irreverently, “a triumphal procession,” an observation which the old soldier who was acting as guide took in very good part.