The Advanced-Guard

by Sydney C. Grier

“What have we done in Kashmir?”

“But Nalapur is outside our borders. We don’t claim any right to interfere in their choice of a ruler.”

“Whether we claim it or not, we have interfered already. It was before your time, of course, just after that wretched expedition to Ethiopia, where we ought never to have gone, but having gone, we should have stayed. Nasr Ali was Amir then, and his behaviour throughout was most correct, even when our fortunes were at the lowest. Unfortunately for him, it was thought well that the General and he should meet, so that he might be thanked for his loyalty, and a halt was made for the purpose. Things went wrong from that moment. The General and his escort were attacked by tribesmen in one of the passes, and when they got through, with some loss, the news came that Nasr Ali was ill, and not able to meet them. You know what Old Harry is, and how he was likely to receive such a message after the impudence of the tribes; and just as he was working himself up into a fine fury there came to his camp in disguise these two scoundrels, Gobind Chand and Wilayat Ali, the Amir’s brother. They made out that they had stolen away at the risk of their lives to warn the General that Nasr Ali meant to murder him and the whole escort. Sir Henry didn’t wait to inquire why Nasr Ali should choose the time when a victorious army was within call to assassinate its leader, for the fugitives’ news just fitted in with his own suspicions. They gave him a sign by which he was to judge of their good faith. Nasr Ali had promised to receive the mission at the gate of the city the following day: if he did not appear, that would be proof of his treachery. Sir Henry sent an order back to the army for a brigade to be in readiness, and waited. Sure enough, before they reached the city gate Wilayat Ali, in his own person this time, came to meet them and say that his brother was too ill to come out, but would receive them in the killa [palace] if they would enter the city. To Sir Henry, and all who remembered the Ethiopian business, it was simply an invitation to come and be murdered; so he rode back to camp, sent another messenger to order up the brigade, and passed a horribly uncomfortable night, expecting to be attacked at every moment. Much to his astonishment, he was not attacked, though bands of Nalapuris were said to be circling round, hoping to catch him off his guard, and then the brigade arrived after a forced march. Old Harry allowed the men two or three hours’ rest, occupied the hills overlooking the city in the night, and sent in a demand for its surrender in the morning. Nasr Ali, posing, so the General thought, as an injured innocent, protested against the whole thing as a piece of the blackest treachery, carried out under the mask of friendship, and refused to surrender. I don’t want to go into the whole sickening business; the place was stormed, and Nasr Ali killed in the fighting. Wilayat Ali opened the gates of the killa, and allowed the treasury (there was remarkably little in it) to be looted. He was the natural heir, for Nasr Ali’s women and children had all been massacred. Of course Wilayat Ali gave us to understand that our troops had done it, but that is absolutely untrue. The first man that broke into the zenana found it looted, and dead bodies everywhere—a shocking sight. I haven’t the slightest doubt that Wilayat Ali had admitted a set of badmashes to wipe out his unfortunate brother’s family, and intended to charge it on us, but there’s no proving it. Well, he was placed on the gadi with Gobind Chand as his Vizier, and we marched home again. Little by little things came out which made me think a horrible miscarriage of justice had occurred, and when I laid them before Sir Henry he had to believe it too. That Wilayat Ali deliberately traduced and betrayed his brother in order to obtain his kingdom I am as certain as that I am here, and now I have to interfere to save him from being murdered by his fellow-scoundrel!”

“There is no chance of putting things right,” said Sir Dugald, in the tone of one stating a fact rather than asking a question.

“None. If any of poor Nasr Ali’s children survived, we might do something, but the fiends took good care of that. There were two boys, certainly, and I believe some daughters as well, but they are beyond reach of any atonement we can make. And since no good could come of it, it would look rather bad for the paramount Power to have to confess how easily it had been hoodwinked; so we let ill alone.”

“Poetic justice would suggest that you should allow Gobind Chand to murder Wilayat Ali, and to be murdered in his turn by the Sardars.”

“And put young Hasrat Ali, Wilayat’s son, who by all accounts is a regular chip of the old block, on the gadi? That wouldn’t better things much, and would mean a nice crop of revolutions and tumults. Nalapur is too close to our borders for that sort of thing. I don’t say that I wouldn’t have welcomed poetic justice if it had had the sense to take its course without consulting me; but as it is, I can’t connive at the removal of an ally, even an unsatisfactory one. Your business is to see the Amir as soon as you arrive, if bribes or threats will do it, so as to forestall Gobind Chand; but don’t leave without delivering the despatch into his hands, if you have to wait for a week. Even if Gobind Chand succeeds in getting round him and persuading him of his innocence, the warning will make him keep his eyes wide open. And—I am not a particularly nervous man, but this is a wicked world—see that your men mount guard properly day and night while you are in Nalapur, and go the rounds yourself at irregular intervals. Since you know something now of Wilayat Ali, I needn’t remind you not to trust a word that he says. Well, I’ll turn back here. Take care of yourself.”

Sir Dugald saluted and rode on with his detachment, and Major Keeling, putting spurs to his horse, galloped back to Alibad, still in the gold-laced uniform and plumed helmet he had donned for his interview with the Vizier. He had never many minutes to waste, and Gobind Chand had robbed him of half a working day already, but he made time to pause at the fort and send Lady Haigh a message that he had seen her husband on his way.

“As if that was any consolation!” cried Lady Haigh when she received it. “If he had seen him coming back, now——! The way he keeps poor Dugald running about all day and every day is really shameful. I do believe”—with gloomy triumph—“that he picks him out for all the dangerous and awkward bits of work on purpose. If anything happened to any of the other men, their sweethearts or mothers or sisters might reproach the Major, and so he sends Dugald, knowing that I have sworn not to say a word, whatever happens.”

Penelope smiled feebly. She was very long in recovering from her attack of fever, and Lady Haigh was anxious about her, even throwing out hints as to the possibility of emulating the despicable conduct of the Punjab ladies, and taking a trip to the Hills or the sea. But Penelope only shook her head, and said she should be better when the cool weather came. No change of scene could alter the fact that she had finally and deliberately taken upon herself the responsibility of Ferrers and his failings, or relieve her from the haunting feeling that henceforward there would be a blank in her life. What caused the blank she had not courage to ask herself. People were not so fond of analysing their sensations in those days as in these; it was enough to be conscious of an ever-present sense of loss, to know that she had put away from her something that it would have been a joy to possess.