The Flag of the Adventurer

by Sydney C. Grier

“You don’t put it very nicely,” she complained. “But tell me now—d’ye really think we’ll have to fight?”

But apparently Richard repented his freedom of speech. “Not a bit of it!” crushingly. “What I’m afraid of is that you will be actually and literally bored to death.”

And not a word more would he say, though Eveleen tried coaxing and reproaches in turn. Indignant though she was at the time, however, there were moments, after they had reached Qadirabad, when she began to feel his prophecy might come true. Whatever excitement there might be for the men, who rode daily to the Fort to discuss Lord Maryport’s treaty with the Khans in durbar, life at the Residency was the very acme of dulness for the woman left at home. If Eveleen had expected to be able to resume her former pursuits, she was mistaken. She blamed herself bitterly for not having brought a horse—difficult though it might have been for poor Captain Franks to find room for it—for the lack of one played into the hands of her natural enemies. Any man who prevented, or sought to prevent, Eveleen from riding when she wished to ride was a natural enemy, and all the members of the Mission—soldiers and Politicals alike—were immovably united in the determination that she should not go outside the walls. The only exception to this rule was the permission to go out by the water-gate, cross an uninviting tract of sand which was really part of the bed of the river, but now dry, and thus gain access to the Asteroid, which lay in a meagre trickle called a channel. But this excursion was as unsatisfying as the ride round the garden, which was the only one allowed her—if not quite so tantalising,—and she did not repeat it. If she was not to sink to the lowest depths and gossip with Ketty, she must find her interests in that dreary treaty, which seemed to be debated for hours day after day, but never signed. Poor Colonel Bayard might have been the Khans’ bitterest enemy, instead of their most tried and persevering friend, by the way they treated him. His championship of their cause—expressed indiscreetly, perhaps, to Gul Ali and his retainers—was made an excuse, and a perpetually recurring one, for tormenting him. Was he really in sympathy with the deposed Chief, whose honours had been so shamefully filched from him? Oh, well, if he said so, it must be presumed to be true, but Gul Ali had heard rumours—— And in any case, if he was on the side of the oppressed, why was he representing their chief adversary, the Bahadar Jang? Would he show his friendship by getting Gul Ali replaced in his position of supremacy, and punishing the presumptuous Shahbaz? Over and over again, by varying paths, the discussion was led dexterously to this point, at which the harassed emissary could only reply that he had no power whatever to interfere with the Governor-General’s decisions; the utmost he could do would be to urge the expediency of modifying them. This was not at all what was wanted, and the bald question invariably followed: If you are a friend, and yet can do nothing to help us, why are you here? The reply that he had hoped to make submission easier by entreating instead of imposing it was not at all in accordance with the Khans’ idea of a friend’s duties.

It almost seemed as though Colonel Bayard might have gone on indefinitely presenting the treaty, and the Khans talking about it, had not the spur been applied which the envoy had been dreading. He had written feverish letters almost daily, entreating the General to return to Sahar with his force—or at least to remain stationary, and not pursue the route he had taken on leaving Sultankot, which would bring him to the river about half-way to Qadirabad. It was the death blow to his hopes when the news came that not only had Sir Harry emerged safely on the river bank from the desert, but his flying column had been joined there by the troops he had left at Bidi. The effect on the Khans was no less marked. Their Vakils sealed that very day the pledge which bound them to accept the treaty.

“Did y’ever see a man look so miserable when he’d got what he’d been fighting for for a week?” demanded Eveleen of her husband when Colonel Bayard had brought the draft home—not at all in triumph—and laid it up in his desk. “You’d say he was sorry they have signed, instead of glad.”

“I believe you. He don’t know whether to blame Sir Henry most for his show of force, or their Highnesses for permitting themselves to be affected by it.”

“But sure they couldn’t have gone on hesitating for ever!”

“He had hopes, I’m certain, of inducing the General to promise that if they would sign the treaty, Gul Ali should get back his Turban. Of course Sir Henry has no power to promise anything of the kind—it rests with the Governor-General, and he will never grant it.”

“Well, if I was poor Bayard, I’d be glad the matter was settled and out of my hands.”

“Pardon me—not if you were he. You would be more unhappy than ever, because you had not succeeded in averting the misfortune. There’s a sort of twist in his mind where his dear Khans are concerned. To him, they and the General alike are pawns in the hand of Shahbaz, who is the greatest villain existing, and advises all to their destruction.”