“They couldn’t very well help it. We had trouble with ’em now and then. But how did it matter what they thought? We turned Napoleon out for ’em, worse luck!”
“I wonder are all allies so trying to the people that are helping them?” Eveleen spoke feelingly, for she had been doing her best to help the ladies from Sahar to settle down after their long march and final exciting experience, and they did not seem to her to be properly grateful. She did not realise that it was highly disconcerting to ladies of higher military rank to find “that Mrs Ambrose” established in the best set of rooms in the Residency—their wrath was not mollified by the explanation that it had been her home when her husband was Assistant to Colonel Bayard,—while they were relegated to less imposing apartments, or quartered in the garden-palace lately vacated by the Khans. Everything was in such a bad state of repair, too—with shot-holes in the walls very imperfectly patched up, and roofs far from water-tight,—and there were no European comforts to be had. It seemed to Eveleen that these good ladies thought considerably more about their furniture and food than about the impending crisis, and they declared that no one but a wild Irishwoman could have expected them to settle down contentedly amid such surroundings. To crown their misdeeds, they observed sympathetically, one after the other, that Richard was not looking at all well, and that men of his complexion were always the first to be affected by the sun. They followed this up by a recital of the precautions with which they pursued their own husbands—with the obvious implication that Mrs Ambrose was sadly lacking in this respect,—and when Eveleen replied with a furious denunciation of coddling, they shook their heads with a pleased solemnity that could only mean, “Just as I thought!” She relinquished her self-imposed duty at last in a huff, and during the evening—with natural inconsistency—tormented Richard, who had work to do, with sudden enquiries whether he was certain he really felt quite well.
In the morning she had forgotten her anxieties, and when Richard returned from office, was far more concerned to know whether the General was intending to review the newly arrived troops—which he could not tell her. They were breakfasting on the verandah, and as Eveleen expressed somewhat vigorously her opinion of people who could hear and remember everything but what was interesting, there came from the big shamiana opposite such a shout as made them both jump up and run to the steps. The General and his aides were rushing out—one man had still his fork in his hand,—snatching up any hats or caps available, and making for the cliff overlooking the river. Brian had the grace to tarry long enough to call out “Boats!” and Eveleen, always ready for any excitement, whether she understood its nature or not, promptly ran down after them. Richard came after her, and presented her reprovingly with her sun-hat, which she accepted without gratitude, since his forethought obliged her to stop and put it on. Arriving panting at the head of the path, she looked down the river, like all the rest. There was still a broad expanse of dry sandy ground below, but the channel was a little wider than on the day when the Asteroid and the Nebula had carried the besieged garrison into safety, for the snows were just beginning to melt on the Roof of the World. Up the channel from the direction of Bab-us-Sahel boats were coming, one after the other, their gunwales lined with scarlet-coated men who waved their caps and cheered as they saw the figures on the cliff. The General and his staff responded as joyfully as boys.
“The boats! the boats! the reinforcements from Bombay!” everybody called out to everybody else, and people began to run together from all parts of the camp. But while nearly all eyes were fixed on the boats coming up from the left hand, Frederick Lennox was looking fixedly in exactly the opposite direction, over the scrubby jungle which covered the low-lying land on the right.
“Hillo!” he said presently, then touched his uncle on the arm. “D’ye see those masts, sir? What can they be?”
The General looked and looked again, unable to believe his eyes. “As I’m a sinful man, the reinforcements by water from Sahar!” he cried. “Was ever anything so neat? ’Pon my honour, I’d march against Napoleon and the Grand Army now!”
“Really the old boy’s luck is positively amazing!” said Brian, as Sir Harry went a little way down the path to feast his eyes on the approaching craft. “Give you my word, he was in the very act of saying, ‘Now if only my reinforcements from Bombay and Sahar would come in! But that can’t be for a week at least, and I won’t let this chap bully me within five miles of my camp all that time, so Rickmer’s brigade must do my business.’ The words would hardly be out of his mouth when Stewart, who was sitting where he could see out of the tent door, called out, ‘There are boats—look!’ and we all tore out of the place as you saw us. Sure the General will be as happy now as the day is long—only the day won’t be half long enough for all he’ll want to be doing.”
Never, surely, had even Sir Harry, that champion hustler, put in such a day’s work. The new troops were out of their boats before they knew they had arrived, and the General was inspecting them and gloating over the howitzers and other war material they brought with them. A host of coolies was at work pitching their tents while they enjoyed an afternoon’s rest under the trees of the Khans’ garden, and then came combined manœuvres, in which the new arrivals and Colonel Rickmer’s force were brigaded with the General’s original troops, and ordered about and handled by the redoubtable veteran until they began to know their places and his methods. When they were at last dismissed to their well-earned repose, the General’s day was not done. Vakils had again arrived from Kamal-ud-din, and at his command been given a place whence they could see all the movements of the troops, then taken up and down the lines and bidden look well at everything, and finally dismissed with the order to go and tell their master all they had seen. But they were reluctant to depart, and reinforced by the young Khan’s Diwan or Chief Minister, who arrived late at night, they sat on the ground in Sir Harry’s tent, and talked and talked. This time it was his turn to offer Kamal-ud-din his life, and his chiefs their possessions, if they surrendered unconditionally on the morrow, but they were no more prepared to accept such terms than he had been. It was obvious they were trying to find out all they could, for they stayed on though there was nothing more to say, and started fresh quibbles whenever they were given leave to depart, until the General, his Munshi, and Richard Ambrose were all worn out with parrying their various questions. It was two in the morning before Sir Harry succeeded in inducing them to accept his dismissal as genuine, and they were ceremoniously escorted out. The General was wrapping his old cloak about him as Richard returned.
“I suppose they thought they would finish me with fatigue,” he grumbled. “This sort of thing tells on a man of sixty-one. Two hours’ sleep, Ambrose. Lie down anywhere and don’t waste any of it. We march at four.”