With equal difficulty Eveleen turned again towards them, where they sat huddled in the bow, with the boatmen as a sort of neutrals between, and Mr Firozji, with chattering teeth, crouching alone as though disowned by all parties. The men in the bows were beginning to lose something of their despairing attitude—taking an interest in things again, and exchanging a word or two with one another. She could see them, though in the driving rain she could not hear them; and she tried to pierce the veil of moisture ahead, and see if land were visible. But as yet she could see nothing but a grey expanse of angry water, yellow in streaks with sand, and bearing on its bosom uprooted trees and brushwood, with the grey sky overhead and the grey curtain of rain between. She tried to collect her thoughts and devise some way of getting Richard ashore—when they reached the shore. But what kind of shore would it be—high and rocky, or the endless flat land over which the flooded river must now be crawling relentlessly? How could she decide till she knew?
The end came suddenly—so suddenly that for the moment she thought she must have been asleep, and missed what led up to it. The boatmen had their poles out again, the keel was grating on ground of some sort, and yet there was still nothing to be seen but the river and the rain. But to the accustomed eyes of the Kajias more must have been visible, for they were standing up and talking eagerly. She noticed indifferently what big strapping fellows they were—picturesque despite their drenched clothes and shapeless turbans, and the ringlets, of which they were ordinarily so proud, lying limp and straight on their shoulders and mingling with their beards. The absurd reflection occurred to her that the rain must have washed them a little clean, which would be a strange experience to them. One of them turned round and kicked Mr Firozji, saying something to him, and the old Parsee stumbled up from the deck and addressed Eveleen in his beautiful Persian, which she found so difficult to understand.
“The boat can go no farther—the water is shallow——” his words tumbled over one another. “The boatmen will carry the Beebee ashore, if she will promise not to shoot.”
“Let them take the Sahib first,” said Eveleen promptly, then hesitated. How could she let them carry Richard away out of her sight, not knowing where they were taking him? Better go first herself. And yet how could she know how roughly they might handle him if she and her pistol were not there? “Won’t you go first yourself?” she asked eagerly. “Then you can see that they put Major Ambrose down carefully, and I will come last.”
Mr Firozji’s face was ashy. “I fear—I greatly fear,” he stammered. “I have the conviction that they will kill me if I leave the Sahib and the Beebee.”
Clearly there was no help here. She must take the risk. She turned to Abdul Qaiyam. “Watch over the Sahib, bearer; see that they carry him properly on the charpoy. Fire the pistol if they are rough, and I will come back. I can’t be any wetter than I am,” she added to herself, and rather wondered that the captors should offer to put her ashore instead of letting her wade. But when she was mounted on the shoulders of a sturdy boatman, with another close at hand in case of accidents, she saw how bad the footing was, and how confusing the currents even in this shallow water. Just as they started she heard a resounding splash, and looking round, was touched to see that Ketty had deliberately thrown herself—or rather let herself—into the water from the boat’s side, and was struggling after her, clutching the scanty drapery of the second boatman. The water was up to the old woman’s chest, but she pushed on bravely, and though the men on board laughed, they did not attempt to stop her.
How far the two men waded Eveleen did not know. The boat was only dimly visible as a misty shape through the falling rain when they reached land as suddenly as they had discerned it earlier. It was land in the sense of not being covered with water, but it resembled nothing so much as a sandbank left bare, though not dry, by the retreating tide. Yet apparently it was not an island, for it seemed to rise slightly on the side away from the boat, and to continue rising; and when Eveleen felt her feet on firm ground once more, her spirits went up with a bound. Anything was better than that dreadful boat and the company it carried, and when the rain stopped—which it must do soon now—they would quickly be dry and comfortable, and could look for some village where there was food and shelter to be found. She said as much to Ketty as they stood looking after the two men, whose forms were soon swallowed up in the driving rain. Most incomprehensibly, Ketty laughed; but before Eveleen could demand the reason, her cheerful anticipations were rudely contradicted by the sound of a shot from the boat, with cries and the muffled noise of a struggle. Unheeding Ketty’s agonised entreaties and attempt to hold her fast, she dashed into the water and began to wade back. The boat seemed farther away than she had been—and surely the boatmen were poling her off? Eveleen gave a great cry as the truth burst upon her, then struggled on again, though with failing strength, hindered by her clothes and the treacherous sand. Somehow or other she reached the boat when the water was up to her shoulders, and clung convulsively to the gunwale, shrieking to her husband to wake, to escape, to save himself, to save her. Mr Firozji lay on the deck in a pool of blood, and the murderers were already stripping off his clothes in search of booty. In front of his master stood Abdul Qaiyam—a most unheroic hero, with the pistol wavering in a shaking hand, and a face grey with fear. A man with a tulwar sprang at Eveleen as she clung to the side, and brought down his weapon with a horrible sweep. In terror she relaxed her grasp just in time, and fell back into the water with a loud cry of despair.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE BELLE AND THE BAUBLE.
When Eveleen came to the surface again—for she had found no footing when she slipped from the boat’s side—she thought she must be dreaming. On the gunwale above her stood Richard—a gaunt figure in drenched pyjamas—laying about him furiously with a folded camp-chair. She could hear his blows as they fell, and the dismayed cries of the enemy, though she could not see the fight, and over the side of the boat lay—dead or unconscious—the man who had struck at her with his tulwar, his arms stretched limply as though trying to reach the water. Apparently Richard’s onslaught had cleared a space about him on the deck, for he turned suddenly, with heaving chest, and looked wildly at the water—only to see his wife trying to regain her hold of the gunwale. With a hasty exclamation he flung his weapon away, and stooped to reach her. But she had the presence of mind to draw back.
“No, Ambrose—jump! Jump, bearer!” and deliberately she loosed her grasp and dropped off into the water again. As she had expected, Richard was after her in a moment, quite uncomprehending, and decidedly angry.