“In what way, then? And what about Major Ambrose?”
Carthew hesitated. “I’m afraid—as you’ve had all your trouble for nothing, Miss Evie.”
“What d’ye mean?” her voice rose to a shriek, and she flung herself on her husband again. “Bad luck to you, Tom, to be giving me such a fright! He ain’t dead a bit. I can feel his heart beat.”
“But it might be all the same as if he was, ma’am—better, perhaps——”
“Will you tell me what you mean? Why would they kill him, if that’s what y’are driving at? If it’s a hostage they want, sure he’ll do them every bit as well as Captain Lennox. The General would make no more consequence of his nephew than he would of any other officer—sure you know that yourself?”
“It ain’t a hostage he wants at all, I see it now. Think it over for yourself, ma’am—remembering that blue stone of yours that’s in the Khan’s hands. He thinks if he hadn’t had it, the General would have beat him and sent him out of the country with the rest of his family. It’s done that much good to him, but not near all the good it might do, because you’ve been contrary wishing it all the time.”
“Sure if that’s all, I’ll wish it—and him—all the good in the world except to beat the General. Fetch it here, Tom, and you will be surprised at the good wishes I’ll pour over it and instil into it and soak it with! Any mortal thing the gentleman can think of to ask for he shall get, so far as it depends on me, if he’ll only lend us a boat or some camels to get back to the army and a doctor with. But now be quick, or I’ll go fast asleep and forget all the benefits I’m longing to bestow on him!”
Carthew hesitated again. “I take it you wouldn’t be willing to come to the camp alone?” he asked slowly.
She caught his meaning in an instant. “And leave Major Ambrose here? Shame on you that you’d even ask me such a question! If he stays here, I stay; and if I go to the camp or anywhere else, he goes too. And if anything happens him—well, that blue stone will crack in pieces with the ill wishes I’ll put on it before they’re done with me. And that’s all I have to say to you.”
“All right, ma’am; I had to have it from your own lips, you see. Now I know what to say to these fellows, and to the Khan too. I mean to take a high tone with him, after his dirty trick, and I think I see a way—— But don’t hope for too much,” earnestly, “for if anybody ever was in a hole, you and your good gentleman are—not to speak of me, that don’t count.”