“You must start—this afternoon. Must get to Bleackley by to-morrow morning—rest in the worst of the heat. Despatch is ready. Have you a horse?”
“I rode my sister’s little Bajazet, sir. He carried me well, but ’twas bad going for him. He’d carry me back, I believe, but I’d be sorry to kill him—such a game little beast.”
“I won’t have any horse ridden to death. Take Dick Turpin—he’ll carry you. No more biting and kicking from him for a week or two!” with a cackling laugh. “You won’t spare yourself, I know. Don’t spare him.”
“I won’t, General. Then I’ll be starting as soon as he can stand the sun,” said Brian.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A SORE STRAIT.
Tom Carthew must have known that Kamal-ud-din had hurried back into the field in the hope of uniting with his brother’s force before Sir Harry could intercept it, but he did not tell Eveleen so—possibly because he was afraid of raising false hopes. He was in a pitiable state of mind, equally afraid of the Arabits and of the British, anxious—it would be too much to say determined to save Eveleen and her husband, but fearing to take any practical step in that direction. She argued the matter out with him after the Khan’s departure. It was all very well for him to say that he hoped Kamal-ud-din would be kind enough to let his captives go free, but it would be much more to the purpose to help them to escape without putting the youth’s magnanimity to the test. She was desperate enough to try any expedient Carthew might suggest, and perhaps it was as well that he declined to think of any. Even if they accomplished the all but impossible feat of getting out of the fort and the town unnoticed, the desert ringed them round as effectually as any wall. What could they do, burdened with a helpless man? They would need camels and drivers, and even if they had the means to secure the fidelity of the sarwans, they must follow one of the well-known defined routes on which water was to be found, and on any of these they were sure sooner or later to meet the Arabits. When Eveleen persisted, he reduced her to silence by inferring that she wished to leave her husband behind, as by no other possibility could she be enabled to escape. It was characteristic of him that he was not ashamed to use arguments from which a stronger man would have shrunk. Eveleen felt a certain amount of unwilling gratitude towards him, for he had undoubtedly served her well, but it was mingled with no little impatience. He would not do a single earthly thing because he was afraid of compromising his already shaky position!
That one, at any rate, of his fears had been justified she learned very early in her captivity. The brief—almost momentary—coolness of morning was over, and the long hot hours had begun. In what Eveleen called their dungeon, she and Ketty were sitting, doing nothing, because there was nothing to do. With its thick walls and solid roof, the place was cooler than the tents in the desert, but there could be no movement of air. Deprived of the contrivances for mitigating the heat to which she had grown accustomed, and of the exercise she would have declared essential to her, Eveleen looked as thin and hollow-eyed as her husband, but restless instead of quiet. The inaction was horrible to her, and she spent her time in making wild plans of escape, which she knew were useless. Everything was so dreadfully complicated by Richard’s helplessness. There he lay, inert as a log, tended like a baby—the very thing he would most have detested had he known it—unable either to see, hear, speak, or, as far as they could tell, feel. Eveleen’s heart yearned over him with a passion of pity as she thought of his state, for to her active mind nothing could be more dreadful than continued idleness. It was a relief to hear the bearer’s voice in the verandah asking admittance, for in another moment she must have broken into sobs. The old man’s errand was a pleasant surprise. The ladies of the zenana had heard there was a Farangi lady in the Fort, and as she had not asked permission to visit them, they feared she must be in need of suitable raiment, and with a present of fruit to testify their goodwill, they sent her such things as they thought she might be wanting.
Such a kindly message would have been welcome at any time, but in Eveleen’s depressed mood it was a heaven-sent distraction. It was as though the ladies had divined Carthew’s anxiety, and sent nothing that could be suspected of conveying poison, and she felt ashamed that he should have doubted them. The fruit was magnificent, coming not from sun-baked Khemistan, but from cooler regions across the mountains, and Eveleen squeezed the juice from some grapes to make a drink for Richard, and pleased herself with believing that he liked it. Ketty was examining the other things sent, garments of embroidered silk and finest muslin, perfumes and unguents in curious little baked earth pots, and soap—or rather the washing-balls used throughout Khemistan, the basis of which was a peculiar kind of earth dug near Qadirabad. When the earth was mixed, as usually happened, with mustard-oil, the balls did not commend themselves to the fastidious European taste, but these were prepared in the proper way with oil of roses, and shed abroad a delightful fragrance. Among the toilet articles her forethought had provided, Ketty had included only one piece of soap, so that the sight of this substitute was most welcome. Eveleen sat turning the different things over and looking at them, and the thought came into her mind that she was wasting time by not trying to enlist the support of the ladies during the Khan’s absence. She would certainly accept the invitation to visit them—though it might be couched in the language of command.
“I wonder what will the best time be to go and see them?” she mused aloud. “The Khan’s mother is the head of the establishment, of course. What are you doing to the Master’s arm, Ketty? Was it a mosquito?” Ketty grunted that it was done gone, and Eveleen rose and began to try the effect of the clothes sent her. She could hardly pay the visit in her much tattered dressing-gown, but neither was she prepared to don trousers—beautifully as these were fashioned according to native ideas, very wide above the knee and extremely tight below. There were two or three tunics of curious shape, but wearable, she thought, and perhaps she could arrange one of the chadars as some kind of skirt underneath them. She was pleating and draping and twisting, when Ketty, with eyes of awful meaning, lifted Richard’s arm again and showed her a long patch of fiery red from wrist almost to elbow. Dropping the length of stuff she was holding, Eveleen sprang towards him, and saw that the skin was burnt as though with some acid.
“Ketty, what have you been doing?” she demanded furiously