“Then it was well you did, ma’am, or you would have come across tied on to a mussuck, and your good gentleman there would never have been heard of again. But I suppose it was that stirred up the Codgers, making ’em think they’d been choused somehow. They killed the old Parsee, anyhow, and collared the jewels themselves, instead of handing ’em over, and then made off, leaving me to find everything had gone wrong.”
“Well, if y’ask me,” said Eveleen vigorously, “I think it served you right entirely. Are you not ashamed of yourself, Tom Carthew, to be plotting this way?”
“Don’t, Miss Evie, don’t! Ain’t we all in the same boat? If I failed to get the jewels, wasn’t it because somehow or other I got hold of the Major as well as yourself—and then listened to you and let him be brought here? And if you ain’t bringing ’em the good luck they looked for—why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff your thoughts are on the Major, not the Khan.”
“I would just think so!”
“Well, there you are, you see. If there was ever any chance of the General getting within twenty miles of this place, do you think the Major would be there to see it? Why, it’s he keeps you from doing your duty by them—that’s the way they look at it.”
“But you wouldn’t think—after all this time——?”
“It’s my fault again. I told ’em he was dying, you see—couldn’t live above a day or two—and I believed it. But he’s alive still.”
“Of course he is! And sometimes—I almost think there seems a little weeshy bit of difference—a sort of change in his eyes—as if his soul was trying to find its way back, don’t you know?”
“Miss Evie, don’t—for pity’s sake! The one chance for you is that he stays as he is. I don’t think the Khan would finish off a man in that state—I hope he wouldn’t. But if once he saw him beginning to get better——”
“Y’are a nice old croaker, Tom! Then the General must come quick, before he gets better—eh? But what did you mean by saying there was not a great chance of his coming?”