“But I’m hanged if it would be true. Tell you what—a cross-grained fellow who has lived all his life alone has no business to marry. It’s no happiness for either of ’em.”
“Ask Mrs Ambrose,” said Colonel Bayard again.
Mrs Ambrose’s husband smiled reluctantly. “You know as well as I do that whether the answer I received was that she was happy or miserable, it would be liable to be reversed the next moment, for no reason that anybody could perceive!”
“The very wife for you, Richard, my good fellow!” Colonel Bayard shook his head wisely. “You ain’t allowed to presume on your happiness, nor yet to persist in your misery, for if you ain’t in a new mood a quarter of an hour later, Mrs Ambrose will be! Be thankful for your good fortune, I tell you. Most men would give their ears for such a wife as yours—and a brother-in-law a friend at court to boot!”
“I never thought I should have to be grateful for being related to that young rip Brian!” growled Richard.
“Well, if you ain’t grateful, I am for you. The General may pride himself on never taking a suggestion, but he can’t be altogether uninfluenced by the members of his own family. And if you can make use of that influence in favour of my poor foolish Khans, they and I will bless you yet.”
Not even the chilliness of that last interview could lessen Colonel Bayard’s sense of responsibility for the wayward charges he had watched over so long. Despite all his admiration for him, Richard waxed a little impatient when he thought of it. It would be uncommonly good for the Khans to come in contact with some one who did not mind letting them know that he saw through their foolish stratagems, and would brush away their subterfuges—however roughly. Colonel Bayard, with the kindest intentions, had left them in a fool’s paradise too long; they thought the length of their tether was infinite. But unless he was much mistaken, the old warrior now at Sahar would bring them up resolutely with a round turn before very long. Even now, from certain enquiries which had been addressed to him, Richard judged he was preparing to do this.
There was nothing shilly-shally about Sir Henry Lennox’s methods. He had been ordered to disband the Political Establishment, and that unlucky body faded like the baseless fabric of a vision. The Asteroid, in bringing Colonel Bayard, brought also orders, addressed to Richard, dealing with the Qadirabad Agency and its staff. The place was to be closed and left in charge of a reduced guard with one European officer, to prevent plundering, and a few servants. Though there was to be no Resident in future, it would no doubt be necessary to send frequent envoys to the Khans, and a European-built house in healthy surroundings was a prize not lightly to be let go. The rest of the inmates went various ways. Some were summoned to Sahar—the Ambroses, that part of the Khemistan Horse which was not already with the General, Captain Crosse, Sir Dugald Haigh, and a few other officers whose units were in the country. But most followed Colonel Bayard by the next steamer down the river—first to Bab-us-Sahel and thence to Bombay, where the outraged Services, already on bad terms with Sir Harry, swore that even if Lord Maryport’s inspiration had not come from him, the brutal haste with which the order had been carried out was all his own, and vowed vengeance accordingly.
CHAPTER IX.
DINNER AT THE GENERAL’S.
As usual after the cool weather had begun, the river was beginning to go down, and it was no easy matter for the Nebula to pick her way up-stream. As her captain said pathetically, “If the sandbanks would only stay where they were, you’d know where you were. But when a great beast of a shoal was in one place when you went down the river, and on the return voyage you found it somewhere else quite different, where were you?” A further handicap was imposed by the necessity of towing two or three large flat-bottomed boats—carrying the fortunes of the Eurasian and native clerks, peons and other underlings, whom Sir Harry had selected for Sahar from the derelict staff of the Qadirabad Agency,—since these displayed a positive genius in fouling the bank, the shoals, the frequent islands, floating tree-trunks, one another, the ship herself, and everything else possible and impossible. But despite all obstacles, progress was made somehow, and Brian, who had come down by sailing-boat to meet the steamer a few miles below its destination, was able to assure his relatives that they would get in comfortably in time for dinner.