No such paradox offered itself, however, and suddenly remembering her duty, Mabel went to give Dick the message Fitz had brought from the men. A short time afterwards they filed into the courtyard, first the half who were off duty, and then those from the walls, who came as soon as they were relieved. On all of them Dick impressed his absolute command that the enemy should not be in any way informed of his return. The men were disappointed, for they had looked forward to publishing the tidings in one of those contests of scurrility in which they engaged at every opportunity, sometimes with the invisible defenders of General Keeling’s house, and sometimes with the rash spirits who crept up under the ramparts at night, risking their lives for the sole delight of taunting the garrison. But Dick’s word was law, and the Ressaldars assured him that nothing should leak out to give the enemy an inkling of what had happened. When they had retired, and the guards had been set for the night, a festal gathering took place in the inner courtyard. Georgia was carried into the verandah, and Mr and Mrs Hardy and Mabel and Flora brought out all the seats they could muster, and placed them round her couch; Colonel Graham, the doctor, and Fitz came in, and Dick related his adventures.
“There really is awfully little to tell,” he said, “because, you see, I was knocked silly at once, and I can only remember one moment in a whole long time. I suppose it was the evening of the fight in the Pass. I was being carried along by a lot of native women—at least, that is how I interpret the thing now, but at the moment I couldn’t tell what to make of it. It might have been rather weird if I had had time to think of that, but no sooner had I opened my eyes than the woman who was holding my feet saw that I was looking at her. She screamed and let me drop—that she might put on her veil, I suppose—but that finished me for the moment. I don’t remember anything more until I found myself in a cave, with an old fakir sitting a little way off, absorbed in meditation. I was too weak to talk, and I seem to have had visions of the cave and the old man, off and on, for hundreds of years. At last, when I had been sensible rather longer than usual, I managed to get out sufficient voice to ask him where I was. He told me I was in his cave, which was not much information, but I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him at the time. The next day I asked him how I had got there, and he said the Hasrat Ali Begum had sent and asked him to take care of me, and I had been let down into the cave by ropes from above. He evidently believed in letting his patients severely alone, for he pursued his meditations assiduously except when I worried him with my impertinent questions. I couldn’t think how I came to be there, and I hammered at him until he let out the truth. I daresay he was wiser not to tell me before, for as soon as the whole thing flashed upon me, I was mad to get away. You see, the old chap was so very holy that he had no disciples and never went out into the world, and even his food was brought to an appointed place by his admirers, and left there for him to fetch. He knew about the fight in the Pass, but he couldn’t say whether any of the escort had escaped, or whether this place had been taken by surprise and everybody wiped out. You may imagine the state I was in, and the threats and prayers and promises I lavished upon the old man, until he was at his wits’ end to know what to do with me. He preached me a long sermon one day upon patience and resignation, pointing out, first, that I must not think he bore me ill-will—quite the contrary, since I had saved him from being hung for murder in a very hard-sworn case when I first came here; second, that if he departed from his usual custom so far as to go out and ask the news, suspicion would immediately be excited, and I should be done for; third, that it was not he that was keeping me there, but the wounds I had got, which prevented me from moving.”
“I should think so!” cried Dr Tighe, unable to keep silence longer. “Ladies and gentlemen, the patient before you was as good as dead, ought by rights to be dead now, yet there he sits and talks. Will you think of it, Mrs North? This husband of yours has had a bullet actually through his heart. He’s a living miracle. The difference of the minutest fraction of an inch of space, the minutest fraction of a second of time, would have meant that you would be a widow at this moment. How it is you are not, I cannot explain—I tell you frankly. Though it may seem to the vulgar mind to reflect upon our common profession, I imagine that being let absolutely alone may have had something to do with it, but I can’t tell. Be thankful that you’ve got him back, and take good care of him in future.”
“I will; I will, indeed,” said Georgia fervently, squeezing Dick’s hand.
“I regard you with an evil eye, Major, I don’t deny it,” went on the doctor. “You’re a living falsification of every canon of surgery. You had no business to survive that wound, much less to live through the absence of treatment you met with. It’s a slap in Mrs North’s face, I call it, to say nothing of mine. But let us hear some more of your reprehensible proceedings.”
“Well,” said Dick, “I remember that sermon very well, because I was panting the whole time to get away. I thought that some day, when old Faiz-Ullah was saying his prayers, I might crawl past him, and slip out. I did manage to crawl to the entrance, though I thought I should have died in doing it, but when I got there I found only a precipice in front. At the side was a rope-ladder by which my elderly friend was accustomed to get to the spot where his food was left, but of course I could as soon have flown as climbed it. I simply lay there like a log, until the old fellow happened to miss me, and came to look. I must have got a touch of fever or sunstroke, for I had awful nightmares after that—oh, horrors and tortures beyond conception! Faiz-Ullah must have been frightened, for at last he made me understand that he had seen the Begum’s servant, and she was going to try and bring my wife to cure me. That set me off on a new tack. The horrors went on just the same, but Georgia was always there, on the other side of a gulf, and I couldn’t get at her. She knows how much I wanted her”—he stole a glance at Georgia, down whose face the tears were streaming—“but I don’t think any one else can ever guess how bad it was. Well, she didn’t come, as you know, but the old woman who had tried to fetch her sent me a message, which I suppose she took the trouble to invent, just to satisfy me. If I insisted upon it, Georgia would come, she said, but to reach me she must run the gantlet of so many dangers that it was scarcely possible she could get through. Was she to come? I’m thankful to remember that I had strength of mind enough to say she wasn’t to think of it. Of course she couldn’t get the message, but a man doesn’t like to feel——”
“Oh, Dick, as if I should have thought of the danger!” murmured Georgia.
“We know you didn’t, Mrs North,” said Colonel Graham, “and that’s why I agree with North that it’s a good thing he left off calling you.”
“I don’t know why,” said Dick, “but after that I was happier, somehow. I used to have the idea that Georgia was there, and we held long conversations”—Georgia’s eyes met Mabel’s significantly—“and so I grew better. Of course I was wild to get away, but there was always that rope-ladder, and the very thought of it turned me sick. Old Faiz-Ullah promised faithfully that in a few days he would help me up it, and escort me through the mountains to this place, so that I might get in if I could, and three nights ago he went to meet the Begum’s servant when she brought the food, intending to ask if they could find me a pony. But that night there was the worst earthquake I have ever felt”—the rest exchanged glances—“and he never came back. The noise was fearful, and as shock after shock came, I never for a moment expected to live through it. But the cave was not damaged, and when I crawled out in the morning, the rope-ladder was still there. I waited for the old man, but he did not come, and there was no food left. At last I decided that something must have happened to him, and I determined to make the attempt sooner than starve to death. I don’t know how long I hung between heaven and earth on that awful ladder, but I got to the top at last, and followed Faiz-Ullah’s track. Before very long I found him, poor old fellow! crushed under a fallen rock, quite dead. I hunted about for some stones that I could lift to put over him, to keep off the leopards, and then I started. If any food had been brought the night before, it was buried under the rock with him, so I had no time to lose. I knew roughly where I was, and I set my course as best I could by the sun. I went from hiding-place to hiding-place, sometimes crawling, and sometimes able to walk. I dared not rest long anywhere, for I knew I should starve even if the enemy didn’t find me. I got across the Akrab Pass almost by a miracle. Bahram Khan was holding a jirgah with the tribesmen, and they had no scouts out except in the direction of Nalapur. After taking a good look at them, I crept round below and got through. And after that I went on somehow, I don’t remember how, and at last I worked round by our house, and into the hills where the canal comes from, and got across on a landslip, where the water was shallow, and here I am.”
“When you ought to be in bed,” said Dr Tighe. “You don’t deserve it, after your outrageous behaviour in defying the profession, but I’d like to overhaul you, and see if nature hasn’t left any little crevices that art may manage to patch up.”