“Why, Padri, what’s the matter?” asked Colonel Graham, turning round to see the old missionary toiling after him. “Take my hand across here.”
“I am so sorry—I can never forgive myself—it quite slipped my memory,” panted Mr Hardy. “It was a Malik from one of the tribes to the south-west—he came to me secretly—to ask about Christianity—I called him Nicodemus to myself. The night the siege began—he came to warn me—and promised to light a fire in the hills—when relief was at hand. I was so busy hurrying the Christians into the fort, and helping them to save their possessions, that I never remembered the matter again.”
“Well, it doesn’t signify so much, since you have remembered it now,” said the Colonel kindly. “Did the man seem to you trustworthy?”
“He took his life in his hand to warn me that night, and of course when he came before he risked losing everything. His name was Hasrat Isa, curiously enough, and he seemed to me to be genuinely in earnest.”
“Thanks, Padri. You have brought us the best news we could desire. We must manage to hold out now.”
“This settles it,” muttered Dick. “Can I have a word or two with you?” he asked of the Commissioner, and they moved across to the other side of the tower, Mr Burgrave’s face wearing an absolutely non-committal expression.
“You see how it is?” said Dick. “This gives me just the pull I wanted over the tribes. Of course the one thing now is to detach them from Bahram Khan before our men come up, and to save the Amir. They know me and trust me, and if I assure them that an overwhelming force is close at hand, I believe they will be ready to lay down their arms. Of course they will have to give up all their loot and to pay a fine of rifles, but they know enough of us by this time to prefer that to a war of extermination. Then about the Amir. He’s safe for the present, as I said, but I haven’t a doubt his guards have got orders to kill him when the head of the column appears, if we are still holding out then. I shall try to get the tribes to rescue him. But now for the crux of the whole thing. If I am to have the faintest hope of success, I must be able to tell the tribes that we mean to hold on to Nalapur when the rising is put down. Otherwise as soon as Bahram Khan has made terms he will establish himself in his uncle’s place, and wipe out all who submitted before him. Have I a free hand to do it?”
“Why consult me?” asked the Commissioner coldly.
“Because it depends upon you. The announcement of our intended withdrawal has never been actually made, thanks to the ambush on the road to the durbar, and it rests with you to withhold it altogether. Of course I know I’m inviting you to reverse your policy, and all that sort of thing, but I don’t believe you’re the man to weigh that against the peace of the frontier.”
“Are you aware that I came to Khemistan for the express purpose of carrying out the policy you invite me to reverse?”