“Georgie, there’s Mrs Hardy looking out for you.”
“Oh dear!” cried Georgia in a panic, “I can’t meet her just now, until I know the truth about Bahram Khan. She is waiting to gloat over me about this horrible rumour, and I can’t stand it. I am going to take you up to the ramparts, Mab, to see the view.”
She gave the reins to the groom, and, avoiding the reading-room, in the verandah of which could be discerned Mrs Hardy’s depressed-looking bonnet, hurried Mabel across the wide courtyard and up a flight of steps which led to the summit of the western wall. From this, at some risk to life and limb, they were able to reach one of the half-ruined towers, which commanded a bird’s-eye view of the town. The native quarter, with its narrow, crooked alleys and carefully guarded flat roofs, the lines, painfully neat in the mathematical symmetry of their rows of white huts, the houses in the cantonments, embowered in pleasant gardens, were all spread before them. Beyond the belt of green which marked the limits of the irrigated land round the town, the desert stretched on the east and south as far as the eye could see. To the west was a range of rugged hills, their nearer spurs within rifle-shot of the fort, and to the north, at a much greater distance, the peaks, at this season covered with snow, of a considerable mass of mountains.
“That is Nalapur,” said Georgia, pointing to the mountains, “and beyond it to the eastward is Ethiopia. Our house is the last on British soil. The corner of the compound exactly touches the frontier line.”
“Then that’s why your father rides past just there?” said Mabel unthinkingly.
“So the natives say. I rather like to think of him as still guarding the frontier which he spent his life in defending. It’s a nice idea, I mean—that’s all. But, Mab, the men are coming back from the durbar. Look at that dust-cloud, and you will see the light strike on something shining every now and then. That’s the bravery of their durbar get-up. We will wait here until they get into the town, and capture the first that comes this way. I must find out what has happened.”
They watched the cavalcade enter the town and separate into its component parts, and presently saw Fitz Anstruther riding up to the fort. He caught sight of their parasols and waved his hand, but Georgia dragged Mabel down the steps, and they met him in the courtyard.
“You’ve heard, then?” he cried, as his eyes fell on Georgia’s face.
“Only a bazar rumour. Is it true that Bahram Khan——?”
“He is restored to his estates and rank, and recommended by the Commissioner to the particular favour of his uncle. Burgrave had him all ready outside the tent, it appears, and after enlarging to the Amir and the luckless Bahadar Shah on the blessings of family unity, and the advisability of forgiving and forgetting youthful peccadilloes, brought him in as a practical embodiment of his words. It was dramatic—very—but it was playing it awfully low down on us, especially the Major.”