“Oh, Mab, is it true about the Commissioner?” cried Georgia, coming out to meet them on the verandah.
“Yes; I am afraid he’s dreadfully hurt, poor man!”
“Was he riding with you when he fell?”
“He—he was riding after me,” said Mabel cautiously.
Georgia threw up her hands. “Oh, if you could only have hurt any other man, or taken him to any house but this!” she cried; and Mabel thought it both unkind and unfair, considering the circumstances.
CHAPTER VIII.
WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION.
Hark! what was that? Mabel sprang up in bed, her heart beating furiously, her hands clammy with fear. There was the sound of horses’ feet, the rattling of bridles, on every side. A wild impulse seized her to creep under the dressing-table—to hide herself anywhere, but a moment later she laughed aloud. The very last thing before going to bed, Dick had told her for her comfort that not only would the usual Sikh sentry keep guard over the Commissioner’s slumbers, but the compound would be patrolled all night by the Khemistan Horse. She crept to the window and peered out between the slats of the venetians. Yes; there they were—splendid men with huge turbans, and accoutrements glittering in the moonlight—pacing slowly to and fro upon their stout little horses. But how was it that there were two of them at that far corner of the compound, where she could scarcely distinguish their figures, and why had they paused as though to listen for something? Mabel listened too, and presently, above the nearer noises of trampling hoofs and jingling bits, she heard the approach of a galloping horse. Was it a scout coming in to give warning of a threatened attack? But no; the two men at the corner sat motionless on their horses, and as the sound came nearer and nearer she saw the flash of their tulwars. They were saluting—whom or what? Mabel strained her eyes to see, but could distinguish nothing. Then she remembered. It was General Keeling to whom they were doing honour, as he rode his periodical rounds, watchful for the safety of his old province. A cold sweat broke out all over her, and in a panic of which she was heartily ashamed even at the moment, she scurried back to bed and gave herself up to more and more violent paroxysms of horror. Of what use were sentinels against such a visitant as this? Suppose it was his will to come closer, to come up to the house, to enter? What could be more likely? She lifted her head for a moment and listened again. Surely that was a horse’s tread upon the drive, approaching the door? In reality, the intruder was only one of the patrols, but in the state of ungovernable terror in which Mabel was plunged this did not occur to her, and she buried her head under the bed-clothes and screamed.
The ayah, roused from her heavy slumbers by her mistress’s shrieks, came shivering to her side and tried to quiet her, but finding her entreaties of no avail, ran for help. Presently Georgia glided in, looking like a reproachful ghost herself, in a white dressing-gown, and proffered Mabel three tabloids and a glass of water, as sternly as if she had been Queen Eleanor handing Rosamund the poison.
“I’ll sit by you till you are asleep,” she whispered; “but you mustn’t make such a noise. You’ll wake the Commissioner, and he has only just dropped off to sleep, poor man!”
“I know I’m a fearful baby,” confessed Mabel, restored to calmness by the eminently practical nature of Georgia’s benevolence, “but I was so horribly frightened. Is poor Mr Burgrave very bad?”