“She ought to be travelling in a carriage of some kind,” admitted Cunningham, “but we haven't got a single wheeled thing here. If any one asks pertinent questions on the road, you'd better say that she had an ekka, but that some Rangars took it from you. D'you think you know the language well enough to pass muster?”
“It's a little late to ask me that!” laughed McClean. “Yes—I'm positive I do. Good-by.”
They shook hands again and the three rode off, cantering presently, to make the most of the coolness before the sun got up. Cunningham climbed slowly up the hill and then watched them from the parapet—wondering, wondering again—whether he was justified. As he put it to himself, it was “the hell of a position for a man to find himself in!” He caught himself wondering whether his thoughts would have been the same, and whether his conscience would have racked him quite as much, had Rosemary McClean been older, and less lovely, and a little more sour-tongued.
He had to laugh presently at the absurdity of that notion, for Jaimihr would never have bargained for possession of a sour-faced, elderly woman. He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could do was to congratulate the Raj because, at the right minute, the right good-looking woman had been on the spot! But he did not like the circumstances any better; and before two hours had passed the loneliness began to eat into his soul.
Like any other man whose race and breed and training make him self-dependent, he could be alone for weeks on end and scarcely be aware that he had nobody to talk to. But his training had never yet included sending women off on dangerous missions any more than it had taught him to resist woman's attraction—the charm of a woman's voice, the lure of a woman's eyes. He did not know what was the matter with him, but supposed that his liver must be out of order or else that the sun had touched him.
Taking a chance on the liver diagnosis, he had out the attenuated garrison, and drilled it, both mounted and dismounted, first on the hilltop—where they made the walls re-echo to the clang of grounded butts—and then on the plain below, with the gate wide open in their rear and one man watching from the height above. When he had tired them thoroughly, and himself as well, he set two men on the lookout and retired to sleep; nor did the droning and the wailing music of some women in the harem trouble him.
They called him regularly when the guard was changed, but he slept the greater part of that day and stood watch all night. The next day, and the third day, he drilled the garrison again, growing horribly impatient and hourly more worried as to what Byng-bahadur might be doing, and thinking of him.
It was evening of the fourth day when a Rangar woke him, squeezing at his foot and standing silent by the cot.
“Huzoor—Mahommed Gunga comes!”
“Thank God!”