§ 2
It had gone. Nothing remained but to clear up the mess and begin afresh with more wisdom and sounder policy. It was over, and, among other things now possible, Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison might ask the woman he loved whether she could some day become his wife. He had saved her life, watched over her, served her with mind and body, lived for her. And she had smiled upon him, looked at him as a woman looks at the man she more than likes, had given him the encouragement of her smiles, her trust, affectionate greeting on return from danger, prayers that he would be “careful” when he went forth to danger.
He believed that she loved him, and would, after a decent interval, even perhaps a year hence, marry him.
And then he would abandon the old life and ways, become wholly English and settle down to make her life a happy walk through an enchanted valley. He would take her to England and there, far from all sights, sounds and smells of the East, far from everything wild, turbulent, violent, crush out all the Pathan instincts so terribly aroused and developed during the late glorious time of War. He would take himself cruelly in hand. He would neither hunt nor shoot. He would eat no meat, drink no alcohol, nor seek excitement. He would school himself until he was a quiet, domesticated English country-gentleman—respectable and respected, fit husband for a delicately-bred English gentlewoman. And if ever his hand itched for the knife-hilt, his finger for the trigger, his cheek for the rifle-butt, his nostrils for the smell of the cooking-fires, his soul for the wild mountain passes, the mad gallop, the stealthy stalk—he would live on cold water until the Old Adam were drowned.
He would be worthy of her—and she should never dream what blood was on his hands, what sights he had looked on, what deeds he had done, what part he had played in wild undertakings in wild places. English would he be to the back-bone, to the finger tips, to the marrow; a quiet, clean, straight-dealing Englishman of normal tastes, habits, and life.
Strange if, with all his love of fighting, he could not fight (and conquer) himself. Yes—his last great fight should be with himself…. He would call, to-day, at the bungalow to which Mrs. Dearman, prior to starting for Home, had removed as soon as the carefully-guarded Cantonment area was pronounced absolutely safe as a place of residence for the refugees who had been besieged in the old Military Prison.
She would be sufficiently “straight” in her bungalow, by this time, to permit of a formal mid-day call being a reasonable and normal affair….
“Good-morning, Preserver of Gungapur,” said Mrs. Dearman brightly; “have the Victoria Cross and the Distinguished Service Order materialized yet—or don’t they give them to Volunteers? What a shame if they don’t!”
“I want something far more valuable and desirable than those, Mrs. Dearman,” said Colonel Ross-Ellison as he took the extended hand of his hostess, who was a picture of coolness and health.
“Oh?—and—what is that?” she asked, seating herself on a big settee with her back to the light.
“You,” was the direct and uncompromising reply of the man who had been leading a remarkably direct and uncompromising life for several years.
Mrs. Dearman trembled, flushed and paled.
“What do you mean?” she managed to say, with a fine affectation of coolness, unconcern, and indifference.
“I mean what I say,” was the answer. “I want you. I cannot live without you. I want to take care of you. I want to devote my life to making you happy. I want to make you forget this terrible experience and tragedy. You are lonely and I worship you. I want you to marry me—when you can—later—and let me serve you for the rest of my life. Make me the happiest and proudest man in the world and I will strive to be the noblest.”
He was very English then—in his fine passion. He took her hand and it was not withdrawn. He bent to look in her eyes, she smiled, and in a second was in his embrace, strained to his breast, her lips crushed by his.
For a minute he could not speak.
“I cannot believe it,” he whispered at length. “Is this a dream?”
“You are a very concrete dream—dear,” said Mrs. Dearman, re-arranging crushed and disarranged flowers at her breast, blushing and laughing shyly.
The man was filled with awe, reverence and a deep longing for worthiness.
The woman felt happy in the sense of safety, of power, of pride in the love of so fine a being.
“And how long have you loved me?” she murmured.
“Loved you, Cleopatra? Dearest—I have loved you from the moment my eyes first fell on you…. Poor salt-encrusted, weary, bloodshot eyes they were too,” he added, smiling, reminiscent.
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Dearman, puzzled.
“Ah—I have a secret to tell you—a confession that will open those beautiful eyes wide with surprise. I first saw you when you were Cleopatra Brighte.”
“Good gracious!” ejaculated Mrs. Dearman in great surprise. “When_ever_ when?”
“I’ll tell you,” said the man, smiling fondly. “You have my photograph. You took it yourself—on board the ‘Malaya’.”
“I?” said Mrs. Dearman. “What are you talking about?”
“About you, dearest, and the time when I first saw you—and fell in love with you;—love at first sight, indeed.”
“But I never photographed you on board ship. I never saw you on a ship. I met you first here in Gungapur.”
“Do you remember the ‘Malaya’ stopping to pick up a shipwrecked sailor, a castaway, in a little dug-out canoe, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, when you were first coming out to India? But of course you do—you have the snap-shot in your collection….”
“Why—yes—I remember, of course—but that was a horrid, beastly native. The creature could only speak Hindustani. He was the sole survivor of the crew of some dhow or bunder-boat, they said…. He lived and worked with the Lascars till we got to Bombay. Yes….”
“I was that native,” said Colonel Ross-Ellison.
“You,” whispered Mrs. Dearman. “You,” and scanned his face intently.
“Yes. I. I am half a native. My father was a Pathan. He——”
“What?” asked the woman hoarsely, drawing away. “What? What are you saying?”
“I am half Pathan—my father was a Pathan and my mother an Australian squatter’s daughter.”
“Go,” shrieked Mrs. Dearman, springing to her feet. “Go. You wretch! You mean, base liar! To cheat me so! To pretend you were a gentleman. Leave my house! Go! You horrible—mongrel—you——. To take me in your arms! To make love to me! To kiss me! Ugh! I could die for shame! I could die——”
The face of the man grew terrible to see. There was no trace of the West in it, no sign of English ancestry, the face of a mad, blood-mad Afghan.
“We will both die,” he gasped, and took her by the throat.
A few minutes later a Pathan in the dirty dress of his race fled from Colonel Ross-Ellison’s bungalow in Cantonments and took the road to the city.
Threading his way through its tortuous lanes, alleys, slums and bazaars he reached a low door in the high wall that surrounded an almost windowless house, knocked in a particular manner, parleyed, and was admitted.
The moment he was inside, the custodian of the door slammed, locked and bolted it, and then raised an outcry.
“Come,” he shouted in Pushtoo. “The Spy! The Feringhi! The Pushtoo-knowing English dog, that Abdulali Habbibullah,” and he drew his Khyber knife and circled round Ross-Ellison.
A clatter of heavy boots, the opening of wooden “windows” that looked inward on to the high-walled courtyard, and in a minute a throng of Pathans and other Mussulmans entered the compound from the house—some obviously aroused from heavy slumber.
“It is he,” cried one, a squat, broad-shouldered fellow, as they stood at gaze, and long knives flashed.
“Oho, Spy! Aha, Dog! For what hast thou come?” asked one burly fellow as he advanced warily upon the intruder, who backed slowly to the angle of the high walls.
“To die, Hidayetullah. To die, Nazir Ali Khan. To die slaying! Come on!” was the reply, and in one moment the speaker’s Khyber knife flashed from his loose sleeve into the throat of the nearest foe.
As he withdrew it, the door-keeper slashed at his abdomen, missed by a hair’s-breadth, raised his arm to save his neck from a slash, and was stabbed to the heart, the knife held dagger-wise. Another Pathan rushing forward, with uplifted knife held as a sword, was met by a sudden low fencing-lunge and fell with a hideous wound, and then, whirling his weapon like a claymore in an invisibly rapid Maltese cross of flashing steel, the man who had been Ross-Ellison drove his enemies before him, whirled about, and established himself in the opposite corner, and spat pungent Border taunts at the infuriated crowd.
“Come on, you village curs, you landless cripples, you wifeless sons of burnt fathers! Come on! Strike for the credit of your noseless mothers! Run not from me as your wives ran from you—to better men! Come on, you sweepers, you swine-herds, you down-country street-scrapers!” and they came on to heart’s content, steel clashed on steel and thudded on flesh and bone.
“Get a rifle,” cried one, lying bleeding on the ground, striving to rise while he held his right shoulder to his neck with his partly severed left hand. As he fainted the shoulder gaped horribly.
“Get a cannon,” mocked Ross-Ellison. “Get a cannon, dogs, against one man,” and again, whirling the great jade-handled knife, long as a short sword, he rushed forward and the little mob gave ground before the irresistible claymore-whirl, the unbreakable Maltese cross described by the razor-edge and needle-point.
“It is a devil,” groaned a man, as his knife and his hand fell together to the ground, and he clapped his turban on the stump as a boy claps his hat upon some small creature that he would capture.
The madman whirled about in the third corner and, as he ceased the wild whirl, ducked low and lunged, lessening the number of his enemies by one. This lunge was a new thing to men who could only slash and stab, a new thing and a terrible, for it could not be parried save by seizing the blade and losing half a hand.
“Come on, you growing maidens! Come on, grandmothers! Come on, you cleaners of pig-skins, you washers of dogs! Come on!” and as he shouted, the door crashed down and a patrol of British soldiers, attracted by the noise, and delayed by the stout door, burst into the courtyard.
“At the henemy in front, fixed sights,” shouted the corporal in charge. And added an order not to be found in the drill-book: “Blow ’em to ’ell if they budges.”
In the hush of surprise his voice arose, addressing the fighters: “Bus[70] you bleedin’ soors,[71]” said Corporal Cook. “Bus; and you dekho[72] ’ere. If any of you jaos[73] from where ’e is, I’ll pukkaro[74] ’im and give ’im a punch in the dekho.”
[70] Enough, stop. [71] Swine. [72] Look. [73] Jao = go (imperative). [74] Seize (imperative).
And, as bayonets rose breast-high and fingers curled lovingly round triggers, every knife but that of Ross-Ellison disappeared as by magic, and the Corporal beheld a little crowd of innocent men endeavouring to secure a dangerous lunatic at the risk of their lives—terrible risk, as the bodies of five dead and dying men might testify.
“I give myself up to you as a murderer, Corporal,” said he who had been Colonel John Robin Ross-Ellison. “I am a murderer. If you will take me before your officer I will confess and give details.”
“I’m agoin’ to take you bloomin’ well all,” replied the surprised Corporal. “Chuck down that there beastly carvin’ knife. You seem a too ‘andy cove wiv’ it.”
At the Corporal’s order of, “Prod ’em all up agin that wall and shoot any bloke as moves ’and or ’oof,” the party of panting, bleeding and perspiring ruffians was lined up, relieved of its weapons, and duly marched to the guard-room.
Here, one of the gang (later identified as the man who had been known as John Robin Ross-Ellison, and who insisted that he was a Baluchi) declared that he had just murdered Mrs. Dearman in her drawing-room and made a full statement—a statement found to be only too true, its details corroborated by a trembling hamal who had peeped and listened, as all Indian servants peep and listen.
Duly tried, all members of the gang received terms of imprisonment (largely a prophylactic measure), save the extraordinary English-speaking Baluchi, who had long imposed, it was said, upon Gungapur Society in the days before that Society had disappeared in the cataclysm.
A few days before the date fixed for the execution of this very remarkable desperado, Captain Michael Malet-Marsac, Adjutant of the Gungapur Volunteer Corps, received two letters dated from Gungapur Jail, one covering the other. The covering letter ran:—
“My Dear Malet-Marsac
“I forward the enclosed. Should you desire to attend the execution you could accompany the new City Magistrate, Wellson, who will doubtless be agreeable.
“Yours sincerely,
“A. RANALD, Major I.M.S.”
The accompaniment was from John Robin Ross-Ellison Mir Ilderim Dost Mahommed Mir Hafiz Ullah Khan.
“My Dear Old Friend
“For the credit of the British I am pretending to be a Baluchi. I am not a Baluchi and I hope to die like a Briton—at any rate like a man. I have been held responsible for what I did when I was not responsible, and shall be killed in cold blood by sane people, for what I did in hot blood when quite as mad as any madman who ever lived. I don’t complain—I explain. I want you to understand, if you can, that it was not your friend John Ross-Ellison who did that awful deed. It was a Pathan named Ilderim Dost Mahommed. And yet it was I.” [“Poor chap is mad!” murmured the bewildered and horrified reader who had lived in a kind of nightmare since the woman he loved had been murdered by the man he loved. “The strain of the war has been too much for him. He must have had sunstroke too.” He read on, with misty sight.]
“And it is I who will pay the penalty of Ilderim Dost Mahommed’s deed. As I say, I do not complain, and if the Law did not kill me I would certainly kill myself—to get rid of Ilderim Dost Mahommed.
“I have thought of doing so and cheating the scaffold, but have decided that Ilderim will get his deserts better if I hang, and I may perhaps get rid of him, thus, for ever.
“Will you come? I would not ask it of any living soul but you, and I ask it because your presence would show me that you blindly believe that it was not John Robin Ross-Ellison who killed poor Mrs. Dearman, and that would enable me to die quite happy. Your presence would also be a great help to me. It would help me to feel that, whatever I have lived, I die a Briton—that if I could not live without Ilderim Dost Mahommed I can die without him. But this must seem lunatic wanderings to you.
“I apologize for writing to you and I hesitated long. At length I said, ‘I will tell him the truth—that the deed was not done by Ross-Ellison and perhaps he will understand, and come’. Mike—John Robin Ross-Ellison did not murder Mrs. Dearman.
“Your distracted and broken-hearted ex-friend,
“J.R. ROSS-ELLISON.”
“He was ‘queer’ at times,” said Captain Michael Malet-Marsac. “There was a kink somewhere. The bravest, coolest, keenest chap I ever met, the finest fighting-man, the truest comrade and friend,—and from time to time something queer peeped out, and one was puzzled…. Madness in the family, I suppose…. Poor devil, poor, poor devil!” and Captain Malet-Marsac stamped about and swore, for his eyes tingled and his chin quivered.