"A Romance of Baluchistan" (continued 2)

“What did you say the soor’s name was?” growled Bracebrydge.

“Bulbul Khan. That’s my name for him,” laughed Upward. “His real name’s Babul Hân, but I christened him Bulbul Khan, because he’s always making melody. Not bad, eh?”

“Oh yes—beastly funny—Ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge.

Now the trampling of horse hoofs arrested the attention of the party, and about a dozen mounted Baluchis, riding at a foot’s pace, emerged from the juniper forest. They made a picturesque group enough in their white flowing garments and great turbans.

“Why, who can these be?” said Nesta, gazing upon the new arrivals with some interest. “Who are they, Mrs Upward?”

“I’ll ask Bhallu Khan.” Then—“He says it is a sirdar of the Marris, who has been up to Gushki to see the Political Agent, and is on his way home.”

“So?” said Campian, interested. “Wonder if he’d stop and have a talk. Upward, roll up, old man. I want you to interview this very big swell.”

“We don’t want to be ‘dikked’ by a lot of niggers,” grunted Bracebrydge, in an audible aside.

The cavalcade had halted some threescore yards away, and one of the men now came forward to ask if the “jungle-wallah sahib” was there, because the Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan would be glad to have a talk with him on an official matter.

“Yar Hussain Khan?” repeated Upward, choking back a yawn. “I say, Campian, you’d better take a good look at this fellow. He’s no end of a big chief among the Marris, though he’s really of Afghan descent. Come along with me and meet him.” Then, turning to the Baluchi, he gave the necessary answer.

All the party were armed with the inevitable tulwar—four of their number, who were in immediate attendance on the chief, with Martini rifles as well. These, however, they laid down, as, having dismounted, they advanced to meet Upward.

The sirdar himself was a man of stately presence, standing over six feet. His strong, handsome face, with its flowing black beard, was well set off by the great turban wound round a blue kûlla, whose conical peak was just visible above the snowy folds. Two jetty tresses of long hair fell over his broad chest, almost to the hem of a rich vest of blue velvet embroidered with gold; the only colour which relieved his white garments. Campian, for his part, as he returned the other’s handshake, and noted the free, full fearlessness of the glance which met his, decided that here indeed was a noble specimen of an Oriental chieftain.

The subject of the latter’s official talk with Upward was of no especial importance, relating merely to certain grazing rights in dispute between a section of his tribesmen and the Government. Then he accepted an invitation to sit down and smoke a cigarette. But with the remainder of the party he did not offer to shake hands, acknowledging their presence by a dignified salute.

Upward, talking in Hindustani, brought round the conversation to matters semi-political. “Was there anything in the rumours that had got about, that the tribes were becoming restless all over the country?”

“The tribes always had been restless,” was Yar Hussain’s reply. “The English had taken over the country not so very long ago. Was it likely that the people could change their nature all at once? The English sahibs found sport in stalking markhôr or tiger shooting or in other forms of shikar. The Baluchis found it in raiding. It was their form of shikar.”

Campian, who perforce had to await Upward’s interpretation, had been carefully observing their visitors, and noted that one among the chiefs attendants was gazing at him with a most malevolent stare. This man never took his glance off him, and when their eyes met that glance became truly fiendish.

“That’s a first-class explanation, and a candid one,” was the comment he made on Upward’s rendering. “Tell him I hope they won’t take any more potshots at me when I’m wandering about alone—like they did that night I arrived at your camp, Upward. Tell him I rather like the look of them, and wish I could talk, so I could go in and out among them.”

A slight smile came over the dignified gravity of the sirdar’s features as this was interpreted to him, and he replied.

“He says,” translated Upward, “he will be very pleased if at any time you should visit his village. The shooting at you he knows nothing about, but is sure it could not have been done by any of his people.”

Campian, looking up, again met the hostile glance above mentioned. The man, who was seated a little behind his chief, was regarding him with a truly fiendish scowl, and noting it he decided upon two things—that Yar Hussain was a very fine fellow indeed, but that if he had any more followers of the stamp of this malignant savage, it were better for himself or any other infidel who desired to live out his length of days to pause ere accepting this cordially worded invitation. Then, after a few more interchanges of civilities, the sirdar and his followers rose to take their leave.

Now the diabolical scowl wherewith that particular Baluchi had greeted him, Campian at first set down to the natural hatred of a more than ordinarily fanatical Moslem for the infidel and the invader. But as the other drew nearer, spitting forth low envenomed curses, he half expected the Ghazi mania would prove too much for the man, even in the presence of his chief, and his hand instinctively moved behind him to his pistol pocket. The fellow however, seemed to think better of it.

“Fine specimen, that sirdar, isn’t he?” said Upward, as they watched the party defiling down the steep hill path into the valley beneath.

“He is. By the way, did you notice the infernal scowl that hook-nosed brigand of his turned on for my benefit all the time you were talking?”

“I thought he wasn’t looking at you very amiably when they went away. He can see you’re a stranger, I suppose, and some of these fanatical devils hate a stranger.”

“There was more in it than that, Upward. Did you happen to notice he walked with a slight limp?”

“No; I hardly—er yes, by the way, now I think of it, I did.”

“Well, what if he should turn out to be the very identical cuss I winged that night?”

“Phew!” whistled Upward. “But then, Bhallu Khan says they were Brahuis. These are Marris.”

“There may have been both among them. What is the sirdar’s name, again?”

“Yar Hussain Khan.”

“Yes. Well, Sirdar Yar Hussain Khan seems a very nice fellow, and I should much like to see him again; but probably I sha’n’t, for the simple reason that I don’t in the least want ever to behold that particularly abominable follower of his again.”

But he little thought under what circumstances he was destined to behold both again.

Chapter Seven.

The Tangi.

“It’s a thundering mistake allowing these fellows to wander all over the country armed, like that,” said Upward, commenting on their late visitors, while preparations were being made for a start. “They are never safe while they carry about those beastly tulwars. A fellow may take it into his head to cut you down at any moment. If he has nothing to do it with he can’t; if he has he will. Government ought to put the Arms Act into force.”

“Then there’d be a row,” suggested Campian.

“Let there be. Anything rather than this constant simmering. Not a week passes but some poor devil gets stuck when he least expects it—in broad daylight, too—on a railway station platform, or in the bazaar, or anywhere. For my part, I never like to have any of these fellows walking close behind me.”

“No, I don’t want either of you. I’ve had enough of you both for to-day. I’m going to ride with Mr Campian now. I want to talk to him a little.”

Thus Nesta Cheriton’s clear voice, which of course carried far enough to be heard by the favoured one, as she intended it should. The pair of discomfited warriors twirled their moustaches with mortification, but their way of accepting the situation was characteristic, for while Fleming laughed good-humouredly, if a trifle ruefully, Bracebrydge’s tone was nasty and sneering, as he replied:

“Variety is charming, they say, Miss Cheriton. Good thing for some of us we are not all alike—ah—ha—ha!”

“I quite agree with you there,” tranquilly remarked Campian, at whom this profoundly original observation was levelled. Then he assisted Nesta to mount.

The path down from the kotal was steep and narrow, and the party was obliged to travel single file. Finally it widened out as they gained the more level valley bottom. Here were patches of cultivation, and scattered among the rocks and stones was a flock of black goats, herded by a wild looking native clad in a weather-beaten sheepskin mantle, and armed with a long jezail with a sickle shaped stock. Two wolfish curs growled at the passers by, while their master uttered a sulky “salaam.” A blue reek of smoke rose from in front of a misshapen black tent, consisting of little more than a hide stretched upon four poles, beneath whose shelter squatted a couple of frowsy, copper-faced women. Two or three more smoke wreaths rising at intervals from the mountain side, and the distant bark of a dog, betokened the vicinity of other wandering herdsmen.

“I never seem to see anything of you now,” said the girl suddenly, during a pause in the conversation, which up till then had been upon the subject of the surrounding and its influences.

“Really? That sounds odd, for I have been under the impression that we are looking at each other during the greater portion of every day, and notably when we sit opposite each other at the not very wide, but pre-eminently festive board.”

“Don’t be annoying. You know what I mean.”

“That we don’t go out chikór shooting together any more. You may remember I foretold just such a possibility on the last occasion of our joint indulgence in that pastime.”

“Well but—why don’t we?”

“For exactly the reason I then foretold. You seem better employed. I amuse myself watching the fun instead.”

She looked at him quickly. Was he jealous? Nesta Cheriton was so accustomed to be spoiled and adored and competed for and quarrelled over by the stronger sex, that she could hardly realise any member of the same remaining indifferent to her charms. As a matter of fact, this one was not indifferent. He appreciated them. Her blue-eyed, golden-haired prettiness was pleasant to behold, in the close, daily intercourse of camp life. He liked to notice her pretty ways, and there was something rather alluring in her half affectionate and wholly confidential manner towards himself. But—jealous? Oh no—no. He had lived too long, and had too much experience of life for that phase of weakness. Nesta was disappointed. She read no symptoms of the same in his face, her ear detected no trace of bitterness or resentment in the tone.

“But I want to go out with you sometimes,” she said. “Why do you avoid me so of late?”

“My dear child, you never made a greater mistake in your life than in thinking that. Here we are, you see, all crowded up together. We can’t all be talking at once—and—I thought you rather enjoyed the fun of playing those two Johnnies off against each other.”

“Ah, I’m sick of them. I wish they’d go back to Shâlalai.”

“I don’t altogether believe that. Which is the favoured one, by the way?”

“No, really. I rather like Captain Fleming, though.” She laughed, branching off with the light-hearted inconsequence of her type. “And—I don’t know what to do. He’s awfully gone on me.”

“And are you ‘awfully gone’ on him?”

“Of course not. But I rather like him. I don’t know what to do about it.”

“You don’t know whether to buckle yourself for life to some one you ‘rather like’—or not. Is that the long and short of it?”

“Yes.”

“If you are a little idiot, Nessie, you will do it—if you are not, you won’t. You are dreadfully lacking in ballast, my child, even to dream of such a thing, are you not?”

“I suppose so. I don’t care a straw for anybody for more than a week or so. Then I am just as sick of them as I can be. That’s how I am.”

“Except on that solitary occasion when you did take someone seriously. Tell me about that, Nessita.”

“No—no!”

“But you promised to, one of these days. Why not now?”

“What a tease you are. I won’t tell it you now. No—nor ever. There!—Hark! Wasn’t that thunder?” she broke off suddenly.

“Yes. It’s a long way off, though, travelling down yonder ridge. Won’t come near us.”

Away along the summit of the further range a compact mass of cloud now rested, and from this came a low distant peal. It represented one of the thunderstorms common at that time of year, restricted in locality, and of limited area. They gave it no further thought, and the conversation running on from one subject to another, now grave, now gay, carried them a long way over the road. The rest of the party were far ahead. Bracebrydge was consoling himself by teasing Lily, and receiving from that young person, not unaided by Hazel, many a repartee fully up to the viciousness of his own thrusts. Fleming was riding with Mrs Upward, while Upward and Bhallu Khan were constantly diverging from the road, inspecting various botanical subjects with professional eye. Thus Nesta and Campian, whether by accident or design of the former, gradually dropped behind. Again, a long low boom of thunder pealed out upon the stillness of the air.

“That’s much nearer?” exclaimed the girl, looking up. “I say! I wish it wouldn’t! I don’t like thunder.”

“Scared of it?”

“Rather. What shall we do if it comes right over?”

“There may be some shelter of sorts further on. Meanwhile, don’t think about it. Go on talking to me. What subject shall we find to wrangle about?”

She laughed, and very soon found a subject; and thus they continued their way, until the path opened out from the narrow, stony, juniper-grown valley they had been descending, on to a wide, open plain, utterly destitute of foliage of any kind. The bulk of the party were now visible again, further in advance, looking mere specks, nearly three miles distant.

“They will be in the tangi directly,” said Nesta, shading her eyes to watch the distant figures. “There, they are in it now,” as the latter disappeared in what looked like the mountain side itself, for no rift was discernible from where these two now rode.

“We had better get on, hadn’t we?” urged Campian.

“Oh no. I hate hurrying, and there’s no earthly reason why we should.”

So they held on at the same foot’s pace over the plain, which stretched its weary desolation far on either side of them. Here and there a great hump of earth, streaked with white gypsum, relieved the dead level monotony, but not a living thing—man, beast or bird—was in sight. Not even a sound was audible, except the deep-toned growl of the thunder, growing louder as they neared the mountain wall.

“Good study for a subject illustrating the jaws of Death,” remarked Campian, as, now before them, the mountain seemed to yawn apart in a vertical fissure, which the stupendous height of the cliffs on either hand caused to appear as a mere slit.

“Yes. And—it’s beginning to rain.”

Large drops were pattering down as they entered the jaws of the great chasm, but once within them there was shelter for a space, for the cliffs took an abrupt slant over at about a hundred feet above, so that the sky was no longer visible. A trickle of muddy water was already running down the stony footway. This should have warned Campian, at any rate; but then his experience of the country and this particular feature thereof, was not large. Nesta shivered.

“I don’t like this at all,” she said. “It is horrible. What if the tangi should come down?”

The other glanced upward. The cliff walls were smooth and straight. Not a sign of ledge or projection to afford a foothold, no clinging shrub or tree anchored in a cleft.

“Shall we go back?” he said. “There must be some way over.”

“No, no. I came through here once before, and I remember Mr Upward saying it would take a whole day to cross over the mountain. The tangi is only about a mile long.”

“That means twenty minutes riding slow. Come along. We shall soon do it.”

But, even as his tone was, an ugly picture came before the speaker’s mind—that of a rush of black water many feet high, syphoned between those smooth walls. Anxiously but furtively his glance scanned them as they rode along.

As the narrowness of the passage wound and widened a little, the sky once more became visible overhead. The sky? But it had clouded over, and the rain fell somewhat smartly now upon the two wayfarers. A blue gleam of lightning shot down into the depths, and the reverberating peal which followed was as though telephoned in menacing boom through this tube-like chasm. Hundreds and hundreds of feet they towered up now, those iron-bound walls. It was like penetrating deeper and deeper into the black heart of the mountain.

“See that place up there?” said Nesta, pointing to a kind of slanting ledge quite twenty feet above and which might be reached by a strong climber, though even then with difficulty. “Last time we came through here, Bhallu Khan told us that two men had been overtaken by a rush, and succeeded in getting to that point; but even there the water had reached one of them and swept him away. Horrible, isn’t it?”

“Very likely he invented the whole thing. He has an excellent imagination, has our friend Bhallu Khan.”

This he said to reassure her, not that he thought the incident improbable. Indeed, glancing up at the spot indicated, he saw that evidence in the shape of sticks and straws was not wanting to show that the water had at some time reached that altitude, and the idea was not pleasant. In the vivid sunshine of a cloudless day it would have added interest to their way; now, with a gathering storm breaking over their heads, and another half mile of what might at any moment become a raging death-trap before them, it was dismal.

Another turn of the chasm, and the way, which had hitherto been level and pebbly, now led up over steep and slippery slabs. It became necessary to dismount, and here—Nesta’s pony which she was leading, for it became necessary to adopt single file, slipped and fell badly on its side. By the time the terrified beast was on its legs again, shivering and snorting, and sufficiently soothed down to resume the way, some precious minutes had been lost.

“We might mount again now,” said Campian, noting that the way was smoother. “Come. Jump up.”

But instead of placing her foot in the hand held ready to receive it, the girl stood as though turned to stone. Every drop of blood had forsaken her face, which was now white as that of a marble statue, her lips ashy and quivering.

“Hark!” she breathed, rather than uttered. “It is coming! We are lost!”

His own countenance changed, too. He had heard it as soon as herself—that dull raving roar, echoing with hollow metallic vibration along the rock walls. His heart almost died within him before the awfulness of this peril.

“Oh no, nothing like that,” he replied. “We must race it. We shall distance it yet, if we only keep our heads.”

The while he had put her into the saddle. Then taking the bridle, he began to lead her pony over the dangerous point of the way. The brute slipped and stumbled, now sliding, now about to pitch headlong, but both got through.

“Now for it, Nessie. Give him all the pace you can, but keep him in hand. We’ll race it easily.”

Down the tangi now, giving their steeds all the rein they dared, these two rode for dear life. Then Nesta’s pony stumbling over a loose stone, came right down, unhorsing his rider.

“Don’t leave me! Oh don’t leave me!” she shrieked despairingly. “I can’t move, my skirt is caught.”

“Leave you. Is it likely? What do you take me for?” came his reply, as in a moment he was dismounted and beside her. “Keep your head. It will be all right in a moment. There!” as a vigorous tug brought the skirt clear of the fallen animal, which lay as though stunned.

But as she gained her feet, the dull hollow booming, which had been deepening ever behind them, became suddenly a roar of such terrible and appalling volume, that Campian’s steed, with a wild snort of alarm jerked the bridle rein from his hand, and bolted wildly down the pass. It all came before him as in a lightning flash. The utter hopelessness of the situation. The flood had turned the corner of the reach they were now in. He saw it shoot out from the projecting ridge, and hurl itself with thunderous shock against the opposite rock face. Hissing and bellowing it sprung high in the air, then, flung back, amid a vast cloud of spray, it roared down upon them. One glance and only one, lest the terror of the sight should paralyse him, and he realised that in about two or three minutes that flood would be hurling their lifeless bodies from side to side against those grim rock walls.

Chapter Eight.

The Dark Jaws of Death.

All as in a lightning flash some flicker of hope returned. For he saw they were underneath the place which Nesta pointed out to him as having afforded refuge to at any rate one in their position. It was their only chance. Hope well nigh died again. To climb there alone would be something of an undertaking—but with a helpless girl—

Yet he reached that point of refuge, but how he did so Campian never knew—never will know to his dying day. The superhuman effort; the hellish deafening din of the black flood as it shot past, so near as to splash them, clinging there to the steep rock face, not more than half way up to the place of refuge; of the words of encouragement which he whispered to his half-fainting charge athwart the thunder-roar of the waters, as he literally dragged her up beside him; of the tearing muscles and cracking joints, and blazing, scintillating brain—of all these he has a dim and confused recollection, and can only attribute the accomplishment of the feat to a well nigh superhuman mania of desperation.

Higher still! No time for a pause or rest—no permanent foothold is here—and the waters are still rising. He dared not so much as look down. The daze of the lightning striking upon the rock face aided his efforts. The crash of the thunder peal was as entirely drowned in the bellowing and strident seething of this huge syphoned flood, as though it were silent.

The refuge at last, but what a refuge! Only by the most careful distribution of weight could two persons support themselves on it for any length of time. It was hardly even a ledge, hardly more than a mere unevenness in the rock’s surface. Yet, one of these two persons was a terribly frightened and far from robust girl; the other seemed to have expended air the strength within him in the effort of getting there at all. Thus they clung, mere pigmy atoms against this stupendous cliff wall; suspended over the seething hell of waters that would have churned the life out of them within a moment or so of reaching its surface.

“There! We are safe now!” he gasped, still panting violently after the exertion. “We have only to wait until the water runs off. It will soon do that, you know.”

“No, it will not,” she replied, her blue eyes wide with terror, and shudderingly turning her face to the cliff to avoid the awfulness of the sight. “It may take days. The tangi by the camp took a whole night once. It was the night you came.”

“Well, even then? Upward will have had time to get through safely, ample time, and at the first opportunity they will come for us.”

“They won’t find us,” she moaned. “You know that place I showed you where Bhallu Khan told us the water had risen high enough to sweep a man off. It was higher than this.”

“I think not I think this is the higher of the two,” he answered mendaciously. In her fear she had not recognised the place, and he would not undeceive her. For his part, he blessed the chance that had put the idea into his head. But for her having narrated the incident as they rode past, it might never have occurred to him that the attempt was feasible, and—what then?

“We mustn’t discount the worst,” he went on.

“The chances of it rising any higher are nil, and even if it does, there is plenty of margin before it reaches us. It isn’t as if it were a case of an incessant and regular downpour. It is only one of those sharp afternoon thunder showers that run off these great slab-like rocks as off a roof on a huge scale. My dear little girl, you must be brave, and thank Heaven we were able to fetch this place at all. Look, I believe it has run off a little lower already.”

“Oh, no—no! I can’t look. It is horrible—horrible!” she answered, as venturing one peep forth, she again hid her face, shuddering.

And in truth her terror was little to be wondered at. It was growing dusk now in the world without, and the roar and hiss of the vast flood coursing with frightful velocity between those grim, cavernous cliffs in the shades, would have tried the nerves of anybody contemplating the scene from the impartial vantage ground of a place of safety. How then did it seem to these two, crouching on a steep slant of rock, whose unevenness alone sustained them in position; cowering over this awful flood, which might at any moment, rising higher, sweep them into a horrible death? And then, that the situation should lose nothing of its terror, Campian noticed, with a sinking of the heart, that the water actually was rising.

Yes. A mark upon the iron-bound face of the opposite cliff, which had caught his attention on first being able to look round, was now covered. Was it the gathering gloom, or had the scratch been washed away? No. The latter was stratified. The water had risen nearly two feet.

The depth at first he judged to be about ten feet. Two more had been added. He fixed another mark. The roaring was already so fearful it could hardly be increased. The hissing, boiling eddies of the rush, leaped over the new mark, then subsided—leaped again, and this time did not subside. They streamed over, hiding it completely. And still the rain poured down pitilessly, and he thought he could detect a peal of thunder above the roar of the waters, which suggested a renewed burst over the very catchment area which had supplied this flood. Well, he had done what he could. The end was not in his hands.

“Oh-h—how cold it is!” moaned Nesta.

“Of course; I was forgetting,” he replied, with great difficulty divesting himself of his coat, for hardly so much as a finger could be spared in the effort involved to hold himself—to hold both of them—in position. But it was done at last, and the garment, all too light, he wrapped around the girl’s shivering form. She uttered a feeble protest, which took not much overruling.

“What a precious pair of drowned rats we must look, Nessita,” he said; “and what a sight we shall be when they find us in the morning.”

“But they never will find us in the morning—not me, at any rate.”

“Won’t they? They will though, and you will be the first to think of the appearances. Why, that pretty curled fringe that I and those two sodger Johnnies were eager to die for a little while ago is all over the shop. You should just see it now.”

Thus he bantered, as though they were in the snug dining tent at Upward’s camp instead of amid a raving hell of terror and of imminent death. But the while the man’s heart died within him, for in the last faint touch of light he noticed that yet another mark, higher than the rest, had disappeared.

“I wonder which of those two Johnnies aforesaid would give most to be able to change places with me now,” he went on, still bantering. “Or, at any rate, won’t they just say so to-morrow? Here, you must get up close to me,” he said, drawing her right to him. “It will serve the double purpose of keeping you from going overboard and keeping you warmer, and me too, perhaps.”

If ever there was time and place for conventionality, assuredly it was not here. Her violent shivering quieted down as she nestled against him. The warmth of the contact and the additional sense of protection combined to work wonders.

“Now, talk to me,” he said; “or try and go to sleep, if you would rather. I’ll take care you don’t fall over.”

“Sleep? I don’t suppose I shall ever sleep again.”

“Rather, you will. And, Nessie, shall I tell you something you’d rather like to hear? The water is already beginning to go down.”

“What else has it been doing ever since we came up here?”

“That’s right!” he cried, delighted at this little spark of the old fun loving nature reasserting itself. “But, bar jokes, it really is lowering. I have kept an eye upon certain marks that were covered just now. They are visible again.”

The rain had ceased. The bellowing of the flood was as loud as ever, and but that they were talking into each other’s ears, their voices would have been well nigh inaudible. What he had said was true, and with a great gladness of heart, he recognised the fact.

“No, no! You are only saying that to make me think it is all right,” she answered, the wild eagerness in her tone betraying something of the strain she had undergone. “It can’t be really—is it? Say—is it really?”

“It is really, so far as I can judge. But it has turned so confoundedly dark, one can hardly see anything. Keep up your spirits, child. You have had an adventure, that’s all.”

“Well, you are a good one to share it with,” she murmured. “Tell me, were you ever afraid of anything in your life?”

“I should rather think I was, of heaps of things. I should have been hideously so before we started to climb up here, only there wasn’t time. Oh don’t make any mistake about me. I know what funk is, and that of the bluest kind.”

Thus he talked on, lightly, cheerily, and the girl, if she could not quite forget her numbness and terror and exhaustion, was conscious of no small alleviation of the same. It was pitch dark now, but the thunder of the waters, and the cavernous rattle of the stones and pebbles swept along by their rush, seemed to have abated in volume. An hour went by, then two. Nesta, half asleep, was answering drowsily. The gloom of the great chasm lightened. A full moon had risen over the outside world, and its rays were penetrating even to these forbidding depths. The roaring of the flood had become a mere purling ripple. The water had almost run off.

Campian was becoming frightfully exhausted. Not much longer could he support this strain. Would Upward never arrive? He had succeeded, providentially, in climbing up here, under stress of desperation, but to descend safely now, cramped and exhausted as they both were, would be impossible. A broken neck, or a broken limb or two, would be the sure and certain result of any such attempt.

As the moon-rays brightened, he could make out the bottom of the tangi, and it looked hideously far down, almost as if the rush of water had worn it deeper. It was all seamed and furrowed up, and the water was now babbling down in several little streams. Would help never arrive!

Ha! At last! Voices—native voices—then, although talking in an Oriental tongue, other voices, recognisable as European ones. The sound was coming down the tangi.

“Wake up, Nessita. Here they are, at last.”

But the girl had already heard, and started up with a suddenness which would have hurled her to the base of the cliff but for his restraining grasp.

“Wait, wait!” he urged. “Be doubly careful now. We don’t want to break our necks after a narrow shave of drowning.” Then lifting up his voice, he gave forth a mighty shout.

It was answered—answered by several voices. In the moonlight they could make out figures hurrying down the tangi.

“Where are you?” sung out Upward, who led the way. Then he stopped short, with an ejaculation of amazement, as the answer revealed the objects of his search high overhead. “Good heavens! how did you get up there?”

“Never mind now. What we want to know is how to get down.”

But with Bhallu Khan and one of his forest guard were two or three sturdy Baluchis, who had joined the party—all wiry mountaineers—and by dint of making a kind of human pyramid against the rock wall, the pair were landed safely beneath.

Then many were the questions and answers and ejaculations, as the full peril of the situation became apparent. Those who had undergone it had not much to say. Nesta seemed half dazed with exhaustion and recent terror, while Campian declared himself too infernally tired to talk. Fleming however produced a flask, which went far to counteract the cold and wet. The whole party was there. They had got safely through the tangi, when the rain began to come down in torrents, and in an incredibly short space of time the slab-like slopes of the hills had poured down a vast volume into the dry nullah, which drained the valley area. They themselves were through only just in time, but had felt no great anxiety on account of the other two, reckoning them so far behind that the impassability of the tangi would be obvious to them directly they reached it. Of course they would not attempt it. But to find them here, half way through—saved as by a miracle, and then with the loss of two horses—no, they had not reckoned upon that.

All this Upward explained. Then, looking up at their place of refuge:

“I don’t suppose there’s another place in the whole length of the tangi you could have taken refuge in, and how the mischief you ever got to this one is a mystery to me.”

“Well, for the matter of that, so it is to me, Upward,” rejoined Campian. “I’m perfectly certain I couldn’t do it again for a thousand pounds.”

“Why, that’s the place a man was swept off from the year before last. Isn’t it, Bhallu Khan?”

“Ha, Huzoor!” asserted the forester, taking in the burden of their talk.

“Well, you’ve had a narrow escape, old chap—both of you have. I don’t know how you did it, but here you are. We were coming back to look for you, thinking you had got turned round, and might get trying some other way back, and this isn’t an over-safe country for a couple of strangers to get lost in at night. By the way, I can’t make out why you got so far behind. More than once we kept signalling you to come on. It occurred to us you might miss the way. Didn’t you see us?”

“No.”

“None so blind as those who won’t see—ah—ha—ha—ha!” sneered Bracebrydge, tailing off his vacuous laugh in would-be significance. But of this remark Campian took absolutely no notice. It was not the first time Bracebrydge had rendered himself offensive and quarrelsome in the presence of ladies, and the inherent caddishness of this gallant worthy was best recognised by the silence of contempt.

It was late before the party reached camp—later still when they got to bed. All was well that ended well—so far, that is, for Nesta Cheriton’s nervous system had received a shock, which rendered her more or less out of sorts for some time, during which time, however, Bracebrydge and Fleming were recalled to Shâlalai.

Chapter Nine.

After Long Years.

“Let’s get the ponies, and jog over and look up Jermyn. Shall we, Campian?” said Upward, during breakfast a few mornings later.

“I’m on. But—who’s Jermyn when he’s at home?”

“He isn’t at home. He’s out here now,” cut in Lily.

“Smart young party, Lil,” said Campian, with an approving nod. “And who is he when he’s out here now?”

“Why, Jermyn, of course.”

“Thanks. That’s precisely what I wanted to know. Thanks, fair Lilian. Thine information is as terse as it is precise.”

“I should say Colonel Jermyn if I were you, Lily,” expostulated that young person’s mother; whereat Hazel crowed exultantly, and Campian laughed. The latter went on:

“As I was saying, Upward, before we were interrupted, who is Jermyn?”

“Oh, he’s a Punjab cavalry man up here on furlough. He’s had fever bad, and even Shâlalai wasn’t high enough for him, though he doesn’t want to go home, so he rented my forest bungalow for the summer. It’s about eight miles in the Gushki direction. You haven’t been that way yet.”

“So? And what does Jermyn consist of?”

“Eh? Ah, I see. Himself and a niece.”

“What sort of a niece?”

“Hideous,” cut in Hazel.

“Really, I can’t allow that sort of libel to pass, even for a joke,” said Mrs Upward. “She isn’t hideous at all. Some people admire her immensely.”

“Pff!” ejaculated Lily, tip tilting her nose in withering scorn. “Too black.”

“Mr Campian likes them that way,” cackled Hazel. “At least, he used to,” added this imp, with a meaning look across the table at Nesta. “I was only humbugging. She isn’t really hideous. We’ll ride over too, eh, Lil?”

“No, you won’t—not much,” retorted Upward decisively. “You two are a precious deal too fond of running wild as it is, and you can just stay at home for once. Besides, we don’t want you at all. We may take on some chikór on the way, or start after some from Jermyn’s. Shall you be ready in half an hour, Campian?”

The latter replied in the affirmative, and they rose from the table. While they were preparing to start, he observed Nesta standing alone under the trees.

“Well, Nessita, and of what art thou thinking?” he said, coming behind her unnoticed. She started.

“Of nothing. I never think. It’s too much trouble.”

“Phew! Don’t take it so much to heart. They’ll soon be back.”

“What a tease you are,” she retorted petulantly. “I hope they won’t. If you only knew how sick I am of the pair of them.”

“That so? I was going to say you’d have to make shift with me for the next few days, but—There, it’s a sin to tease her. What’s the matter? You’re not looking up to your usual brilliancy of form and colouring, little girl.”

“Oh, I’ve got a most beastly headache. I’m going to try and go to sleep all day, if those two wretched children will let me.”

“Poor little girl! Shall I persuade Upward to let them come with us?”

“No, no. It doesn’t matter. You’d better go now, or you’ll start Mr Upward fussing.”

“And cussing?”

“Yes, that too. I’m going in now. Good-bye.”

“Nesta looks very much below par this morning, Upward,” said Campian, as they rode along.

“Does she? Finds it dull, perhaps, now, without those two jokers. She’s never happy without a lot of them strung around her.”

“So? These blue-eyed, fluffy headed girls usually are that way, I have observed. They are wonderfully taking, but—lacking in depth.”

“Thought at one time she was rather stringing yours on to her collection of scalps, old chap,” said Upward, with a sly chuckle.

“Because we went out chikór shooting together once or twice?” replied Campian tranquilly. “Talk of the devil—there are some chikór.” And the next few minutes were spent in dismounting—a rapid fifty paces through the sparse herbage—a whirr of wings—the triple crack of guns—and a brace and a half of birds retrieved by the attendant forest guard; while the remainder of the covey, having gained the mountain side, was crawling up the rock slopes like spiders on a wall.

“See that hole, Campian?” said Upward, soon after they had resumed their way. “That’s the markhôr cave. There’s always a markhôr there, the people say.”

“Let’s go and see if he’s at home now, except that we’ve only got shot guns,” replied Campian, looking up at the black fissure pointed out, and which cleft the rock face some distance overhead, seeming to start from a grassy ledge. It looked by no means an inaccessible sort of place.

“Bhallu Khan says he wouldn’t be in now,” said Upward, who had been talking in Hindustani to the old Pathân. “He only sleeps there.”

“So? Well, I don’t believe in his markhôr then, Upward. If the brute was so regular in his habits as all that, he’d have been shot long ago.”

“Very likely. But Bhallu Khan says the people are afraid of him. They don’t believe he is a real markhôr, but a spirit that takes the form of one. He is guarding some buried treasure, and it’s unlucky to go near the place.”

“It wouldn’t be unlucky if they found the treasure, by Jove! What does it consist of?”

Upward spoke again to the old forester, whose answer, translated to Campian, caused the latter fairly to start in his saddle, his scepticism dispersed.

“He says it is supposed to be old sword hilts and things, encrusted with the most priceless jewels. Hallo! You seem to believe in it, old chap?”

“Not I. Only it reminded me of something else. But I suppose they have a yarn of the kind attached to pretty nearly every hole and corner of the land, eh?”

“Yes. I have heard of others; but, curiously enough, now I think of it, this jewelled sword hilt idea doesn’t seem to come into them. It’s generally a case of tons of gold mohurs, and all that sort of thing.”

“I suppose so,” asserted Campian tranquilly. But his tranquillity was all outward, for as they continued their way, his mind was very lively indeed. Was there really something in the legend? Had he struck upon the clue at last—not merely a clue, but the actual spot? How he wished he had learned Hindustani, so as to be able to communicate, at first hand, with those who might be able to furnish other clues. All save the wild Baluchis of the more remote and nomad clans spoke that language, and it was of primary importance to obtain information of this kind at first hand, and unfiltered through a third party.

“Campian’s very chûp to-day,” thought Upward, peering furtively at his companion, who, during the last couple of miles, had hardly spoken, except in monosyllables. “I wonder if the sly old dog is really smashed on Nesta, and is thinking it over—I wonder?”

He would have wondered more could he have read the thoughts of “the sly old dog” aforesaid, for they ran not upon love but upon lucre.

“There’s the bungalow,” said Upward presently, pointing out a white low-roofed dwelling high up on the hillside. “Not a bad little place for a while, but most confoundedly out of the way.”

The path wound around the spurs, ascending more abruptly, mostly in the shade of the junipers, here growing to greater size, and more thickly. Presently they came out upon a small plateau, and the bungalow.

“Hallo, Upward! Glad to see you. Don’t get many visitors up here.”

“How do, colonel? This is Mr Campian—stopping with me. Nearly got shot by some Pathân budmashes, and then drowned by the tangi coming down, on the night he arrived. You may have heard about it.”

“Not a word—not a word. Haven’t seen a soul for weeks. Glad to meet you, Mr Campian. Fine view from here, isn’t there?”

“Splendid,” assented Campian, who had been taking in both the speaker and the view. The former was of the pleasant, genial type of soldier—elderly, grizzled, upright, well-groomed. The latter—well, it was fine—uncommonly so. From its eyrie-like position, the bungalow commanded a vast sweep of mountain and valley. Embedded against a background of juniper slope the front of the plateau looked out upon a scene, the leading idea conveyed by which was that of altitude and vastness. Opposite, a line of great mountains shot up in craggy heads to the sky; their slopes alternating in slab-like cliffs and gloomy chasms running up into lateral valleys. Juniper forest, more or less sparse, straggled along the base; and but for the aridity of the all prevailing stone and the scattered vegetation, the view would have been lovely. As it stood, it was only immense. Circling kites, uttering their plaintive whistle, floated in clouds against the blue of the sky, or, gracefully steering themselves with their long forked tails, soared out over the valley.

“Fine air, too,” went on Colonel Jermyn. “After the awful heat of some of those plains stations you can appreciate it, I can tell you. But I daresay, you got a taste of that on your way up?”

“Rather. Coming through Sindh, for instance, if you leaned back suddenly in the train against the back of the seat, it was like leaning against a lot of fizzling Vesuvian heads.”

“Ah, prickly heat. We know what that is down below—don’t we, Upward?”

But the reply was lost in the soft rustle of draperies, and a softer voice:

“How do you do, Mr Upward?” As the three rose, it needed not the formal introduction. The colonel’s words seemed to sound from far away in Campian’s ears. “My niece—Miss Wymer.”

The first utterance had been enough for Campian. There was no other such voice in the world. And as he stood there, exchanging the formal hand-clasp of ordinary every-day greeting with Vivien Wymer, small wonder that his self-possession should be shaken to the core. For, five years earlier, these two had parted—in anger and bitterness on the side of one, a whole world of heart-consuming love on that of both. They had parted, agreeing to be strangers thenceforward, and had been so, nor had they set eyes on each other since. Now, by the merest of chances, and totally unprepared, they met again amid the craggy mountain ranges of wild Baluchistan.

“We were talking about the prickly heat, Vivien,” went on the colonel. “Mr Campian says it was like leaning against burning match-heads coming up in the train—ha, ha! You look a trifle below par even now,” turning to Campian. “Won’t you have a ‘peg’? Upward, excuse me—what a forgetful ass I am. So seldom I see anyone up here I’m forgetting my manners. After your long, hot ride, too!”

“Not feeling fit to-day. A new climate sometimes does knock me out at first,” replied Campian mendaciously, he being both by constitution and practice as hard as nails. He was savage with himself for losing his self-possession, even for a moment. “No lack of that article on the other side, anyway,” he thought bitterly.

Outwardly there was not. Vivien Wymer’s manner in greeting him had been so perfectly free and unconcerned that not one in ten thousand would have dreamed she had ever set eyes on him before. Nor, as she sat there talking to Upward, could the keenest ear have detected a trace of flurry in her soft-voiced, flowing tones; and what ear could be keener than that of the man who sat there, straining to catch every word—every tone—while endeavouring to avoid replying at random to the conversation of his host.

“That’ll pick you up,” said the latter, as the bearer appeared with a tray containing very tall tumblers and a bottle and syphons. “Nothing like a ‘peg’ after a hot ride. We can’t get ice up here, but I always have the stuff kept in a cooler. Mix for yourself.”

“You must come down to our camp for a day or two, Miss Wymer,” Upward was saying. “You’ll come, too, won’t you, colonel? There are still some birds left. It’s rotten shooting, but all there is here.”

Thereupon the conversation turned on shikar in general, and tiger in particular, and Campian felt relieved, for now he could drop out of it. Five years ago it was that he and Vivien had parted—yes, exactly five years—and now, as he sat watching her, it seemed as though but five days had passed over her, for all the change they had brought—outwardly, at any rate. All was the same—the poise of the head—even the arrangement of the rippling waves of soft dark hair had undergone but slight alteration; the quick lifting of the eyelids, the glance, straight and full, of the heavily fringed eyes. Yet, if taken feature by feature, Vivien Wymer could not have been summed up as beautiful. Was it a certain grace of movement inseparable from a perfect symmetry of form—an irresistible, sensuous attractiveness side by side with a rare refinement—that would have set her on the highest pinnacle, while other women, beautiful as a dream, would have been passed by unnoticed? He could not say. He only knew that she had appealed to him as no other woman had ever done before or since; that the possession of her would fill every physical and mental want—we desire to emphasise the latter phase, in that it was a question of no wild whirlwind of infatuated passion. She had drawn out in him—as regarded herself, at any rate—all that was best; had even been the means of implanting within him qualities wholly beneficial, and which he would have repudiated all capacity for entertaining. In her he had recognised his destined counterpart. He might live a thousand years and never again meet with such. He was no longer young. He had known varied and eventful experiences, including a sinister matrimonial one, mercifully for himself, comparatively short. But Vivien Wymer had been the one love of his life, and the same held good of him as regarded herself, yet they met again now as strangers. One thing he decided. They were to keep up the rôle. Since she wished it—and evidently she did wish it—he would offer no enlightenment.

“Is your friend keen on sport, Upward?” the colonel was saying. “You ought to take him to try for a markhôr.”

“Don’t know that I care much for sport in that form,” cut in Campian. “It represents endless bother and clambering; all for the sake of one shot, and that as likely as not a miss. The knowledge that it is going to be your one and only chance is bound to make you shoot nervous. Now, I like letting off the gun a great deal, not once only.”

“Yes, it means a lot of hard work. Well, you’ve come to the wrong country for sport.”

“By the way, colonel,” said Upward, “my head forester points out a cave on the way here, where they say there’s always a markhôr. It doesn’t seem difficult to get at I don’t believe in it myself, because there’s a legend attached.” And thereupon he went into the whole story.

Vivien was listening with deepening interest.

“I should like to see that place,” she said. “Anything to do with the legends of the people and country is always interesting. Could we not arrange to go and explore it? You say it is easy to get at?”

“I think so,” answered Upward. “We might make a picnic of it. Two fellows from Shâlalai who joined camp with me are coming back to-morrow or the next day, and we might all go together. What do you say, colonel?”

“Oh, I don’t mind. Getting rather old for clambering, though. Come along in to tiffin; that’s the second gong.”

Throughout that repast, Vivien addressed most of her conversation to Upward. Campian, however, who had pulled himself together effectually by now, was observing her keenly. When she did have occasion to answer some remark of his, it was as though she were talking to a perfect stranger, beheld that morning for the first time. Very good. If that were the line she desired to keep to, not in him was it to encroach upon it. He had his share of pride, likewise of vindictiveness, and some of the aggrieved bitterness of their parting was upon him now. But he remembered also that the ornamental sex are consummate actors, and felt savage with himself for having let down his own guard. And this impassiveness he kept up throughout the ordeal of again saying good-bye.

“Well, and what did you think of Colonel Jermyn, Mr Campian?” queried Mrs Upward, when they were seated at dinner that evening. The two men had returned late, having fallen in with more chikór on the way, and she had had no opportunity of catechising him before.

“He seems a pleasant sort of man,” returned Campian. “There was some scheme of cutting them into a kind of exploration picnic, wasn’t there, Upward?” he went on, with the idea of diverting an inevitable cross-examination.

“Them! You saw the niece, then?” rapped out Hazel. “What did you think of her?”

“Think? Why, that you are a shocking little libellist, Hazel, remembering your pronouncement.”

“It wasn’t me who said she was too black; it was Lily.”

“He’s mashed too,” crowed that young person, grinning from ear to ear.

“Why ‘too,’ Lilian? Is the name of those in that hapless plight legion?”

“Rather. You haven’t a ghost of a show. Down at Baghnagar she had three regiments at her feet. But she wouldn’t have anything to say to any of them.”

“That looks as if one had a ghost of a show, Lil,” replied Campian, serenely bantering. In reality, he had two objects to serve—one to cover the situation from all eyes, the other, haply to extract from the chatter of this hapless child anything that might throw light on Vivien’s life since they parted.

“Pff! not you,” came the reply, short and sharp. “There was one—once. She chucked him. No show for anybody now.”

“What a little scandalmonger it is,” said Campian, going off into a shout of laughter. He had to do it, if only to relieve his feelings. The information thus tersely rapped out by Lily, and which drew down upon the head of that young person a mild maternal rebuke for slanginess, had sent his mind up at the rebound. “Where did she get hold of that for a yarn, Mrs Upward?”

“Goodness knows. Things leak out. Even children like that get hold of them in this country;” whereupon Lily sniffed scornfully, and Hazel fired off a derisive cackle. “Do you think her good looking, Mr Campian?”

“Decidedly; and thoroughbred at every point.” The humour of the situation came home to the speaker. Here he was, called upon to give a verdict offhand as to the one woman who for years had filled all his thoughts, who still—before that day to wit—had occupied a large portion of them, and he did so as serenely and unconcernedly as though he had never beheld her before that day. “Why did she chuck—the other fellow?” he went on, moved by an irresistible impulse to keep them to the subject.

“He turned out a rip, I believe,” struck in Upward. “Lifted his elbows too much, most likely. A lot of fellows out here do.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, Ernest,” said his wife. “You really shouldn’t spread such stories. It was for nothing of the sort, but for family reasons, I believe; and the man was all right. And it wasn’t out here either.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know anything about it, and I’ll be hanged if I care,” laughed Upward. “I asked them to come down here for a few days soon, and they said they would. Then you can get it out of her yourself.”

Chapter Ten.

The Markhôr Cave.

“There is a large section of our fellow subjects that votes Alpine climbing the most incomprehensible form of lunacy known to science, on the ground that to spend half one’s life, and putting the whole of it in pawn, scrambling up rocks and ice and snow, for the sake of getting to the top of some pinnacle which a hundred people have already got to, and thousands more eventually will, is to place one’s self beyond the pale of ordinary intelligence. But I wonder what such would say of a being of mature age, and laying claim to the possession of ordinary intelligence, who skips up in the middle of the night, and under the guidance of an Asiatic whom he can’t understand, and who can’t understand him, spends several hours crawling over boulders and along blood curdling precipices, on the off-chance of one shot—and the certainty of a miss—at an infernal wild goat, which is of no earthly use to you when you get him, except to stick up his head and brag about it ever after. The Alp-climber would have to cede to him the proud distinction of prize imbecile, I guess.”

Thus mused Campian, as, following in the wake of Bhallu Khan, he wormed himself warily around an elbow of rock, between which and space, was a foothold just twenty inches as to width, and precarious as to stability, he bearing in mind the while two considerations—firstly, the desirability of refraining from dislodging so much as a pebble; secondly, the necessity of refraining from dislodging himself. The first grey of early dawn was just breaking upon the mountain world, and here he was spread-eagled against a cliff of dizzy height and well nigh perpendicular formation: raked by a piercing wind, and wondering whether he should eventually get off it by the ordinary tedious process of slow and sure progression or by the rapid one of a false step—leading to pulverisation. As to one consideration, however, he laboured under no ambiguity of mind. Nothing on earth should induce him to return by the way he had come, even if it must needs take a week to go round by some safer way.

In due course however, the situation improved. The rock face grew less perpendicular, the path wider, and finally they found themselves in a steep gully. Here the old Pathân, pointing upward began signalling vehemently, the gist of which Campian took to be that he must proceed more noiselessly than ever, and that the ridge above being gained, they would find markhôr.

A clamber of a hundred feet—one pebble dislodged with a clatter, bringing his heart to his mouth, and a reproachful glance from Bhallu Khan—and they were cowering behind the top of the ridge. Campian wanted a few moments to steady himself after their long, hard climb. He could not shoot straight in a state of breathlessness, he declared.

It was quite light up here now, but the sun had not risen above the eastern mountain-tops. As they peered over the ridge, the valley beneath still lay in the grey half-dawn. But between it and their point of vantage, on the rock-strewn slopes beneath, something was moving, and it needed not the touch on the arm from the old Pathân and the barely articulated whisper to set Campian’s nerves tingling. He had already taken the rifle from the forester so as to be in readiness.

“Markhôr,” he whispered.

Bhallu Khan nodded. A solitary ram, with fine horns, was browsing unconcernedly. There was no getting any nearer. Campian set the sight at four hundred yards. Then resting the rifle upon the rock in front of him, he took a steady aim and drew trigger.

The roar of the piece among the echoing stillness of the craggy solitudes was like a peal of thunder. The markhôr gave one wild bound into the air, and a thrill of exultation went through the shooter. But the disappointed headshake of Bhallu Khan would promptly have undeceived him, even had not the quarry taken to its heels and gone bounding down the slope at a flying gallop. He let go a couple more shots from the magazine, but wider than the first. Then he threw up the rifle in mingled disgust and resignation, the markhôr now being a mere bounding and very badly frightened speck.

“No good!” he exclaimed. “Can’t do anything with certainty over two hundred yards, and that brute was nearer five than four. Well, I didn’t expect to, so am not disappointed, and it doesn’t really matter a little damn.”

The only word of this reflection understood by Bhallu Khan being the last, he smiled, and proceeded to expatiate in Hindustani, profusely illustrating his harangue with signs. But of this, for his part, Campian understood not even the last word.

He cared the less for his failure to bring down the game in that this had not been his primary object. The pretext of sport had been a pretext only. He wanted to explore the markhôr cave, and that quietly and by himself, wherefore, when a couple of days after their visit to Jermyn he had suggested to Upward a markhôr stalk, the latter, remembering his expressed views on the subject of hard toil inadequately rewarded, had evinced considerable surprise, but excused himself from joining on that very ground, which was exactly what Campian had expected.

Now they were no great distance above that cave, and he soon signalled Bhallu Khan his desire to proceed thither. Somewhat to his surprise, remembering the superstition attached, the old Pathân cheerfully acquiesced, and a downhill climb of about three quarters of an hour brought them to a position commanding its entrance. Signing him to remain there and watch, the forester crawled round to the rock above the gaping black fissure, where by dint of making a considerable noise, and rattling down showers of stones, he hoped to drive forth its inmate. But there came forth nothing.

“This markhôr is a fraud, anyway,” said Campian to himself. And he signalled Bhallu Khan to return just as that estimable Asiatic had himself arrived at the conclusion that there was no point in making further efforts to scare out of a hole something which was not within it. Then they sat on the rock together and conversed, as best they could by signs, while Campian breakfasted on some sandwiches and the contents of a business-like flask.

The sun had risen now, and was reddening the great craggy pinnacles on high with the new glow of day. Later on these would bear an arid and depressing aspect, but now they seemed to soar up proudly to the deepening blue. Meditatively Campian watched the line of light as it dropped lower and lower, soon to flood the valley with its fierce heatwave. Now it had reached the kotal, now it was just touching the junipers which embedded the forest bungalow. He could not see the latter from his present position, it being shut off by a rounded spur; but the immediate surroundings of it drew his glance. Not that they reminded him—oh, no! He had needed no mere reminder since that chance meeting three days ago. Bother thinking! Thinking was worse than useless. Springing to his feet, he signed Bhallu Khan that he wanted to explore the cave.

The fissure was easily approached, opening as it did on to a grass ledge. Campian produced a couple of candles, thereby betraying premeditation in this quest, and, lighting one, gave the other to the old Pathân. Then they advanced into the darkness.

The fissure ran at a slant for about ten yards, then it widened out, with a tolerably level floor, to an irregularly shaped rock chamber, seeming to extend about thirty yards back. The light was flickering and uncertain, and Campian, who was a little in front, felt his arm suddenly and violently seized, and a voice vociferated in his ear. For a brief fraction of a second the idea of treachery flashed through his mind; then he recognised in Bhallu Khan’s tone the vehemence not of menace but of warning.

He had been about to step on a broad, black stripe which lay across the floor of the cavern. Now he halted, his foot already raised. He lowered his candle. The broad, black stripe was a fissure—a crevasse. Of no great width was it—at that point only just wide enough to admit his own body—still it was wide enough. But what of its depth?

Motioning him to stand still, the forester picked up a handful of loose stones, and dropped them in one by one. Both listened. The stones took some time to strike anything, and then it was very far down. There was yet a further and fainter concussion. Bhallu Khan smiled significantly, and shook his head. Campian whistled. Both looked at each other. Then they examined the crevasse again. No current of air arose, which argued no outlet. But the thing was of ghastly depth.

“Your markhôr is a fraud, Bhallu Khan,” said Campian, as they inspected the floor of the cave, and emphasising the statement by signs. “There is no trace of such a thing ever having been into it.”

The other smiled again, and nodded assent. But just then a sound outside made them start and look at each other. It was that of a human voice. Bhallu Khan blew out his light, and Campian followed his example. Thus for a moment they waited.

Footsteps were advancing into the cave. Then the striking of a match. They made out the figure of a man approaching—a native—bearing a lighted candle, which he shaded with his hand. Behind him came another figure, which they could not make out.

“Salaam, brother,” said Bhallu Khan in Hindustani, at the same time lighting his own candle.

The effect on the newcomer was disturbing. He gave a violent start, dropping the candle, which went out. But by their own light Campian could see a business-like revolver pointed straight at him, while a full, clear, feminine voice cried out in purest English:

“Don’t move, or I fire!”

It was his turn to start now. That voice! There was no other like it in the world. He replied calmly:

“Yes. Pull off. You may as well. It won’t really matter much.”

“Oh!” Just a little cry escaped Vivien Wymer. She lowered the weapon, then laughed, and there was a note in her laugh which, in one less self possessed, less self reliant, might almost have been taken for hysterical. “Who would have thought of finding you—anyone—here?” she went on. “But I believe I was the more startled of the two.”

“Yes, I am sure you were,” he replied, advancing now into the light. “We haven’t said ‘How d’you do?’ yet, and it’s as well to keep up the conventionalities.”

She put forth her hand to meet his, and again they clasped hands. Again they had met under strange and unlooked for circumstances—here, in the semi-gloom of the mountain cave.

“I was so interested in hearing about this place,” she said. “Mr Upward’s account of it seemed to hold my imagination, and I felt moved to explore it for myself. I did not feel inclined to wait for a scheme that might never come off. Besides, the associations of mystery and a touch of eeriness would have no effect in the midst of an every day, sceptical crowd.”

“Great minds jump together! That was precisely my own idea. But who is with you? Surely you are not alone, with only one servant, and not a very reliable one at that, judging from his behaviour just now. It is hardly safe, is it?”

“Yes, it is. All these northern border tribes are of the best type of Mohammedan, and respect women. No, I am not afraid.”

“You did not seem so just now, at any rate. But it is not only of that sort of danger I was thinking. A gloomy hole like this might conceal all kinds of hidden peril. It might be the den of a panther, or a wolf, or even a snake. For instance, look at this. Keep behind me, though.”

He led the way—it was only a few steps—to the scene of his own narrow escape. There yawned the cleft, black and hideous.

“Keep back,” he said, extending an arm instinctively, as though to bar a nearer advance, and in doing so his hand accidentally closed upon hers. He did not let it remain there, but it seemed as though a magnetic touch were conveyed from frame to frame, and there came a softness into his tone which accorded well with the protecting, shielding attitude.

“Is it very deep?” asked Vivien, holding her candle over the brim, and peering down into the blackness.

“Well, judging by the sound, it takes a stone a good while to get to the bottom. I should have been there myself long before this but for Bhallu Khan here. In fact, I was placidly walking into it when he laid violent hands on me.”

“Really? How horrible! Let’s leave it now, and go outside. The idea of such a thing oppresses one in here.”

She turned away. Her voice was unshaken. Beyond just a faint quickening in her tone, she might have been listening to some mere abstract risk run by somebody she had never seen or heard of before, and Campian could not see her face.

“Just take one more look around before you go outside,” he said. “The idea of those hidden valuables being here won’t wash. Both floor and walls are of solid rock. There is no possibility of burying anything.”

“Hardly, I should think,” she answered, after a few moments’ critical survey of the interior. “But, this is not an artificial cavern, surely?”

“No. I have seen others rather like it, though none quite of its size. But if you follow out the formation of the place, it is all on the same slant. The crevasse, to be sure, is at something of a different angle, but that is nothing to go by here, where the whole side of a mountain is seamed and criss-crossed with the most irregular network of fissures.”

“What if the things are at the bottom of that cleft?” said Vivien.

At the bottom of it! This was a new idea. Was it a new light? But he replied:

“Then they will remain there till the crack of doom. The hole is of immense depth—Bhallu Khan and I sounded it from every point—and is sure to contain noxious gas at a certain distance below the surface. Do you mind if I ask you a favour?—oh nothing very great!” seeing her start. “It is not to talk about this, or speculate before others as to the possibility of such a thing existing.”

“Why, of course, if you wish it! But—do you believe in it, then?”

“Perhaps partly. But it may be that I have something to go upon. When I have more I will tell you more—but—I am forgetting—how on earth can it interest you?”

“But it will interest me very much—and—” “you know it,” she was going to add, but substituted: “life is prosaic enough for a romantic search of this sort to add new interest to it. How is it I did not know you were here?”

“Here—on this spot, or in this country?”

“On this spot, I mean. The other is easily understood. We have been living out of the way so long, and I see so few people. And you have only recently arrived?”

“Yes. As to being in here, I had no pony to leave outside. I have been climbing the mountains after markhôr, hence a tolerably disreputable old Khaki suit, and a battered and general air of not having been to bed all night.”

“Did you have any success?”

“No. I got in one shot, but missed it of course, just as I was saying when up at your place the other day. However, what I really wanted to do was to come in quietly here and explore.”

“So did I. Where is my syce, I wonder? There is my pony,” looking around, for they had regained the entrance of the cave. “Ah! I see him. He is at his prayers. Your man has joined him.”

“Yes. Old Bhallu Khan is a whale at piety. I should think he stood a first-class chance of the seventh heaven.”

“These people are very devout,” said Vivien, looking towards the two Mohammedans, who, with their shoes off, and their chuddas spread on the ground as praying carpets, were prostrating their foreheads to the earth, and otherwise following out the prescribed formula—facing towards the holy city. “I sometimes wonder if it is all on the surface.”

“I don’t know why it should be. We make a good deal of show, too, though in a different way; but I doubt if we are any better than they. In fact, it is more than possible we are actually worse. But John Bull has a fine, hearty, overgrown, schoolboy contempt for anything he can’t understand, and to him the bowings and prostrations enjoined by the Moslem form of worship is sheer nonsense. For my part, I am not sure it is not even too refined for him.”

“Perhaps. I have often thought that to these people we must seem something worse than Pagans. I hardly wonder at their fanatical hatred of us.”

“Neither do I, the more so that our attitude towards them is for the most part well exemplified in the remark made to me by a fine wooden specimen of John Bull the other day coming down the Red Sea. Two or three of these travelling traders had got up on the forecastle, and were praying towards Mecca. ‘Ever see such humbug in your life?’ says this chump. I said I had, and far greater humbug; in fact, couldn’t see any humbug in the present performance at all. Oh, but it was all on the surface! How did he know that? I asked him. Oh, because they would lie and cheat and so forth. But so would nine-tenths of the English commercially engaged, I answered. Whereat he snorted, and moved off. He thought I was a fool. I knew he was one.”

“Very much so,” assented Vivien. “I detest that wooden-headedness which no amount of moving about the world will ever teach to think. And now that those two good people are through with their devotions, it is time I got home again. Oh, Meran Buksh, ghora lao!”

The syce sprang to execute this order, and in a minute Vivien’s pony was before her, ready to mount.

“Why this is the first time you have ever put me on a horse,” she said, as Campian seemed to be arranging her skirt with minute care, “and how well you did it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “There. I hope you will not have too hot a ride home. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye. You will be coming up to see us again soon, I suppose, or we shall be going to see Mrs Upward. You are going to make some stay, are you not?”

He replied in the affirmative, and, looking at her as she sat there with easy grace, he felt that never had his self-possession been in greater peril. Cool and fresh and sweet in her light blouse and riding-skirt—her glance full and serene meeting his—the flush of health mantling beneath the soft skin, she was a picture in her dark, brilliant attractiveness, framed against the background of savage rocks and ragged junipers.

“Good-bye,” was all he said.

A pressure of the hand, and she turned her pony and rode away at a walk, the syce following.

Campian watched her out of sight. Then he did a curious thing—at any rate for a man of mature age and judgment. He returned to the cave and picked up a small rough stone, quite an ordinary stone it was, but while they had stood talking Vivien had been rolling this stone absently to and fro beneath the sole of her boot. Now he picked it up, and, glancing at it for a moment, put it in his pocket. But he seemed to change his mind, for, pulling it forth again, he hurled it away far over the rocks.

Then he started out in the direction of Upward’s camp, old Bhallu Khan, carrying the rifle, following close at his heels.

Chapter Eleven.

Introspect.

“You’re late, child. Had a long ride?” said Colonel Jermyn, who was already at breakfast when Vivien entered.

“Not very. The mountain paths here are so rough, you have to keep almost entirely to a walk. And I met Mr Campian, so we stopped and chatted a little.”

“Did you? Where?”

“Somewhere on the side of the mountain. I don’t know the localities here yet,” replied Vivien, with perfect ease. She had been about to say, “at the markhôr cave,” but remembering Campian’s hint, refrained. “He had been out after markhôr, with that nice-looking old forester of Mr Upward’s, and was on his way back.”

“Did he get any shots?”

“One, and missed it. He was quite unconcerned about it though, and didn’t go out of his way to invent half a hundred excuses for having missed it.”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the colonel. “So many of these young fellows—and old ones too—are always full of reasons of that kind. A stone slipped from under their foot, or the shikari sneezed, or something. There is something I rather like about that man. Who is he? Do you know anything about him?”

This was shooting the bolt home with a vengeance. But Vivien’s self-possession was equal to the strain.

“Isn’t there a family of that name in Brackenshire?” she asked carelessly.

“I believe there is. Yes, very likely. I thought we might ask him to come and stay a week or so when he has done with the Upwards, or even before. What do you think about it, Vivien?”

“Wouldn’t he find it desperately slow here, Uncle Edward?” she said, as serenely as before.

“Perhaps; I don’t know. If he did, he could always take himself off again. And now, if you’ll excuse me, dear, I’ll do likewise, for that confounded Levy sowar will be here directly for the dâk, and I’ve got a whole pile of letters to write. It’s mail day, too.”

Left to herself, Vivien moved about the room arranging here, dusting a little there. No flowers were obtainable in this arid region of rocks, save a few wild ones, but even of these she had made the best; and what with little touches of feminine tastefulness in the arrangement of the rooms, the old forest bungalow, rough and racketty, and hardly better than a mere rest-house, stood quite transformed. Then, passing into her own room, she shut the door, and sat down to think.

Far away from wild, craggy Baluchistan her thoughts went back. A chance call, a chance introduction in a room full of people. A few minutes of ordinary conversation as between strangers who met for the first time, and—she had learned the mystery of life when life is young—though not always then—had gazed within the golden gates of love; had trodden the flower-springing sod of that radiant and mystic realm; and not only that, but she had known, with a wondrous magnetic instinct, that in the same moment of time another had learned that mystery too. Then she had begun to live; then she had begun to realise what life could contain.

Other scenes rose before her as she sat here thinking—a vision of the Park corner, in all the joyous glow and brilliancy of the London season at its height—with one ever at her side—one who there in the midst of all the varied types of beauty, and style and attractiveness of the kingdom collected together, never—as she used to tell him half playfully, but all proudly—never had eyes for any but herself. Ah, it was something to be loved like that; and yet this was not the perfervid enthusiasm, the red-hot glow of youthful adoration, but the love of one considerably past that illusive stage; whose experiences had been multifold, and frequently bitter. Again, she saw the green glories of the Cliveden woods, mirrored in the broad placid surface, as she and one other floated down that loveliest of lovely reaches in the fire-path of the westering sunlight, alone together, the murmur of their voices and the dipped wing of the hovering swallow blending with the lazy splash of the sculls. Again, in the opera box, while the most splendid staging perhaps that “Faust” had ever been put on with, held the entranced and densely packed multitude in the lowered light, she dwelt in a paradise all her own, for had she not the presence, even the contact of that one? Many and many a scene came before her now. Ah, that year! It had been indeed a year of love. And in every such scene, in every such recollection he had been ever the same. Never a moment of time that he could spare but had been spent with her—indeed not a few also that he could not—and throughout it all how perfectly free and happy together, how thoroughly at home with each other they had been.

Why, then, had such a state of things been allowed to come to a close? Heavens! It is a rare—well nigh unique—one, in all conscience. Had he deceived her—disappointed her? Not any. But there had come stalking along that goggle-eyed, sheet-and-turnip bogey hight Duty—that Juggernaut which has crushed far more lives than it has ever fortified, and now, in her retrospect, Vivien Wymer realised, not for the first time, and no less bitterly, that this is just what it had done for hers. For at the period to which her thoughts went back, she owned a mother—and a selfish one, as mothers now and again are, all cant to the contrary notwithstanding—and this devoted parent could not do without her daughter, although she had another. Here was the jagged rock beneath the surface of their unruffled sea, and upon it their freight of happiness had been wrecked and cast away.

At the time Vivien had thought herself passing strong, and the consciousness of this had done much to buoy her up amid such an experience of agony and heartbreak that even now she hardly cares to look back to. That had been five years ago. She was young then, and now that she is nearer thirty than twenty she is able to realise that she acted insanely; is able to realise that the love which that one had lavished upon her was worth more than that of all the kindred in the world ten times over, let alone such a consideration as an imaginary duty towards a thoroughly selfish and exacting woman, merely because the latter happened to be her nearest relation. She has come to realise the absolute truth of his words, and the realisation brings with it no solace, for, like most other experiences worth gaining, it has come too late. Her mother has been dead for three years past, and her younger sister, now married, is not eager to see too much of her; and to Duty, as represented by these, Vivien has sacrificed her life.

But he—will he not relent and return? Can he live without her? Well, five years have passed since they parted, and he has kept to their agreement. She knows his nature—unswerving, vindictive—indeed the very contrast afforded between this and the completeness of his love for herself had not a little to do with drawing her to him. His words during that awful parting had been few, and their raging bitterness to some degree suppressed, and that he should come second to anything or anybody, was what he never could and never would forgive.

Would he relent? Never. She went back to their chance meeting in the markhôr cave but a few hours ago, recalled every word of their conversation. The very tone of his voice had never swerved. Her ear, quick to detect any change, had detected none—not even by the smallest inflection. His manner had been kind, friendly, full of a certain modicum of regard—but that was all. Had he not often told her that a lost illusion was gone for ever? Never could it be set up again. His love was dead, and she had killed it.

But—was it? Surely not. It was only sleeping, deeply perhaps, but would re-awaken. She would re-awaken it. It was impossible that such a love as theirs had been could die in either of them as long as life should last. Then a blank misgiving seized her. They had not met for five years. Then she was twenty-three. What changes had the intervening period effected in her?

She gazed into her mirror long and steadily. Yes, she was growing old—old and plain, decidedly, she told herself with an aching bitterness of heart. The soft sprightliness of five years earlier was no longer in her face. It had gone. Alone with herself she need not dissimulate. In those days the bright and sunny spirits of rejoicing youth had radiated from her eyes; now, though her eyes were as lustrous and brilliant as ever, their glance was a tired one, reflecting but the sadness of a lonely and disappointed woman. Undoubtedly the change had struck him, and with startling force. No; his love would never re-awaken now. Why should it? In the day of her power she had let it go; now her power had departed.

Then another thought came to her. That blue-eyed girl staying with the Upwards—she was wondrously pretty. Vivien had seen her once in Shâlalai. The two would be thrown together day after day, and all day long—had been so thrown together. They had even shared a common peril. And she had youth on her side. What sort of tone would his voice have taken while talking to her, Vivien wondered, again recalling the perfect composure of his conversation but an hour or two ago in the cave. No reference—not even a veiled one—to the past; no remark upon the unexpectedness of their first meeting. True, he had seemed a trifle disconcerted on the occasion of that meeting; but that was only natural—and momentary. Yes, Nesta Cheriton was wonderfully pretty and taking. Thus she tortured herself.

But while she could do that alone and with her own thoughts, Vivien would rather have died than have allowed any glimmering of their gist to be so much as suspected by any living soul, let alone the object of them. She forgot to wonder at her own self-possession on the occasion of that first meeting; and indeed on that of the subsequent one. It had proved even more complete than his own, and she forgot to speculate as to whether he might not be taking his cue from her and playing up to her lead. That is the worst of introspection of the vehement kind, it is absolutely blinding as regards the attitude towards the object which inspires it.

Then, by a curious twist in her meditations, pride sprang into arms. If one man could so completely dismiss her from his heart and memory, there were others who could not. She unlocked a drawer of her writing-table and took out a letter. Spreading it open before her, she glanced through it. It was from one who was the owner of a fine old country place and a good many thousands a year, and contained a passionate appeal to her to reconsider her former refusals. This letter she had intended to answer last week. But now?

She read it through again. Why should she continue to throw away life, grieving over what was past and done with; what was inevitable; what was dead and buried? It was more sensible to take life as it is, and make the best of things. She would accept the man. There was no reason why she should not, and every reason why she should.

She drew a sheet of paper to her, but before she had got further than the address, a new thought struck her. What if she had so replied by last mail—that is to say, the day before this other had been so unexpectedly thrown back into her life? Nay, worse. What if she had so replied to a like appeal from the same quarter nearly a year ago? That decided her. She wrote her reply—and it was in the negative, very unequivocally so—stamped and directed it, and threw it aside.

Then she did a strange—and in view of her former meditations—an utterly inconsequent thing. She took another sheet of paper and wrote:

“We were to be strangers to each other. Had we not better remain so? You will understand my meaning fully within the next few days. Of course I have no right to try and influence your movements, so must leave it to your own judgment to order them in what seems to me the only rational and sensible way.

“Vivien.”

This she put into an envelope, which she sealed, but did not stamp. Then she directed it to “Howard Campian, Esquire, Chirria Bach.”

No; she could not bear it. To be under the same roof with him for days, possibly weeks at a time, and keep up the rôle of strangers to each other, would be too great a strain. Now, when he should receive her uncle’s invitation he would know what to do. On the face of such an intimation there was but one course open to him. A rap came at the door, and her uncle’s voice:

“Got any letters to send, Viv? The Levy sowar is here.”

“Only one,” she answered, opening the door, and handing him the one bearing the English address. “The other I want to go in the opposite direction. The man can take it this evening when he passes here with the Upwards’ dâk.”

“All right.” And in a moment more the clatter of the horse’s hoofs died away down the path, and the swarthy Baluchi, in his Khaki uniform, jogged indifferently upon his way, as though he were not the bearer of that which by a turn or freak of thought had just escaped being an agency for entailing solemn consequences upon one or more lives.

“By George! this hill air seems to suit you, child,” cried the jolly colonel, gazing upon his niece with undisguised admiration. “I can’t make out what all these young fellows—young fools, I call them—are about. Eh?”

“Have I not got a dear old uncle, who talks shocking nonsense on privileged occasions?” returned Vivien, slipping her hand within his arm. “Why, I am getting as old as the hills, and am ‘going off’ perceptibly every hour. Do I not own a looking-glass?”

“A looking-glass? Pooh! it’s a lying one then. We’ll pitch it over the khud, and send Der’ Ali down to the bazaar for one that is more truthful. But, then—I am forgetting. This isn’t Baghnagar, and there’s no bazaar.”

“No, there isn’t, and a good thing too, if it is going to conduce to such scandalous waste,” retorted Vivien brightly.

“I believe it’s not fair, eh? It seems hard lines on you, child, shutting you up here, with no one to talk to but a prosy old fellow like me, eh?”

“Now, Uncle Edward, it is you who will have to go over that khud instead of my poor, unoffending, candid looking-glass, if you persist in talking such a prodigious quantity of nonsense.”

That evening the Levy sowar arrived in due course, with Colonel Jermyn’s post, and clattered off, bearing that of Upward. But the letter addressed to Howard Campian, at Chirria Bach, still lay upon Vivien’s writing-table.

Chapter Twelve.

Umar Khan—Freebooter.

Umar Khan was a Baluchi who bore a very bad record indeed.

One of his earlier exploits, in fact, that which was destined to start him in his career of budmâshi, and ultimately, in all probability, land him on the scaffold and faggot pyre (Note 1), had taken place many years before the events narrated in our story. He had been summoned before the Political Agent to answer for complicity—real or alleged—in the raiding upon and blackmailing of certain wandering herdsmen, belonging to a weaker clan. The British official found him guilty, and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment, a terrible punishment to the free, wild man of the deserts and mountains.

The manner in which this one received the penalty to which he was doomed was characteristic. His eyes blazed, and, his features working with demoniacal fury, he spat forth a volume of curses and threats.

“What does he say?” inquired the Political Agent.

The interpreter replied that, apart from calling down all the most forcible anathemas known to the Moslem creed upon the heads of those concerned in his then discomfiture, the substance of the prisoner’s declaration was as follows:—The Sirkâr (Ruling power, i.e., Government) was strong, but those who had borne witness against him were not. Let them beware. He would have ten lives for that day’s work. The Sirkâr could not shut him up for ever. It could kill him, but there were plenty left—several, even, who heard him that day—who would accept his legacy of vengeance; and the witnesses against him had better go across the wide sea, if haply they might, for no corner of the land wherein they now dwelt was remote enough to hide them from the vengeance of Umar Khan.

To this manifesto the Political Agent replied in words of weighty warning. As the prisoner had said, the Sirkâr was strong—strong to punish, as he had already discovered. If, on the expiration of his term of imprisonment he continued his evil ways, or made any attempt to fulfil his threat, he would speedily find that there was no corner of the land remote enough to hide him from the vengeance of the Sirkâr, which in that case would be swift, condign, and terrible—in fact the most terrible that could overtake him, viz: death with ignominy.

So Umar Khan duly served his term, and in the fulness of time was released. For a while the authorities kept an eye on him, and all went well. He was in no hurry, this wild, brooding, vindictive mountaineer. He employed his period of enforced quietude in secretly locating every one of those who had borne witness against him, and when the surveillance over his movements had relaxed, he became as good as his word. One night he started for some of the objects of his feud, and, taking them by surprise, killed three. Two more he found in a neighbouring village, and these also felt the weight of his tulwar. But now things grew too lively. With half of his account of vengeance settled, Umar Khan found himself forced to flee, unless he were prepared to forego—and that forever—the other half. So flee he did, both fast and far, hotly pursued by the Political Agent and a strong posse of Levy sowars.