The Dilemma/Chapter XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Kirke's Horse was allowed only a brief respite from the Labours of campaign. It had scarcely settled down in its summer quarters when orders were received to be ready to march on active service with the first break of cold weather; and a few days before the appointed time, its commandant returned from the hills quite set up again by his visit, as active as ever, plunging eagerly into all the business of regimental equipment. In reply to Yorke's inquiries after Mrs. Falkland, he said that she too was in excellent health and spirits. Yorke of course expressed his pleasure at this, hardly knowing whether he was really gratified to hear it he had pictured her as pensive, though resigned, and yearning for sympathy and observed, for want of something better to say, that the events at the residency, and especially the death of her husband so soon after their marriage, must have been a great shock; to which Kirke replied that she had pretty well got over that. "Marriage, you see," he went on to say, "must be a different sort of thing from an ordinary love-affair, when a woman marries a man so much older than herself. It was hardly to be expected that my cousin should be very long getting over the loss of Falkland, poor fellow. By the way, she is never tired of talking about you, and can't say too much in your praise." Notwithstanding the pleasure this remark gave him, something in Kirke's hard way of talking jarred on Yorke's feelings; and yet, he asked himself, what could he wish more than that she should have forgotten her first love? Was not that exactly what he was hoping for? There was little more said between them about Olivia. Kirke was a reserved man on private affairs; and Yorke, not being sure if Olivia had told her cousin that she was in correspondence with him, did not mention it himself.
The regiment now marched southwards, six hundred strong, the vacancies having been more than filled up with picked recruits, equipped now as lancers, with three additional subaltern officers, all promising young fellows eager to distinguish themselves, and the whole body, men and horses, in splendid order. But this campaign, although laborious and fatiguing, was not productive of much in the way of hard fighting. The enemy's spirit was now broken, and the principal duty of the cavalry was to wear them down, to follow up the roving bands which still kept the field from place to place, giving no rest until they should be all cut up or dispersed. This work, which fell mainly to the cavalry, was calculated to try men's power of endurance, as well as the officers intelligence; but only one incident of the campaign shall be here mentioned, as it nearly occasioned at the time a quarrel between Yorke and his commanding officer, and led afterwards to serious consequences.
It was on the evening of a day marked by the surprise of a large body of the enemy, horse and foot, who had been followed up during a forced march persevered in for many days with only brief halts; the enemy had broken up after a slight struggle, and a destructive pursuit had been maintained all the afternoon, the pursuers indulging to the full the passion for taking life inherent in most human hearts, till the general in command, a man who seemed never to know what fatigue was himself, was fain to order a halt, the infantry being far behind, and the horses of the cavalry dead beat. Kirke's Horse were encamped for the night in front of the scattered column on a bare spot of ground interspersed with scanty bushes; and Kirke and Yorke, with one native officer and an orderly, were riding slowly along the front inspecting the pickets, when Kirke's quick eye detected some object behind a bush a little way in advance, and he rode towards it followed by the others. It proved to be a deserted palanquin, apparently, from the elaborate external gilding, belonging to a person of rank. After looking at it for a few moments, they were about to turn their horses heads backwards, when the orderly with the point of his lance suddenly pushed open one of the sliding doors, exposing a veiled figure sitting upright within.
"Holloa! said Kirke, some member of the zenana left behind. Here's a chance for you, Yorke — you might manage to console the lady, I daresay."
"She looks rather a stout party, replied Yorke; probably an ancient of days. What on earth are we to do with this poor old beebee? We cant leave her here to die in the jungle."
"It isnt a beebee at all, sahib," said the native officer, a swaggering young Patân, in his own language, who, catching the word beebee, had guessed the nature of the remark; and stooping down he pulled aside the shawl in which the face of the figure was enveloped, and displayed the features of a stout elderly man. "The shawl will suit me, he continued, whisking it off and placing it in front of his saddle. "And here's another for me," said the orderly, fishing up on the point of his lance the end of another shawl which was round the mans body, and then pulling it off. As he did so, a small box fell out and rolled on the ground, the lid opening at the same time. The contents seemed to be something white.
The orderly dismounted and picked the box up. He lifted the white substance off: it was cotton-wool, below which lay some ornaments set with stones, which glittered even in the twilight.
"Jewels!" said the man, with a grin, holding the box up to his colonel. Kirke took it from him, and held it out so that Yorke could see the contents. There were several layers of cotton, and jewels between each which seemed to be of value.
"Perhaps there are some more things worth having — just see," said Kirke to the man, who thereupon began to pull off the other garments of the occupant of the palanquin. He found a dagger with a jewelled hilt, some money rolled up in muslin round his waist, and a couple of gold drinking-vessels. Kirke told him to keep the money for himself, and to hand the dagger and vessels to the ressaldar; and, so saying, put the case of jewels in his pocket.
The captive meanwhile sat in the palanquin, holding up his joined hands in prayerful supplication, and constantly repealing the formula that Kirke was a protector of the poor and his father and mother.
"What is to be done with the rascal, sir?" said the ressaldar to Kirke, in his own language.
"Oh, we don't want any prisoners, of course," said the colonel, as he turned away and rode off; whereupon the ressaldar made a sign to the trooper, who, poising his lance for an instant as if to take aim, ran the man through the body as he still sat in the palkee with supplicating hands. The poor wretch fell back groaning and raising his arms as he writhed under the wound; but the trooper, drawing out his lance from the body, with a grim smile drove it in again through his chest, and, after a convulsive struggle, the body settled down into the stillness of death.
"That man must have been some one of mark," said Yorke to the colonel, as they rode away: "would it not have been worth while bringing him in as a prisoner?"
"The general would certainly have hung him in the morning; besides, our fellows are too tired to be bothered with guarding prisoners all night."
Well, I can run a pandy through with as much gusto as any man in fair fight, but I am getting sick of this executioners business in cool blood after the battle; it is beastly work."
"It must be done, though," said Kirke; "the rogues have given enough trouble already, without being allowed to get off free, and begin playing the mischief again."
"I suppose it is necessary, but it isn't pleasant, and the looting part of it is not much nicer. I declare I felt little better than a Pindaree robber when we were stripping that poor wretch. Happily one has the consolation of feeling that it is plundering for the benefit of the army generally, and only indirectly for one's self. That haul we have just made may turn out to be a good one for the prize-fund."
Kirke did not reply at once. After a pause he said, "I don't think it is expected that those who do all the work should hand in every trifle they pick up for the benefit of a lot of fellows who are pottering about, taking things easily, in the rear."
"I don't call jewellery a trifle."
"Jewellery is a big word; I suppose there is about enough to make a couple of trinkets for our respective lady-loves;" and, as Kirke said this, he looked towards his companion, smiling, as if in jest, but looking also somewhat eager to see how he would receive the suggestion. "However," he added, in a low tone — for they had reached the spot where the other officers were assembled — "you may leave me to make the report of the matter."
The mule which carried the light mess-equipment of the regiment had now come up, and a tin of English soup was already warming on the fire, while the troopers around were preparing their frugal meal of corn-flour, or contentedly munching the parched grain they had brought with them. The meal despatched, all who were not on duly lay down on the ground without blanket or cloaks — for the baggage had not come up — almost too tired to smoke their cheroots before falling asleep.
Next day Yorke spoke to his commanding officer, as they were riding along together, about the things taken the evening before, and said he supposed they would be given up to the prize-agents.
"You don't expect Futteh Khan and my orderly to disgorge the things I let them take?" said Kirke. "Their ideas on such points are not quite so nice as yours." And there was something of a sneer in the tone of his voice.
"No," replied Yorke; "the things they took will be kept by them, of course. I was thinking of the jewels." "My dear fellow, they are not worth making a fuss about. I suppose if you were to pick up an old pistol, or a grass-cutter's pony to replace the one you lost, you wouldn't feel that you had done the rest of the army out of their rights."
"But that is different. These jewels may be very valuable."
"Not much in that way, I fancy; but they are pretty little things, I admit. Look here," continued Kirke, taking the box out of his breast-pocket and holding it out towards Yorke — "look here, Yorke; you would like to take your choice, wouldn't you? Which will you have?" And Kirke's manner was such that it could not be said he was not speaking in jest, although it seemed as if he would certainly like to be taken at his word.
But Yorke, looking straight before him over his horse's head, merely waved away the offer, and said, "You are joking, colonel, of course; I take it for granted that you intend to hand the jewels over to the prize-agent."
"Oh, of course," replied the other, "I was only joking;" but he could not conceal from his manner that he felt as if he had sustained a rebuff; and the silence which followed as they rode along, was a little awkward on both sides.
Both officers, however, had plenty of work to occupy their attention, and Yorke had ceased to think about the matter when, a few weeks later, it was brought to his recollection.
He was detached from headquarters with one squadron of the regiment, at a station which had lately been reoccupied by the civil officers of government. The last embers of the great conflagration were now extinguished, and the detachment was peacefully encamped on an open space before the town, expecting orders to go into summer quarters. One evening Yorke was sauntering through the camp inspecting the horses picketed in two lines before the troopers' tents, while the ressaldar Futteh Khan attended him. The latter was dressed in his loose native garments, both of them being off duty and the inspection purely non-official, when Yorke noticed in his girdle the jewelled dagger which had been taken from the rebel in the palanquin.
"That is a handsome dagger," said Yorke in Hindustani, "and if those jewels are real it must be worth something."
"Ah, sahib, these little stones are mere trifles," replied the ressaldar; "it was the colonel sahib who carried off the loot. They say that the man whom we found in the palkee was the raja's dewân, and that the jewels were worth a lakh of rupees."
"So much the better," replied Yorke; "we shall all get the larger share when the prize-money comes to be distributed."
"So the colonel sahib had actually made them over to the prize-agent?" asked the man, respectfully enough, yet as if surprised to hear it; and the conversation arousing an uneasy feeling in Yorke's mind, he took the opportunity of a messenger going to regimental headquarters next day to ask Kirke about it.
"I take it for granted," he said at the end of a letter written about other matters — "that you have made over the jewels to the prize-agent as you said you intended to do; but the men in the regiment appear to be talking about the thing, and to suppose that they were worth far more than their real value; while I infer from Futteh Khan's manner that he thinks he ought to have had a share. The capture havnng been a joint one, it is perhaps now a little unfortunate that the things were not publicly given up, so that the men might have been without any ground for suspicion that we had taken any benefit by it. It would be a great satisfaction to hear from you that the transfer has been actually made. Pray excuse my troubling you about the matter." To which Kirke replied by the following postscript in his letter sent back by the messenger: "take your mind easy about the jewels, which were duly handed over to the proper party. They turned out to be trumpery things."
The great war having come to an end at last, and it being now the height of the hot season, the field force to which Kirke's Horse was attached was broken up, and the different regiments composing it, calling in their detachments, marched off to their respective summer quarters. Mustaphabad was the station allotted to Kirke's Horse, several hundred miles off, and not to be reached till long after the fierce Indian summer should have passed its greatest heat; but the men — veterans in campaigning, although young in years — set out on the long march in high spirits, for Mustaphabad was not far from the district in which the regiment was raised, and they might now expect to get furloughs to visit their homes. What strange chance is it, thought Yorke, which brings us back to the old eventful scenes? Can it be that the dream of my youth is really to be fulfilled, and that Olivia will be won to share my lot in that very place? a lot I just as I used to picture it, a humble home, if not quite the shabby cottage of my subaltern days. But she, too, has since then known discomfort and simple ways of life, and whatever place she lives in will be sufficiently adorned. Surely it must be a good omen which takes me there again! Plenty of time had the young man to build his castles in the air, searching over and over again in her letters for something substantial on which to erect a foundation for his hopes. At times it seemed as if her letters breathed a tenderness which, as if she was won already, at any rate invited him to declare his passion; and then, again, reading them under the influence of the reaction which would follow any excess of hopefulness, he thought he could detect only a spirit of resignation and sorrowful clinging to the memory of the past, which would render his tale of love an insult. These letters were of old date, for during the late campaign he had received no news from her. The regiment had, however, been wandering amid wild parts, difficult to communicate with; mails had been lost, and Olivia's letters might have miscarried — her notions about Indian geography and the movements of the different armies he knew to be somewhat vague, while he, for his part, had been too constantly on the move to write often; but now that they were marching along the main line of road, he would surely receive some news. Thus he thought and hoped, as the regiment slowly covered the long track, marching by night, and getting through the stifling day in their tents as best they could, for the heat seemed much harder to bear now that the excitement of active service was ended, and each camping-ground looking the exact counterpart of the last — a brown, barren, burnt-up plain.
Now and then they would come to a European station, where the officers of the famous regiment were sure of a hospitable reception from the residents, and would pass the day in the comparative coolness of a house, setting out again at midnight on the dusty road.
It was at one of these stations that Yorke heard for the first time of the death of Mr. Cunningham in England, which it appeared had been known in India for some weeks. This accounts for her silence, thought he; no wonder she had not spirits to write when bowed down with this fresh calamity. And how heartless my last letter to her must have seemed, for she could not have supposed that I was ignorant of what everybody in India seemed to know! And being full of the news, he naturally spoke to Kirke about it the first time they met. They were spending the day as guests at different houses, but were to dine together at a regimental mess, and he met his commandant when riding into the mess-garden at dusk. They had never once referred to Olivia in conversation since the first day after Kirke's return from the hills in the previous autumn. Yorke was not sure if the other had guessed the state of his own feelings, but Kirke was a man who was wont to speak somewhat contemptuously of women in general, and had often expressed the opinion that soldiers were spoilt by marriage; and Yorke thought he would not look favourably on the idea of having a married second in command, still less one married to his cousin. Indeed Yorke fancied he could detect a tone of pique in Kirke's manner when congratulating him on the high regard entertained for him by Olivia, which induced him to abstain from talking about her, still more from any expression of wonder at not getting letters from her; and a reserve of this sort once set up became every day more difficult to break through. Now, however, Yorke made the attempt.
"Have you heard the news, colonel?" he said, as the two met at the garden entrance, and rode slowly up the drive together to the mess-house. "Have you heard the news of poor Cunningham's death?"
"Oh yes, of course," replied Kirke; "I heard of that some weeks ago: I thought everybody knew it. A case of liver, I believe; he was very bad, as it turned out, when he went home."
"I only heard of it this afternoon. This will alter Mrs. Falkland's plans, I suppose, and even delay her journey home? I have understood that she has no near relations to whom she could go. It is a sad situation for her; I have been able to think of nothing else all day." When he said this, the young fellow felt himself like a selfish hypocrite, being sensible in reality of a sensation of rapture, as if the loss of her father brought her one step nearer to himself.
"Very good of you. I am sure," replied Kirke, drily, and speaking slightly through his nose, as was his manner when intending to be sarcastic. "Yes, indeed, it is difficult to say what she is to do under the circumstances, isn't it? A handsome young woman like her wants a protector of some sort, doesn't she?"
Here they had arrived at the mess- house, and the conversation perforce ended. Nor did Yorke feel disposed to renew it, for Ivirke's tone jarred on him. And the subject was not referred to again during the rest of the march.