The Great Amulet

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He smiled contentedly down upon her. "Well--there are limits! Where
on earth did you go?"

"All through the city again, and I unearthed endless treasures. You'd
have loved it."

"Of course I should. Great fool that I was not to chuck the writing
and take you myself!"

"Oh, if you only would, a little oftener!"

Something in her tone smote him; and putting both hands on her
shoulders, he bent towards her, pain and passion in his eyes.

"Darling, tell me, have I been neglecting you lately?"

Her low laughter reassured him. "Neglecting me? Dear stupid! D'you
suppose I'd sit down under it if you did? Now I'm going to change for
dinner; and do please make yourself agreeable to Mrs Norton this
evening."

For the Deputy Commissioner's wife was honouring her husband with a
flying visit, before going north to spend the season in Simla.

"The devil take Mrs Norton. Odious woman!"

"No,--it's _you_ that will have to take her!" she answered, laughing.
"And it's not my fault that you won't have your beautiful Honor on the
other side to keep the balance true."

Quita enjoyed her little dinner, and saw to it that others did
likewise. She was a natural-born hostess. Talk never flagged in her
neighbourhood, and her own lack of self-consciousness set the stiffest
and shyest at their ease. Besides, she always enjoyed talking to
Norton, whose cynicism and critical attitude she disarmed by the simple
means of ignoring them. She liked the man's plain, hard-featured face,
ploughed with deep lines of thought and effort, and only redeemed from
ugliness by his remarkable eyes.

"Stoking up!" he remarked grimly, sipping his soup with a keen
appreciation of its quality. "Punkahs and hell-fire again in no time.
One hardly has time to cool down before the winter slips away. Mrs
Norton's off to Simla in ten days; and I suppose you'll be bolting also
by the end of next month?"

She laughed, and shook her head. "If you're counting on getting my
husband to chum with you this hot weather, I'm afraid you'll be
disappointed."

He eyed her quizzically for a moment.

"Of course--I forgot. You're a new broom! If I meet you in March
three or four years hence, I shall hear another story."

"And enjoy the triumph of your own cynicism! Very well, I accept your
challenge. I shall write to you three years from now, just to tell you
how the land lies."

"Do. And if you forget, I shall hear of you from some one else. We
know all one another's little doings in this corner of the world. I
feel curious about you, and prophesy that Simla and amateur theatricals
will carry the day; though for Lenox's sake I hope all the triumph will
be on your side. But it's no light matter, I can tell you, to win your
spurs as a Frontier officer's wife of the right quality."

"Like Mrs Desmond, for instance?"

"Quite so. Like Mrs Desmond."

"I notice all the cynicism goes out of your voice when you speak of
her. Yet you can make insulting prophecies about _me_, at my own table
too! Am I so immeasurably inferior?"

"That remains to be seen! You have still to be tested in the furnace,
and no imaginary furnace either. Man or woman, staying power's the
great requisite for India, Mrs Lenox. To pull through for half a dozen
hot weathers is all very well,--mere getting one's hand in. But by the
time a man has completed his twentieth he begins to know something
about the weakness of the flesh. I seem to you, with your youth and
high courage, a cynical, disagreeable fellow enough. But perhaps when
you are middle-aged and disillusioned, and all the good blood in your
veins has been dried up by fever, you'll forgive my straight speaking
to-night; though by then I shall be a forgotten old fogey, eating my
heart out in England, or I shall have dropped in harness, which would
be the kinder fate of the two."

"Indeed I have forgiven you already," she answered in a softened tone;
and involuntarily her eyes sought the handsome heavy-featured woman
beside her husband, whose Paris dinner-dress was cut lower than need
be, and whose elaborate 'fringe' rather too obviously grew off her head.

"Thank you. It's more than I deserve; and I'm sorry I must repay you
by giving you your first taste of the pleasant little surprises that
are a main feature of Frontier life. I have to go off across the
Border early next week, to fix the position of a post we are going to
build for our Mahsud levies, and to collect a fine from some rascals
who have been raiding Tank."

"Where's that?"

"An unlucky village near the Gomal Pass,--the great trade route into
the hills. It gets burnt to the ground periodically by the Waziris,
probably much to its advantage; but one can't overlook the insult to
British authority. So I'm obliged to visit them in state and talk to
them like a father, after collecting their fine; and I'm afraid I must
take your husband and Richardson along with me, besides a handful of
cavalry and infantry by way of protection and prestige."

Quita's face fell. "For how long?" she asked, collecting her last
crumbs of pastry with a peculiar deliberation.

"We might be ten days coming and going. Not more."

"And--would there be fighting?"

"Probably not. It's a peaceful deputation. But peace armed to the
teeth is the only kind the Waziri understands; and he can't always
control his rifle when he finds the eternally aggressive white man
taking liberties with his sacred hills! We shan't be sorry for a whiff
of cool air any of us; and you won't be the only injured wife. Colonel
Montague, of the Sikhs, comes with us; and I'm going to rob Mrs Desmond
of her _preux chevalier_ also. I only want half a squadron, but I
shall make special request for Desmond. He's a capital man to have
handy in case of accidents. As for Lenox, he'll be delighted, if
that's any consolation to you."

"Well, naturally," she faced him now, eyes and lips under control.
"Besides, ten days is nothing. One has to make a beginning; and it
might have been ever so much worse."

"That's the plucky way to look at it," he said in evident approval, and
Quita rather abruptly changed the subject.

The evening that followed was a remarkably cheerful affair, imbued with
that spirit of friendly informality which makes the little dinners of
India live long in the memory. O'Flannagan had brought his banjo.
Rivers and Richardson both sang creditably; and Quita herself was in
one of her 'inspired' moods. Only Mrs Norton, having deposited her
grey satin magnificence upon the sofa, protested mutely against what
she considered a tendency to 'rowdyism' in her hostess;
flirted--intellectually--with any one who had the hardihood to sit near
her; and on the stroke of ten rose with a suppressed yawn and a
transparently insincere little speech about an enjoyable evening.

"Begad, but her works want oiling badly!" O'Flannagan confided to
Quita, as the last shimmering morsel of her train slid out of sight.
"She's one o' your immaculate Englishwomen who give me the blues. Come
on, Mrs Lenox. Thank Heaven for the dash of ould Ireland in you; and
let's begin to enjoy ourselves!"

From that moment the evening took a new lease of life. Two battery
subalterns came over from mess, and it was close on midnight when
Lenox, returning from his final duties in the verandah, found Quita
standing by the mantelpiece, her cheeks flushed, her eyes radiating
enjoyment.

"Thank the Lord that's over!" he ejaculated fervently, flinging himself
into a deep arm-chair; and she turned on him promptly, with a visible
ruffling of her feathers.

"Eldred, you're positively inhuman. When you talk like that you make
me want to hit you!"

She stood above him, threatening him with one slim hand; but Lenox,
reaching up lazily, grasped her arms below the elbow, and gently but
irresistibly forced her on to her knees.

"Hit out, lass, if you've a mind to," he said good-humouredly. "I
swear I won't retaliate!"

She struggled for freedom; but he held her in a vice.

"You great schoolboy,--let me go!" she commanded, between laughter and
vexation. "I don't care if you do hate dinner parties. I must have
them sometimes. I love to see people enjoying themselves as they all
did tonight, except that odious Mrs Norton, who doesn't count. You're
not pliable enough. That's what's the matter with you. But if I live
to a hundred and twenty you'd never make a hermit out of _me_!"

"And if you gave a party every night of your life you'd never make a
society man out of me. I should simply apply for a trans-frontier
billet, where wives are not admitted. But look here, little woman, did
Norton tell you about next week?"

"Of course he did. You'll be gone in three or four days. It's
hateful. Do let me have my arms back, darling."

And he surrendered this time.

"Are you sleepy?" she asked, her eyes, full of laughter, resting in his.

"Lord, no. I'm going to sit up and put in two hours work at least
before turning in."

"Indeed you'll do no such thing. You're going to sit up and talk to
me. I didn't like to bother Mr Norton; but I've a hundred questions to
ask you about it all."

"_Hazur ke kushi_! [2] Ask away. Only let me get at my pipe, and I'm
at your service."

He filled and lighted it with leisurely satisfaction; and Quita,
settling herself on the carpet beside him, her face looking into his,
her bright head laid against his knee, kept him talking of Border
politics and Border warfare till all thought of putting in two hours'
work was out of the question.

[1] Prestige.

[2] As your Honour's pleases.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"The work is with us; the event is with Allah."
--Kipling.

"Shade, water, grass . . . Not half a bad place for a picnic, eh,
Major? And I hope that plausible-looking scoundrel, talking to Norton,
has provided a decent breakfast for us. Five hours of marching in this
air puts an edge on a fellow's appetite."

Richardson's remark was addressed to Desmond,--now a Major of six
months' standing,--whose practised eye was critically surveying the
camping-ground assigned by the local magnate, Nussar Ali Khan, to the
seven British officers and their handful of native troops.

The site chosen was the topmost of two wide terraces descending to a
stream, from whose farther bank a great hill rose abruptly, dark with
pine and ilex, and cleft into a formidable nullah. On the right, flat
house-tops of a walled native village overlooked the terrace, with its
inviting group of trees, beneath which breakfast was in preparation.
On the left another elevation, crowned with huts; behind them an open
field, sloping to a ten-foot wall; and above the wall the ubiquitous
watch-tower of the Border glowered like a frown upon the face of peace.
The impedimenta of the little force,--transport, field-hospital, and
camp-followers,--still trailed along a narrow lane leading from the
_kotal_[1] over which they had come, to the terrace itself. Already
grey films of wood-smoke soared, plume-like, into the blue; and the air
at ten of the morning was still keen with the sharpness of a small
frost at high altitudes.

"Not half a bad place for a picnic," Desmond admitted mentally; though
for several reasons, this man,--who was a Frontier soldier by instinct
and heritage,--would scarcely have chosen it himself.

But stringent military precautions were no part of the programme:
Norton's escort of half a squadron, two guns, and five hundred Sikhs
and Punjabis, being little more than a necessary appendage to a
peaceful visitation. Such commonplaces of Frontier government as the
enforcing of a fine, and the choosing of a site for an outpost manned
by friendly tribesmen, was unlikely to cause friction or stir up
strife; and Norton, standing apart from the group of officers in khaki,
was listening politely to Nussar Ali Khan and his friends,--some half a
dozen Maliks from the fortified villages scattered among the hills.
Spare, muscular men, all of them, in peaked caps and turbans,
sheep-skin coats, and voluminous trousers, girded by the formidable
Pathan belt, with its pouches, dagger, and straight-handled sword;
their bearded faces lighted up, as they talked, by flashes of white
teeth; most of them towering half a head above the squarely-built
Englishman, with the jaw of a bull-dog and the eyes of a hawk, who
understood their language, their strange mingling of courage and
cruelty, of simplicity and cunning, as a man only understands that to
which he has devoted a lifetime of labour and thought.

Lower down, under the lee of the village wall, a local _jirgah_[2] sat
watching the influx of troops with non-committal indifference, waiting
to come forward and protest their devotion to the White Queen and the
Burra Sahib; their entire readiness to be bound over by the Maliks'
proposals, and, in effect, to behave themselves till next time! The
utmost guarantee of good conduct that will ever be wrung out of the
lawless sons of the North-western hills.

"It is enough, Khan Sahib," Norton said at length, cutting short a
string of compliments that he knew by heart. "Let the _jirgah_ come to
me and make their statement while breakfast is preparing."

But the Khan, indicating with a sweep of his arm the limitless time at
their disposal, declared that a matter so trifling could very well wait
till the Presence and the officer Sahibs had refreshed themselves.

"It is well known among our people, Hazur," he concluded, "that your
Honour regardeth not food or rest when work remaineth to be done. But
the matter hath already been peacefully settled with these men.
Moreover, there be the officer Sahibs also, desiring breakfast; and my
son hath commanded everything of the best for your Honour's reception:
even wood and grass in abundance, that labour might be spared."

Having struck camp before six that morning, Norton needed no further
pressing: and ten minutes later the eight Englishmen were breakfasting
heartily on provisions that atoned in quantity for lack of quality.

Besides Desmond and the Gunners, the Deputy Commissioner, who knew how
to pick his men, had secured Unwin and Montague with the Sikhs, a smart
subaltern with the Punjab Infantry, and Courtenay as medical officer.
Behind them, sepoys and sowars, keeping their arms by Colonel
Montague's orders, smoked or slept at their ease. Sentries had been
told off; pickets posted in front and rear; the screw guns unlimbered,
and stationed with their infantry escort on rising ground at the far
end of the field. Scattered groups of villagers, appearing on walls
and house-tops and on the hill to the left, squatted on their heels,
watching the mild tamasha with evident interest, and exchanging broad
sallies of wit with the sepoys by way of adding flavour to the
entertainment.

Pipes, cigars, and a pleasant sense of wellbeing followed the meal.

"I congratulate you, Norton," Montague remarked between pulls at a
stumpy briar that was consoling him for muscular fowl and curried
leather. "Your Wolves of the Khanigoram are behaving like
Sunday-school children at a prize giving! We can fix the site for the
post when we've rested a bit longer, and start back this afternoon, eh?"

"Yes, by all means. I have only to settle matters with the _jirgah_."

"Thank goodness, I'm booked for first leave," the other continued
conversationally. He was a plump, well-cared-for little man, hampered
by half a dozen boys and girls clamouring for education at home, and
was beginning to lose his taste for scratch picnics across the Border.
"This sort of thing sets one hankering for the hills. I suppose you
won't be doing wonders up Tibet way this year, Lenox? Metal more
attractive, and all that sort of thing, eh?"

"Yes, I shall stick to the Battery for the present," Lenox answered,
ignoring the playful allusion: and Richardson, detecting annoyance in
the tone, put in his own oar deftly enough.

"Unwin's the lucky beggar. When do you sail, old chap?"

"To-day fortnight, praise the powers! No more dancing attendance on
Waziris for eighteen good months to come." He stretched his cramped
legs contentedly. "Those Johnnies on the wall seem to be getting bored
with our show. We ought to have brought a couple of banjos along to
amuse their majesties!"

It was true. Gradually, by twos and threes, the villagers were melting
away: and Desmond, who was leaning against a tree trunk close to
Norton, helmet tilted over his nose, apparently half asleep, touched
the civilian's arm.

"I say, Norton," he said under his breath. "Take your oath it's all
square?"

Norton looked round sharply.

"My dear man, we've eaten their food. Ever know a Pathan commit a
breach of hospitality?"

"No. But it looks queer."

For by now their audience had practically disappeared. The village
wall was empty, save for one crouching figure, that sprang suddenly and
silently to its full height, and brandished a bared sword: the blade
flashing like a helio in the strong light.

"What's the _mutlub_[3] of that theatrical interlude?" Richardson
demanded with a laugh; and was answered by a signal shot from the
watch-tower behind.

In a flash all eight of them were on their feet: Montague and Lenox
shouting to their men to 'fall in.'

The order was obeyed with incredible promptness. But the Waziris had
the advantage of playing a prepared game; and before the officers had
time to disperse a murderous fire was poured upon them from all sides
at once: from the village, the watch-tower, and the huts on the left.
Swift as magic the walls bristled with picked marksmen, armed with
matchlocks, Winchesters, and Martini Henry's stolen from Border
sentries: and it was clear that the enemy held the nullah in great
strength.

"Massacre, by God!" Desmond muttered between his teeth as he dodged a
whizzing bullet, while a second glanced off his brass buckle, and
buried itself in the tree behind him.

Colonel Montague, advancing to meet his men, who came forward at the
double, fell, mortally wounded, with two bullets through his body. He
staggered to his feet; only to fall again, face downward, as Desmond
and Courtenay hurried up to him, and--covered by the fire of his
Sikhs--carried him into comparative safety behind a stack of
_bhusa_,[4] within reach of the ambulance; his bugler following close
at their heels.

"I'm done for," he panted, as they laid him down. "Make the best job
you can of me; and prop me . . against the stack. I'll direct
operations . . while I can . . hold out."

There was clearly nothing else to be done; and while Courtenay obeyed
the dying man's injunctions, Desmond made haste to join his own sowars,
who were already doing smart work with their rifles, under Ressaldar
Rajinder Singh.

By now the din was terrific. It was as if a special department of hell
had been suddenly opened up. Firing had become general from all the
surrounding hills; for an attack of this kind, once started, speedily
degenerates into a matter of _ghaza_.[5] Every moment brought fresh
reinforcements to the Waziris; every moment their fire grew hotter; and
every moment, through the rattle of musketry and the yells of the
tribesmen, came the deep-throated duet of the sturdy little screw-guns
under the wall, as they pitched shell after shell into the nullah, from
whose depths a hidden foe responded with pitiless accuracy and vigour.

For, simultaneously with Montague's advance, Lenox and Richardson had
doubled to their guns through a hailstorm of humming, leaping bullets.
One, passing through Lenox's coat-sleeve, grazed his upper arm; while a
second struck Richardson's breast-pocket, and was only prevented from
wounding him mortally by a pad of first-aid bandages which Courtenay
had served out to him, in joke, two days earlier. Reaching the guns
unscathed, they found the gunners at their posts, the infantry escort
blazing merrily and effectively at the marksmen on the wall: and at
once opened fire on the nullah with case-shot and shell.

But their height and exposed position rendered them too conspicuous to
be missed for long by an enemy whose skill in picking off British
officers makes the little wars of the Frontier such cruelly costly
affairs. In less than two minutes, a burning pain near his
shoulder-blade told Lenox he was hit. But not being disabled, he paid
small heed to so trivial an incident at the time. The incessant firing
took up all his attention.

Before ten minutes were out, shells, case-shot, and shrapnel had all
been exhausted. The Mahsuds were firing more steadily than ever; and
on the terrace itself, the infantry and sowars were in no enviable
case. Unwin had fallen, shot through the head. Montague had
momentarily succumbed to pain and exhaustion; and Desmond, with little
Martin of the Punjab Infantry and a Sikh Subadar, was in command of
affairs.

Sudden faintness, and a damp discomfort down his back, warned Lenox
that his wound must be bleeding more freely than he knew. He gripped
the shoulder of a gunner standing near him; and for an instant all
things swam together before his eyes.

"Look, Captain Sahib, look! There be fresh men on the hill."

The voice of the Havildar Major in his ear steadied his senses: and he
saw the new danger that threatened. Down the steep hillside at their
right rear, a compact body of men leapt cautiously from cover to cover;
an occasional glint of sunlight on a sword-blade revealing their
probable intent.

"I say, Dick, those devils'll rush the guns if we give 'em half a
chance," he said, turning to his subaltern; and without waiting for an
answer, ordered his escort to cover the hill, and prepare for a volley.

But almost before the command could be obeyed,--with a final leap and a
dull roar, rising to a yell of triumph,--the Waziris were upon them at
close quarters; the front ranks brandishing long knives, the rest armed
with matchlocks and rifles.

The Sikhs stood their ground sturdily: as Sikhs may be trusted to do in
any straits; while the guns, firing over their heads, sent many of the
frenzied fanatics rolling over and over, with yells of a very different
nature.

Then, suddenly . . Lenox never quite knew how it happened . . he felt
the earth heave under him; some one gripped him from behind: Dick's
tall figure, revolver in hand, interposed between him and the swarming
hillside; and the next instant reeled against him with such violence
that both fell heavily to the ground. At once their men closed round
them, covering them with their rifles; a Havildar and two gunners
eagerly proffering lengths of turban for bandages, since it was plain
that Richardson's wound in the thigh was no light matter.

Startled and stunned as he was, Lenox righted himself speedily; and
kneeling on one knee, supported his subaltern's shoulders against the
other, while a Havildar roughly bandaged the wounded leg, and bullets
whinged and whirred on all sides of them.

"Dick, you'd no business to be there. What the devil did you do?"
Lenox asked, a queer vibration in his voice: for it seemed that not
till this moment had he understood the strength of the link that bound
him to the simple-hearted man who was his friend.

"For God's sake don't plague a chap with questions when he's hard hit.
The thing's done; and . ." Richardson's voice trailed off
inaudible,--"it's better this way . . for her." Then he roused himself
with an effort. "We've crushed the brutes, haven't we?"

"Yes. For the present. The men behaved splendidly. Jove! here comes
Norton through the thick of it all. Orders to clear out, most likely.
If it's that, I wish to hell it had come five minutes sooner." And
Richardson murmured inarticulate assent.

Norton carried his message in his face.

"The Colonel has rallied a little," he said, after expressing sympathy
and concern for the plight of both officers. "And he agrees with me
that it is wanton sacrifice of men to hold out any longer. Only
Courtenay and Martin untouched out of the seven of you; for Desmond's
just had his wrist smashed, poor fellow. We must get back, as best we
can, by the lane and over the _kotal_. Desmond has despatched a party
of his sowars to Brownlow, of your corps, for reinforcements of men and
ammunition. His post is only nine miles off, and we can push along in
that direction. Now I must get back to the Colonel. I'll let
Courtenay know he's wanted: and send a stretcher along."

With his departure, began the desperate business of dismembering guns
and loading mules under a sharp fire; gunners, drivers, and native
officers vieing with each other in carrying off the wounded, repulsing
hand-to-hand attacks, and in many individual acts of gallantry. While
limbering up the guns a mule was shot, and two wheels rolled down the
slope. The Havildar in charge sped after them, through pattering
bullets; returning with seventy-two pounds of solid metal hanging from
each arm. But even as he flung them down in triumph, he rolled over,
with a bullet through his chest: while Richardson's orderly staggered
past, carrying the gun itself, a matter of two hundred pounds. Such
amazing feats can flesh and blood achieve under the spur of momentary
exaltation.

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