They had not long finished breakfast, and were seated incamp chairs under the shade of a canvas awning.
"Oh, this is perfectly glorious," Melian was saying, her eyes seeming tofeed upon the sunlit wildness of the surroundings. "What a contrast todear old Heath Hover, too. Look at that splendid mountain face, allterraced, as it were, with great cliffs; and even the openness of it allhas a marvellous charm."
Her uncle puffed meditatively at his cheroot, then looked at her, and inthe result felt not unsatisfied. She had taken, with characteristicreadiness, to this strange wild country and its life--and every phase ofit afforded her a fresh delight. And its people, too, of every shadeand type, but that which attracted her most, was the tall, turbaned,often scowling, mountaineer, with his primitive _jezail_ and neverabsent and wicked looking tulwar--a very Ishmaelite in deed and inappearance.
They had come up the _tangi_ in the early morning and she had beenentranced with the vastness of the huge narrow chasm, the first of itskind she had ever seen. And now, as Mervyn contemplated the eageranimated face, tinged with the golden glow of an open air life, the blueeyes clear and large in contrast, he found himself thinking satiricallythat it was small wonder if Mazaran had sought to throw stumbling blocksin the way of their leaving it. And then as though the mention of HeathHover evoked a recollection she suddenly said:
"I do hope old Joe and Judy will take real care of our little blackpoogie, and not let it out at night to get shot, or get into a trap inthe coverts--dear little pooge-pooge?"
"Oh, I'm sure they will. But--we couldn't have done with it here, couldwe?"
"No, but I would like to have it all the same. Why, what's this?"
A whirl of dust was coming down the road, and as it drew nearer, theycould make out a band of horsemen, clad in the loose white garments ofthe mountain tribes. Through it, too, as the gleam of weapons.
"Oh, it's some of these picturesque people, and they are sofascinating," cried the girl. "It'll be quite a sight to see them ridepast."
The road ran about a hundred yards below the site of the camp. For thefirst time some qualm of misgiving came into Mervyn's self-sufficientmind, and he found himself actually hoping that they really would ridepast. They looked a formidable gang enough, some two score strong, andarmed to the teeth. It was not lessened as he saw that they were not onthe road at all, and were heading straight for the camp.
Came another sight, which caused his face to pale and stiffen strangely.
"Melian, go inside the tent, and stay there till I tell you to comeout," he said sharply.
"Why? Mayn't I see?"
"Do as I say--at once," he repeated, with a stamp of the foot. "Theymay be a bit rough, but--I'll settle them."
She obeyed, greatly wondering. "Mayn't I see?" she had said. Good!Then she had not seen--what he had, and he felt thankful.
Out on the plain two of his camp natives were herding the camels. Hehad seen several of the horsemen dart out upon these from the main body,and cut them down with their keen edged tulwars without giving them timeso much as to utter a shriek. At that moment John Seward Mervynrealised that if ever he had been in a tight place in his life he was inone now, and if he did not, when too late, curse his own foolhardinessfor bringing him into it, why it was only because he had not time.
The whole band rode down like a whirlwind upon the camp. The bearer andkhitmutghar, and the cook, Punjabi natives, scared out of their lives,had crept into one of the tents and crouched trembling. The Levy sowarsalone showed fight, and pointed their rifles, but it was plain theywould have welcomed any chance offered to surrender.
"Melian, don't move outside, do you hear," said her uncle over hisshoulder. He had risen, and stood confronting the wild array. Thesehad now reined up, and were facing him, in a crescent formation.
"Salaam!" he said. "This is a strange welcome to a stranger in astrange land, brothers."
A grunt broke from the fierce shaggy faces; and the gleaming, hostileeyes seemed to take on a further deepening of hate and greed.
"This is the Sirdar, Allah-din Khan," said one, designating the man onhis right.
"That is good to hear," answered Mervyn, speaking in the Pushtu,"Salaam, Sirdar Allah-din Khan. I repeat this is a strange way ofpaying a friendly visit."
"A friendly visit?" repeated the chief, in deep tones. "But what ifthis is not a friendly visit?"
The fierce eyes of the fanatical predatory Asiatic, and the hard,determined blue gleam in those of the European met, and there was noyielding in the glance of either.
"In that case," replied the latter, "I invite the Sirdar to withdraw.It is not safe to stay--for him, for as the life of the Sirdar Allah-dinKhan must be worth the lives of all his followers put together, it isnot good policy to throw away so valuable a life."
The tone was perfectly even, in itself containing no threat. Mervyn wasat his best now, cool, desperate, therefore deadly dangerous. At hiswords a gasp of amazement escaped from the other side. The firstthought was of a trap. Were there soldiers concealed in the tent, withrifles trained upon them through the canvas? And meanwhile Mervyn stoodconfronting them, calmly; one hand, however, always behind him.
"The life of so important a chief as the Sirdar Allah-din Khan must beof great value," he went on in the same unconcerned tone. "And--he hasbut one."
"And thou hast two, Feringhi," answered the chief, darkly. "Two, andthat means two deaths instead of one, lingering and painful deaths atthat. One of thy `lives' is behind in the tent. Good! I may fall or Imay not, but I swear on the tomb of the Prophet that if thou so much asdrawest the weapon now held behind thee, thou and thy daughter,"--thiswas a figure of speech--"shall be burnt alive. She first."
Mervyn felt desperate. He tried not to pale as he gazed at the speaker.But his hand did not move from behind him. In that fierce, hard, setcountenance, in the very words of the oath uttered, he knew there wouldbe no going back from that sentence. He might shoot the chief dead, butno power on earth would turn the whirlwind rush of his followers. Andthey would be as good as their leader's word, as to that he entertainedno doubt whatever. Melian--writhing in a death of fiery torment--thebare idea was as a pictured glimpse into hell itself. A great roll oftime swept over his mind in that moment or two, as he stood, confrontingthe man in whose power he was.
"She first," this barbarian had said. There was a full refinement ofdiabolical cruelty in the words. God! the thing was unthinkable!
"I draw no weapon," he answered. "What does the Sirdar Allah-din Khanrequire. Money?"
"Thyself."
The answer was curt, deep toned, uncompromising.
"Myself?"
"Nothing else."
"And what of my `daughter'--who however is not my daughter, but mysister's daughter?" went on Mervyn, who was puzzling hard over what tookon more and more the look of a very hopeless and dreadful situation."As believers you dare not harm a woman, the holy Koran itself forbidsit. But how shall she find her way back to her people alone, she whohas never before been in this land?"
"We want nothing of her," said the chief. "She may go in peace. Two ofmy people here shall escort her safely to within view of the camp ofyonder Feringhi," with a nod over his shoulder in the direction of VarneCoates' camp. "But for thyself thou must go with us."
To say that Mervyn felt as if more than half the cloud had lifted wouldbe to put it mildly. The awful deadly weight that had been crushinghim, the consciousness to wit, that by his own foolhardy obstinacy, hehad brought Melian into ghastly peril--was that which afflicted himmost. He himself and his own potential fate was a matter of utterlysecondary importance--and, here was a way out.
But could he trust the chief's promises? He knew that in this instancehe could. So he made answer, and that very earnestly.
"You will keep faith with me, Sirdar Sahib? My sister's child shall beescorted to yonder camp by two of your people, and delivered there safeand unharmed either by word or deed, on condition that I go
with younow? Do you swear that solemnly on the holy Koran and the tomb of theProphet?"
"I swear it," answered Allah-din Khan, "on the holy Koran, by the tombof the Prophet, and on the holy Kaba." And he raised his sword hilt tothe level of his forehead. Mervyn knew that the oath would be kept.
"I would fain bid farewell to the child, and prepare her for thejourney," he said. "I, too, make oath, that nothing will be done insidethe tent but that."
It seemed strange, but to this the chief made no objection, nor did herequire that one of his followers should be present. He merely bent hishead in assent.
"Well, what has happened? You have been talking