wanted at any moment, and I doubt whether that will leave you rooms
enough.”

“If any one has to seek quarters outside, I hope I may be the favoured
man,” said Dr Headlam. “Judging by the sights I saw as we came through
the streets, and the cries for medicine which were addressed to me,
there is an enormous amount of disease here, and I shall have my hands
pretty full if I begin to try any outside practice. I think I am
justified in believing that you would approve of such a course, Sir
Dugald? It could only make the Mission more popular.”

“By all means, if you wish it; but don’t wear yourself out with
doctoring all Kubbet-ul-Haj, and forget that you came here as surgeon
to the Mission. You think you will do better if you are lodged
outside?”

“Well, I didn’t quite like the idea of bringing all the filth and
rascality of Kubbet-ul-Haj into the Mission headquarters, but that
would remove the objection. I think it would be both safer and more
agreeable for all of us if you would allow me to camp in some other
house.”

“Then perhaps you could take that collection of yours over to your new
quarters as well as your other belongings? It is not altogether the
most delightful of objects.”

“Either as to sight or smell,” put in Dick North. “Those beasts you
have preserved in spirits are enough to give a man the horrors,
doctor.”

“Oh, our much-maligned masterpieces shall share my quarters, by all
means,” said the doctor. “If Miss Keeling breaks her heart over
parting with the collection, don’t blame me.”

“Miss Keeling will probably bear the loss with equanimity,” said Sir
Dugald. “Natural history collections are not exactly ladies’ toys. At
any rate, if she is uneasy about the state of her pet specimens you
can bring her bulletins respecting them at meal-times. We shall see
you as usual at tiffin and at dinner, I suppose, doctor? And you know
that Lady Haigh is always glad to welcome you at tea.”

“I shall certainly not decline such an invitation in favour of
solitary meals hastily partaken of amongst the specimens,” said Dr
Headlam.

“Then we may consider that settled,” said Sir Dugald. “I think we may
regard ourselves as fairly fortunate in our quarters here. What is
your opinion, Stratford?”

“I think the place is very well adapted for our business, certainly,”
returned Stratford. “The general public will only be admitted to the
outer court, I suppose?”

“Yes; the large room on the ground-floor of your quarters will serve
as our durbar-hall,” said Sir Dugald, “and the attendants of the
Ethiopian officials can remain on the verandah. This inner court must
be sacred to the ladies, so that they may go about unveiled. No
Ethiopian can be allowed to cross the threshold without an invitation,
and only those must be invited who know something of English usages
and will not be shocked by what they see. The raised verandah before
the house will no doubt serve as a drawing-room. What do you think of
the place, North?”

“Good position for defence,” said Dick, meditatively. “You hold the
outer court as long as you can, and then fall back upon the first
block of buildings. When that becomes untenable, you blow it up and
retire upon the second block.”

“Until you have to blow that up too, and yourself with it, I suppose?”
said Sir Dugald. “For the ladies’ sake, I must say I hope we shall not
have to put the defensive capabilities of the house to such a severe
test. Well, gentlemen, we shall meet at dinner. No doubt you will like
to get your things settled a little. Your own servants will be able to
find quarters in your block, but the rest must occupy the buildings
round the outer court.”

When Sir Dugald had thus declared his will the party separated, the
staff proceeding to their quarters in Bachelors’ Buildings, as the
first block was unanimously named, and allotting the rooms among
themselves on the principle of seniority; while the doctor went
house-hunting with the aid of a minor official who had been left in
the outer court to give any help or information that might be needed.
Under his auspices a much smaller house, only separated from the
headquarters of the Mission by a narrow street, was secured, and
hither Dr Headlam removed with his servants and the famous collection.
When the members of the Mission met at dinner they had shaken down
fairly well in their several abodes, and after a little inevitable
grumbling over accustomed luxuries which were here unattainable, they
displayed a disposition to regard the situation with contentment and
the rest of mankind with charity. Sir Dugald noted down certain points
on which it would be necessary to appeal for assistance to the urbane
gentleman who had instituted the party into their habitation, while
Lady Haigh promised help in matters which could be set right by
feminine intuition and a needle and thread, and peace reigned at
headquarters.

It was not until dinner was over and the members of the Mission were
partaking of coffee on the terrace, with the lights of the dining-room
behind mingling incongruously with the moonlight around them and
outshining the twinkling lamps visible here and there in the loftier
habitations outside the walls of the house, that an interruption
occurred, and the quiet was broken by the entrance of Chanda Lal, Sir
Dugald’s bearer, with a visiting-card, which he handed to his master
on a tray.

“What’s this, bearer?” asked Sir Dugald, impatiently.

“Highness, the sahib bade me bring it to you.”

“The sahib? Here? In Kubbet-ul-Haj? Who is he? What is he doing here?”
Sir Dugald’s brow was darkening ominously.

“Highness, I know not. I said that the _burra sahib_ received no
visitors this evening, and the sahib said, ‘Take this to your _burra
sahib_, and tell him that my name is Heekis, and that I wish to see
him.’”

“‘Elkanah B. Hicks. “Empire City Crier,”’” read Sir Dugald from the
card in his hand in a tone of stupefaction. “In the name of all that
is abominable!” he cried, with lively disgust, “it’s a newspaper
correspondent, and an American at that, and here before us!”

“I know the name,” said Stratford. “Hicks was the ‘Crier’
correspondent who made himself so prominent over the Thracian
business. He was arrested and conducted to the frontier while the
second revolution was going on.”

“The very worst kind of busybody!” said Sir Dugald, wrathfully. “I
only wish that Drakovics had shot him when he had him safe. What does
he mean by poking himself in here?”

“He is in search of marketable ‘copy,’ without a doubt,” said
Stratford, “and he is taking the most direct way to get it. He has a
fancy for talking and behaving like a sort of semi-civilised Artemus
Ward, which takes in a good many people; but he is considered about
the smartest man on the ‘Crier’ staff, and that is saying a good
deal.”

“Whatever his fancies may be,” growled Sir Dugald, “I don’t see that
they are any excuse for the man’s thrusting himself upon me out of
business hours without the ghost of an introduction.”

“Still, dear,” said Lady Haigh, “we had better have him in and be
friendly to him. In a place like this white people are bound to hang
together, and I dare say we shall find him very pleasant.”

“Bring the sahib in,” said Sir Dugald, shortly, to Chanda Lal,
adopting his wife’s pacific suggestion, but without any lightening of
countenance; and presently the bearer ushered in a lank, sallow man,
rather over middle age, with a straggling lightish beard, and hair
that seemed to stand somewhat in need of the scissors. As Fitz said
afterwards, if he had only worn striped trousers and a starred
waistcoat, Mr Hicks would have represented to the life the Brother
Jonathan of American, not English, caricaturists. Sir Dugald received
his visitor with frigid politeness, and the staff, taking their cue
from him, did the same; but Mr Hicks appeared to feel no
embarrassment, although the tender hearts of Lady Haigh and Georgia
were moved to pity on his account. He was duly supplied with coffee;
and when Georgia had passed him a plate of cakes he stretched his long
limbs comfortably as he reclined in a cane chair and beamed upon the
party.

“It makes one feel real high-toned,” he said, slowly, “to be waited
upon out here at the back of creation by two lovely and cultured
daughters of Albion.”

Sir Dugald gave him a stony glance in reply; while the younger men,
uncertain whether the remark was to be considered as due to deliberate
rudeness or to ignorance, wavered between amusement and indignation.
Lady Haigh answered pleasantly but coldly--

“We are not accustomed to be treated to quite such elaborate
compliments, Mr Hicks; but no doubt American manners differ from ours.
So I have always understood, at least.”

“You bet they do, ma’am!” was Mr Hicks’ reply, delivered with almost
startling emphasis. “When your nigger let me in just now, and the
General there stepped forward and said, ‘Mr Hicks, I presume?’ hanged
if I didn’t think I had got into a Belgravian drawing-room, or into
Central Africa with Stanley, instead of finding a party of civilised
white people in the midst of Ethiopia! I guess I’m not cut out for
shows of this kind, any way.”

“You prefer a European post, perhaps?” suggested Stratford, as Sir
Dugald remained silent.

“You may consider that proved, sir, some! I can fly around with any
man in a civilised country, and back myself to send home more ‘copy’
than the paper can use; but I was a fool to cable back ‘Done!’ when
the Editor wired, ‘Can you start for Ethiopia next week, and keep an
eye on this Mission business?’ Set me down in a telegraph bureau, with
a dozen newspaper men there before me and only one wire, and I’ll bet
you my bottom dollar that my despatch will go over that wire before
any of the other fellows’; but when it comes to organising a
dromedary-service to carry my ‘copy’ week by week, it makes me tired
of life.”

“If you find it so hard to send your letters, how did you surmount the
difficulties of getting up here yourself?” asked Sir Dugald, with a
faint appearance of interest.

“I must confess to getting along by taking your name in vain,
General,” returned Mr Hicks, easily. “I travelled around for a week or
two in Khemistan, just to throw your frontier people off the scent and
to make friends with some of the natives. They smuggled me across into
Ethiopia in disguise, and I told the people here that I was sent out
to write about the Mission and note how it was received, which was
quite true. Consequently I was taken everywhere for an emissary of
your Government, which has smoothed the way for me considerably. I
guess it will gratify you to know that your name was a passport most
everywhere.”

“Having heard you were a newspaper correspondent,” said Sir Dugald, “I
might have guessed what your methods would be.”

“We military people,” said Lady Haigh, again interposing as
peacemaker, “have an odd prejudice against special correspondents, Mr
Hicks. It is awkward, but you must be kind enough to excuse it.”

“It’s nothing to what I should feel if I was in the General’s place,
ma’am,” said Mr Hicks, affably. “I wouldn’t have one in my camp for
any money. They might pillory me throughout the Press of the Union,
but so long as I kept them off I should smile. Now, General, after
that handsome acknowledgment, I hope we are friends?”

 [image: images/img_03.jpg
 caption:
 “It’s nothing to what I should feel if I was in the General’s place,
 ma’am,” said Mr Hicks, affably.]

“I hope so,” returned Sir Dugald, still unsoftened.

“I should like to do a deal with you, General,” continued Mr Hicks.
“If you could spare me a minute or two alone, I think I could convince
you that we have interests in common.”

“Work is over at this time of night,” said Sir Dugald, icily. “If I
can be of service to you in any little difficulty with the authorities
here, or with regard to the postal arrangements, I shall be happy to
see you in the morning. My office hours begin at six.”

“Do you wish to name any special time, General?”

“By no means, Mr Hicks.” Sir Dugald fixed a blank uncomprehending gaze
on the American’s face. “It is my duty to support the interests of the
subjects of friendly powers wherever I can, and I hope you will attend
to state your case at the time most convenient to yourself.”

“I guess you don’t understand me, General. I can fix my own affairs,
thank you. What I want is to arrange a trade. You give me what I want,
and I give you what you want, do you see? I should prefer to speak to
you in private as to the exact terms.”

“Any proposal you have to make to me must be uttered in the presence
of these gentlemen, if you please.”

Mr Hicks laughed uneasily.

“Well, your way of doing business licks Wall Street,” he said. “What I
have to say is, you give me the information I may need as to the plans
and intentions of your Government, and I will give you some pieces of
news without which you will do nothing here.”

“You are an accredited agent of the United States Government?” asked
Sir Dugald.

“Not at all, sir. I represent the ‘Empire City Crier.’”

“And I represent her Britannic Majesty. I regret that the ‘deal’ to
which you have referred cannot come off.”

“Then your Mission will be a failure, General.”

“Pardon me, but that is no concern of yours.”

“Well, you are the first man I ever knew bring a wife and daughter
into a place like this on such an almighty poor chance. I don’t know
what you think, gentlemen”--Mr Hicks wheeled round in his chair and
glanced at the rest of the party--“but I say--and I know something
about this place--that you have a precious small hope of getting out
of Kubbet-ul-Haj with your lives if your Mission does fail.”

“You really must excuse my staff from commenting on your interesting
piece of information, Mr Hicks,” said Sir Dugald, smoothly; “but they
are not accustomed to be set up as a court of appeal over me.”

“May I ask, General, whether you know why Fath-ud-Din, the Grand
Vizier, did not ride out to welcome you to-day?”

“I believe he was ill,” said Sir Dugald, stifling a yawn.

“He was so sick that he was riding past my house to the bath at the
moment you were entering the city on the other side.”

“I don’t quite see,” said Dick, “why a piece of bad manners on
Fath-ud-Din’s part should be such a fearful omen for us.”

“I guess you think yourself dreadful smart, Colonel,” returned Mr
Hicks; “but you soldier officers are a bit too cute sometimes. Old
Fath-ud-Din is a bad crowd generally, and he means mischief. Leaving
him out of account, what do you think has happened to your friend the
Crown Prince, Rustam Khan? Has he dropped in on you here yet?”

“Scarcely,” said Dick. “We have not arrived so very long, you know.”

“That is so.” Mr Hicks disregarded the sarcasm implied in the words.
“But I know something of that young man, and I can tell you he would
have been around here like greased lightning if he had had the chance.
He was afraid of losing his scalp if he attempted it. The fact is, you
gentlemen are behind the times.”

“Ah, but we’ll be truly grateful if you’ll enlighten us a little,” put
in Fitz, in a most alluring brogue, which he kept for use on special
occasions.

Mr Hicks glanced sharply at Sir Dugald. The slightest sign of interest
or eagerness would have determined him to impart no information except
at a price, but the look of repressed weariness which was just visible
in the half-light served to pique the American into doing his best to
surprise and startle his bored and scornful host. He leant back in his
chair with his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat pockets.

“We think we are pretty slick in fixing things out West,” he said,
“but they have by no means a bad notion of history-making out here.
When it was arranged that your Mission should start, General, Rustam
Khan was in high favour with his father, old Fath-ud-Din was biting
his nails in disgrace, and the people were all in love with the
English. But we have had a Palace revolution since then. The King’s
second wife (she is Fath-ud-Din’s sister, and they all hang together)
gave her husband one of her slave-girls, the prettiest she could pick
up anywhere, and that brought her into high favour, and all her
relations with her. She is young Antar Khan’s mother, and he is prime
favourite now, while Rustam Khan and his mother, the King’s first
wife, are nowhere. Curious what little things bring about these big
changes, isn’t it?”

“The details of these Palace scandals are scarcely edifying,” remarked
Sir Dugald, to whom Mr Hicks had all along been addressing himself.

“Probably not, General; but they are often important, and there is an
outside circumstance that complicates this one. From your point of
view it was slightly unfortunate that an envoy should turn up a week
or two ago with presents and offers of alliance from Scythia and
Neustria. I guess those two States are hunting in couples. It’s not
the first time they’ve done it, and they generally make a good thing
out of it. Does this alter your way of looking at things at all,
General?”

“Not at all,” returned Sir Dugald, placidly.

“Now come, General,” said Mr Hicks, leaning forward and extending a
long forefinger to tap Sir Dugald on the knee, “you and I are both
white men. We understand each other. I can put you up to circumventing
this Scythian cuss if you will only show an accommodating spirit.”

“Really,” said Sir Dugald, “I am deeply obliged; but until her Majesty
is pleased to appoint me a colleague I have an invincible objection to
sharing my duties with any one. I cannot sufficiently admire your
disinterested and public-spirited offer of co-operation, Mr Hicks, but
this prejudice of mine--foolish and incomprehensible as it must no
doubt appear to you--prevents my accepting it.”

“Think of your reputation, General,” urged Mr Hicks, sadly. “I give
you my word I had sooner write the story of a successful mission than
an unsuccessful one any day. We newspaper men have a way of finding
out things which you diplomatic gentlemen never hear of, and I can
help you through with your work and cover you with glory as well.
You’ll take it?”

“No, thank you,” returned Sir Dugald. “It is all prejudice, of course,
but somehow I had rather not.”

“There are just a few people left in the world who prefer honour to
glory,” cried Georgia her eyes flashing.

“What an unkind remark, Miss Keeling!” said Sir Dugald. “You will
really wound my feelings if you impute motives to me in that reckless
way. Well, Mr Hicks, I hope we shall see more of you. Lady Haigh is
always at home on Friday afternoons, and if you care to drop in to
tiffin any day we shall be delighted to see you.”

Mr Hicks had not been intending to depart so early, but at this
intimation he rose reluctantly and took his leave. North and Stratford
escorted him to the door, and when they had returned to the terrace a
sense of constraint seemed to fall upon those present. Sir Dugald’s
impassive face told nothing, and his eyes were fixed on a distant
point of light in the city. He was the only one of the party who
recognised the full importance of the piece of news which had just
been announced, but all perceived more or less distinctly that the
enterprise on which they were bound had received a check. It was
Georgia who broke the silence at last.

“Sir Dugald,” she said, boldly, “won’t you say something? We couldn’t
help being here and hearing what that man said, and we should like to
know what you really think, just to hear what we have to expect.”

“I have never pretended to be a prophet,” said Sir Dugald, looking
round with a half-smile, “and I fear I am not much in the habit of
stating publicly what I really think. Still, after what has happened
to-night, I will say that our task is certainly very much complicated
by what our American friend has told us, though I see no reason for
wailing over it as impossible. Palace revolutions are tolerably
frequent in these countries, and Rustam Khan may be in favour again
to-morrow. Of course the news about the Scythian agent is bad, but we
do not hear that any treaty has been concluded, and we are now on the
spot. If the people are reasonably well affected towards us, or are
even keeping an open mind, the advantages we can offer ought to
convince them that it is to their interest to make friends of us. They
appeared friendly enough this morning.”

“Hicks told us at the door,” said Dick, “that the King and his Amirs
were very much divided in opinion, some of them advocating the
alliance with us, some that with Scythia, and others that the old
position of isolation should be maintained. The worst of them, he
says, is an old fellow called the Amir Jahan Beg, who is Rustam Khan’s
father-in-law. ‘He is the deadest-headed old reactionary I ever saw,’
Hicks said. ‘All the other fellows turn round in the street to look
after me and show a little interest, but this old cuss rides right on
and takes no notice. The other day I sent my servant to negotiate an
interview, and all the answer I got was that the door was shut.’”

“Rather good, that, for Jahan Beg,” remarked Stratford.

“But if he is Rustam Khan’s father-in-law he may persuade him to take
sides against us,” said Dr Headlam.

“We can do nothing until we see how the land lies,” said Sir Dugald.
“To-morrow, when the King receives us for the first time, we shall get
some idea of his attitude towards us, and we can take steps
accordingly. There is only one thing that I must specially impress
upon you, gentlemen: be careful when you are in company with Hicks.
Even after his failure to-night I haven’t a doubt that we shall see a
good deal of him. I invited him to come here now and then because I
thought we should be acquainted with his movements occasionally, at
any rate, and he accepted the invitation as likely to give him a means
of finding out what we are doing. Of course he will bribe the servants
here and at the Palace to bring him news; but he will certainly not
neglect us. Therefore be careful what you say. I don’t want to
misjudge the man, but he might not be above the temptation of taking
steps to secure the fulfilment of his prophecy as to the failure of
the Mission. In any case he might do a great deal of harm by sending
home exaggerated or distorted reports of what had actually occurred.
General conversation is the safest--no private talks. I would not
answer even for you, Stratford, in the hands of a ‘Crier’ interviewer,
although you are a past-master in the art of mystification. Even if
you said nothing, that is not necessarily a barrier to his crediting
you with a long oration. There is safety in numbers, for he could not
derive much political capital from a conversation held in the presence
of the whole Mission. Our policy is to show a united front.”

“If only that wretched man had never come to Kubbet-ul-Haj to spoil
everything!” said Lady Haigh, somewhat ungratefully, it must be
confessed, in view of the information imparted by Mr Hicks.

“Oh, don’t abuse him,” said Sir Dugald. “It is his business.”

 CHAPTER VII.
 THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED.

The day following had been appointed by the King for the state
reception of the Mission, and Sir Dugald and his staff left
headquarters early for the Palace, each man arrayed in the most
gorgeous garments in his possession. The occasion was a purely formal
one, consisting chiefly of the presentation of the different members
of the Mission to the King by name, followed by a little ceremonial
conversation between his Majesty and Sir Dugald. The King’s questions
concerned chiefly the personal and family history of Queen Victoria,
although he was also interested in the past services of the Envoy
himself. It was not considered correct for Sir Dugald to originate any
remarks, when once the courteous messages with which he had been
charged by his Government were delivered, and conversation did not
flow very freely, although, thanks to the necessity for interpreting
everything that was said, the time was fairly well filled up. The King
was obviously ill at ease, asking every now and then sudden questions
as to the object of the Mission, and the intention of the Government
in sending it, with the evident aim of disconcerting Sir Dugald. But
the shrewd dark eyes scanned the face of the Envoy in vain for any
signs of confusion or surprise, and his tranquil and unhurried manner
seemed gradually to disarm the King’s suspicions. For Sir Dugald to
succeed in maintaining his air of careless calm was no slight triumph
under the circumstances, since he noticed many things which assured
him of the correctness of the information given by Mr Hicks. Rustam
Khan was nowhere to be seen; but the little Antar Khan, a boy of about
eleven, robed in bright blue satin and decked with jewels, occupied a
seat at his father’s side, and was allowed to interpolate remarks of
his own into the conversation in a way that showed him to be high in
favour. Moreover, the King made no allusion to the eager request he
had sent to England for a lady doctor who might examine his wife’s
eyes, and it seemed as though Georgia’s journey to Kubbet-ul-Haj would
be useless, since she could not visit the royal harem without an
invitation. The Amirs who stood round the throne appeared interested
in all that passed, but their faces expressed no conspicuously
friendly feeling; while one of their number, whom the staff identified
at once with the Jahan Beg described by Mr Hicks, showed himself
ostentatiously inattentive to all that went on. Still, when the
members of the Mission left the Palace and returned to their
headquarters to reassure the anxious hearts of Lady Haigh and Georgia,
they were able to suggest some reasons for hopefulness. At any rate,
the Mission had been graciously received, and that at once, and the
King seemed to be in a state of suspended judgment, rather than of
settled hostility, while no parade had been made of the presence of
the Scythian envoy in the city.

Once more the party at the Mission met on the terrace after dinner to
discuss coffee and things in general, and once again Chanda Lal
interrupted the harmony of the group. Stratford was in the midst of a
description of some political crisis which had occurred at Czarigrad
during his residence there, when the bearer mounted the steps and made
his way noiselessly to Sir Dugald’s side.

“Highness, in the court there is an old man wrapped in a mantle, who
wishes to see you. He says he is the Amir Jahan Beg.”

Low as were Chanda Lal’s tones, the rest of the party heard the words,
and a thrill of excitement ran through them. Why should this
notoriously anti-foreign ruler come disguised and under cover of night
to see Sir Dugald? Surely the situation promised fresh developments?
But Sir Dugald was neither flattered nor interested.

“This is beyond endurance!” he exclaimed, wrathfully. “It was bad
enough to be disturbed in the evening by that American fellow; but for
a native it is a little too much! The door is shut, bearer.”

“I bring a message to the Queen of England’s Envoy from Rustam Khan,”
said a crisp, penetrating voice in Ethiopian; and the startled hearers
turned to see an elderly man with a grey beard standing on the steps
behind them, his head and shoulders still shrouded in his cloak. “Let
the Envoy bid the servant depart and I will do my errand.”

“You can go, bearer,” said Sir Dugald. “By the bye, we shall want Mr
Kustendjian,” he added, and rose to call back Chanda Lal, but the
stranger stepped before him, and laid a hand upon his arm.

“There is no need of an interpreter,” said Jahan Beg in English.
“Haigh--Dugald Haigh--have you forgotten me?”

“Good heavens!” cried Sir Dugald, stepping back. “Can it be possible?
You are John Bigg--the man who disappeared?”

“Exactly,” said Jahan Beg. “The man who disappeared, and made a nine
days’ wonder for his friends at Tajpur, every one of whom had a
separate discreditable theory to account for his disappearance.”

“That was quite unnecessary,” returned Sir Dugald, “for any one who
knew you and knew Beatrice Wynn.”

“As you did? Well--by the bye, what has become of Beatrice Wynn?”

“Dead, years ago. Typhoid--in Assam somewhere.”

“And for years I have been dead in Ethiopia. Young men”--he turned
suddenly to the staff, who had been endeavouring, with indifferent
success, to get up an interest in conversation among themselves--“let
me give you a warning. Never throw up everything for a woman’s sake.
Never spoil your lives because you have been disappointed in love.
There is not a woman on earth that’s worth it.”

“Present company always excepted, of course,” said Fitz, with a bow to
Lady Haigh and Georgia. Jahan Beg looked at him with a grim smile.

“No woman will ever spoil your life,” he said, “though I don’t
necessarily think the better of you for that. As for the rest of you,
you are beyond the impressionable age, I think. You begin to see that
there is something else to live for besides love. I was twenty-three
when I threw aside as good prospects under the Public Works Department
as a man need want, and cut myself off from my friends and my country,
and all for the sake of a woman who had never cared a scrap for me.
She was only amusing herself with me for a while--it’s a way they
have. I can see now that she painted and dyed, and that she was years
older than I was--she was a widow--but I didn’t see it then. I thought
her as beautiful as an angel, and as good--heavens! how I did believe
in that woman--and when she married the Commissioner, I chucked
everything and left.”

“Leaving your friends to get your servants brought into court on
suspicion of having made away with you, and your enemies to look for
discrepancies in your accounts,” said Sir Dugald.

“It was all a long time ago; but I hope no one was hanged,” said Jahan
Beg.

“No; there was no possible evidence against any of the servants, and
people began to talk of suicide, and to accuse the fair Beatrice under
their breath of driving you to desperation. In self-defence she let it
become known that your last letter to her had talked much of going to
the dogs and of a ruined life, but had contained no threats. Then
public opinion veered round again to a certain extent; but the
Commissioner accepted another post before very long.”

“And for that woman’s sake,” said Jahan Beg, fiercely, “I have lost
everything. It is enough to make a man’s blood boil, Haigh. I am an
alien and a renegade all the rest of my days on account of a woman for
whom I have not now even a kindly thought.”

“We have all made fools of ourselves at one time or another,” said Sir
Dugald, soothingly. “You have paid heavily enough for that madness of
yours, Bigg, and now you can come back with us when we leave this
place and get into the world again.”

“Not quite. I have given hostages to fortune, you see.”

“What? Oh, you have married a native?”

“Yes. My wife is the King’s cousin. She was a widow when I married
her, and very rich--for this part of the world. She showed a slight
disposition to exact a very rigid etiquette at first--expected me not
to sit down in her presence without being invited, and so on, which
might have led to friction if I had not explained my views clearly at
once. We have never quarrelled since, and we never interfere with one
another.”

“You have no children?” asked Lady Haigh.

“I have one daughter. She is married to Rustam Khan.”

“An English girl married to a native?” cried Georgia.

“She is only half English, at any rate.”

“But isn’t Rustam Khan a Mohammedan?”

“Of course; so is she, so is my wife, so am I--in so far as I am
anything. I told you that I was a renegade, and now you know the worst
of me.”

“But how did you find your way here, Bigg?” asked Sir Dugald, while
Georgia was silent in dismay.

“You know I was always fond of disguising myself and going about among
the natives. Well, when I left Tajpur I made up my mind to wander
about for a time as a _fakir_, and at last I got into Khemistan.
Things were not so settled there then as they are now; St George
Keeling was hard at work pacifying the country. I fell among
thieves--that is, among the hillmen--who would not believe me when I
said I was an Englishman, but were afraid to kill me lest it should
turn out to be true after all. They compromised matters by making me a
slave, and gave me a wretched time of it. At last the Ethiopians made
a raid upon their villages, and I was so glad to see the tables turned
that I joined the invaders, and helped them to get possession of the
various strongholds. The hillmen were wiped out, and when the fighting
was over the Ethiopians thought of me. They never imagined I was an
Englishman, and I didn’t tell them. Well--I may as well make a clean
breast of it--they offered me lands, and so on, and a command in their
army if I would turn Mohammedan, thinking that I was an idolater, like
the hillmen, and I had had time to recover a little from the knockdown
blow Beatrice gave me, and life seemed worth living again, and I
consented. It’s a sordid affair enough, you see--just a bartering of
one’s conscience against life and wealth--and it was not worth it. I
have tried it, and I have come to the conclusion that one’s wretched
life is a poor exchange for country and religion. Another warning for
you, young men.”

“Then you rose to power after all?” said Sir Dugald.

“I did. It doesn’t sound a moral arrangement--to any one who only
looks on the surface. My lands lie near the frontier of the Scythian
sphere of influence, and before my day they were always liable to
incursions from the tribes under Scythian protection. I put a stop to
that, and my fame spread. One Ethiopian chief after another made
alliance with me, until I was at the head of a confederation extending
all along that frontier. Then it was that the King acknowledged my
power. Old Fath-ud-Din, who had taken a dislike to me from the very
first, pointed out to him that the position I had built up for myself
was a menace to the throne. Consequently his advice was that I should
be summoned to Court and quietly put out of the way. Fortunately for
me, however, the King took some one else’s advice that time. He knew
that I was the only man that could hold that frontier, and he
preferred to consolidate my power and attach my interests to his own
by offering me his cousin’s hand. I knew better than to refuse, and
from that time I became generally known as the Amir Jahan Beg, one of
the pillars of the state. At least I can say that I have done my best
for my district. The people are better governed there than anywhere
else in the kingdom, and the chiefs under me have taken to copying
some of my ways. That is something, but I can’t pretend that the game
is worth the candle. I used to feel it more than I do now, especially
when my daughter was a child. There was so much that was English about
her that it nearly broke my heart to think of her growing up and
leading the life of an Ethiopian woman. I used to plan to take her
with me and make a dash for liberty through Scythian territory, but it
seemed mean to go away and leave my wife, and I shouldn’t have known
what to do with her if I had got her to come too. Then Rustam Khan,
who was a delicate boy, and pined in the city, came to live with us,
and I grew as fond of him as if he had been my own son. He is the only
person here who knows that I am an Englishman, but I have taught him a
little English, and we talk it together sometimes. When he grew up, he
wished to marry my daughter, and though I knew it would make
Fath-ud-Din and all his crew my open enemies, instead of merely my
ill-wishers, I could not refuse him, for he promised to take no other
wife if I would give her to him.”

“Then is that the origin of the rivalry between Rustam Khan and
Fath-ud-Din?” asked Sir Dugald.

“No, it has merely aggravated it. Rustam Khan is the son of the King’s
first wife, but Antar Khan’s mother, the Vizier’s sister, has royal
blood in her veins through her mother, and no one can decide which of
the two sons has the best right to succeed. Consequently the King
gives them each a turn of favour, and plays them off one against the
other, to prevent either of them from forming a party. Just now, Antar
Khan, which of course means Fath-ud-Din, is uppermost.”

“And that bears seriously on our position here?”

“It does; for Rustam Khan is the strongest advocate of the English
alliance, while Fath-ud-Din, out of pure contrariness, has fanned the
hopes of the Scythians. There is a wretched Jew fellow, supposed to
have been intrusted by the Scythian and Neustrian Governments with a
secret mission, in the town now, but he is kept in the background
until the King has made up his mind about you. Whatever Fath-ud-Din
can do against you he will, you may depend upon that, and he is
all-powerful just now. Rustam Khan finds it advisable to remain at
home and pretend to be ill. He would have come to see you before this
if he had only had himself to please, but he knows that his visit
would be at once represented as part of a plot to dethrone his father
and place himself on the throne. Even I have to be careful. Naturally
I have spoken in favour of the English alliance, and joined with
Rustam Khan in doing all I could to further it, but Fath-ud-Din has
begun to smell a rat. He can’t dream that I am an Englishman, but I
believe he thinks I have been in British territory and brought
dangerous ideas into Ethiopia with me, and he would ruin me if he
could. That is why I am bound, while supporting the object of your
Mission here, to appear indifferent or even hostile to yourselves
personally, and why I dare not be seen coming to your house. There is
a horrible Yankee journalist about the place--have you come across him
yet?--who tried to draw me, but I put on the very haughtiest oriental
airs, and sent him away with a flea in his ear. I dare say he means me
no harm personally, but I know he is very thick with Fath-ud-Din, and
that is enough for me. He has not got much change out of Jahan Beg.”

“Mr Hicks has already presented himself here,” said Sir Dugald. “What
with him, and Fath-ud-Din, and the Neustro-Scythian agent, and your
precarious position in the country, Bigg, it would appear to a Western
mind that our prospects of success were rather cloudy.”

“I will do what I can to help you,” returned Jahan Beg; “secretly, of
course. In public you must expect to find me slightly troublesome in
weighing your proposals, and rigid in exacting the full pound of flesh
and an ounce or two extra; but such hints as I can give you privately
I will. Don’t tell me what your instructions are; I don’t want to know
them. I only say, don’t insist on the reception of a permanent British
resident with an escort at Kubbet-ul-Haj, for you won’t get it, and
you will be playing into the hands of Scythia. The Jew agent has
assured the King already that you are sure to make that demand, and
that such an arrangement would be the first step towards annexing the
kingdom. If you must be represented here, stand out for a
Consul-General at Iskandarbagh, the big town you passed just after
crossing the frontier, with a native _Vakil_ at the capital. Then
don’t demand any territory. The Scythians have damaged their case
already by hinting at a rectification of frontier. A reciprocal
commercial treaty you are empowered to conclude, I suppose; but you
must agree that no foreigner shall enter Ethiopia without the King’s
passport. There will be difficulties, too, about the legal status of
foreigners----”

“Excuse me, Bigg, but would you not prefer to discuss these things
with me in the office? They are a little technical to form an evening
entertainment for the ladies. Mr Stratford, perhaps you will kindly
accompany us?”

“The ladies must excuse me, remembering that it is a long-desired
relief to talk English once more to any one who can understand it
properly. You have not presented me to your wife, Haigh.”

Sir Dugald performed the ceremony briefly, and then introduced the
guest to Georgia, explaining that she was St George Keeling’s
daughter.

“And you are the lady doctor?” said Jahan Beg. “I have one thing to
ask of you, Miss Keeling. It is possible that at the Palace you may
see my daughter, Nur Jahan, Rustam Khan’s wife. Have pity upon her,
and don’t make her discontented with her life. She must stay here all
her days, and she is happy with her husband and her baby. You need not
describe to her English life and the Christian position of women, and
all those other luxuries of civilisation of which you are the
culminating product, need you? It could do no possible good, and it
certainly would do a great deal of harm, for things of that kind are
absolutely unattainable here.”

“I will try not to put new ideas into her head, if they would only
make her unhappy,” said Georgia, rather doubtfully; “but surely you
have told her about England?”

“I have told her nothing. ‘Where ignorance is bliss’--you know the
rest. Although I have married her to a Mohammedan--and roused your
indignation by doing so--I did what I could to keep her happy as his
wife. She does not know that I am an Englishman, and I have never even
taught her English; although for years I used to hold long
conversations with myself or with imaginary friends when I was alone,
that I might not forget my own language.”

And Jahan Beg went on his way, leaving Georgia oppressed with a
sense--which was by no means new to her, but had never made itself
felt so clearly as to-night--of the complexity of life. She sat
looking out over the Moslem city, and pondering the various problems
which the Amir’s words had started in her mind, while Lady Haigh and
Fitz settled down to a game of halma, and North carried off Dr Headlam
to show him a new kind of locust, which one of the servants had caught
and brought to him. The doctor welcomed the discovery with rapture,
and conveyed the insect in triumph to his own quarters, while Dick
returned to the terrace. Georgia turned to him impulsively as he
mounted the steps close beside her.

“What is your opinion of compromises? Can they ever be morally
justifiable?”

Now it was more than a month since Dick and Georgia had exchanged any
conversation but the merest commonplaces, and Dick was so well
satisfied with this state of affairs as to vow to himself every day
that he would take care their acquaintance remained on this somewhat
restricted footing for the future. Yet although he felt that Georgia
had not intentionally appealed to him in preference to any one else,
and would have attacked Sir Dugald or Stratford on the subject, if
either of them had appeared at the moment, as readily as himself, he
sat down near her, and hastily collected his views on the question of
compromise.

“It rather depends upon the nature of the compromises, doesn’t it?” he
asked--“whether they refer to essentials or non-essentials, I mean.
For instance, one’s whole existence is a series of compromises.”

“In the sense in which all social life is a compromise between the
demands of the individual and those of the race?” said Georgia. “Yes,
but those refer to non-essentials, of course.”

“Non-essentials to the race now; but I dare say they seemed essential
enough to the individual at one time. For instance, in the district in
India in which I served first, the natives thought it essential to
offer human sacrifices every year. Their crops depended upon it, they
said. But we have taught them otherwise, and now they compromise
matters by sacrificing goats.”

“But that was not really an essential matter; it was only that they
thought it so. What I want to know is, how can one tell, in questions
of right and wrong, where conciliation ends and compromise begins?”

“That is the office of all great leaders and statesmen, I suppose; to
point out a path which shall conciliate as many people, and compromise
as few principles, as possible. On the whole, the world is on the side
of compromise, I think--when it is called conciliation. The people who
object to both the name and the reality generally become martyrs.”

“Martyrs!” said Georgia, slowly. “It is easy enough to say the word;
but think what it means!”

“Ah! I see that it is our friend Jahan Beg’s story which has awakened
your sudden interest in compromises.”

“Not exactly his story, but what he said to me. It made me wonder
whether I had done right in coming here. Perhaps you don’t know that
when I agreed to come it was expressly stipulated that I was to make
no attempt to introduce Christianity into the King’s household?”

“That seems a very obvious and necessary precaution,” said Dick,
delighted to find Georgia talking to him so frankly. “You could do no
good, as Jahan Beg said; but you might do a great deal of harm, both
to the poor women and to the Mission.”

“But it almost seems to me that I was wrong in reasoning in that way.
It is like hiding one’s colours--nearly as bad as doing evil that good
may come.”

“Not doing evil, surely, Miss Keeling? As a medical missionary, half
your work is concerned with the bodies of your patients. You can do
that half still, and you are not forbidden to answer questions if the
ladies ask them.”

“But I know they won’t ask me questions of that kind. My Khemistan
experiences have shown me that they will only talk about the merest
trivialities, or else ask me for poisons.”

“Then it can’t be your fault. At any rate, you will make friends with
the ladies, and perhaps the memory of your visit may prepare the way
for a regular missionary when the country is opened up later on,”
suggested Dick, the fluency of his reasoning astonishing himself.

“I am afraid I looked upon Kubbet-ul-Haj too much as a stepping-stone
to Khemistan. I thought perhaps the Government might allow me to
settle on the frontier and practise there if I accomplished this
business successfully.”

“Well, do you know, I think that was rather a good idea, Miss Keeling.
You might even itinerate into Ethiopia if the King was well-disposed
towards you, and there could be no mistake as to your status then. But
you are not thinking of refusing to treat the poor Queen now that you
are here, and leaving her to go on suffering until a lady doctor with
a more elastic conscience can be sent out?”

“No, of course not; it would be cruel as well as absurd. Besides, it
would be breaking my word. But don’t you ever feel puzzled about your
duty, Major North, or afraid that in some particular case you may have
acted wrongly?”

“I don’t think so,” returned Dick, meditatively. “Not that I am a very
good judge, for things have always been pretty clear for me. I have
been under orders a good deal, you know, and then my only business was
to obey, and when you are thrown on your own responsibility, you only
try to do your duty, and act on the square. You know your father’s
motto, Miss Keeling? Two or three of his Khemistan men have told me
that he gave it to them when they began to work under him. This was
the way it usually went: ‘You are here for the honour of your country
and the good of the natives,’ he would say when they joined. ‘Never
desert a friend, never disown an agent, never deceive an enemy. You
will go on duty to-morrow, and may God bless you.’ I wish I had known
him. It is a distinction to have served under such a man.”

“Highness,” said a voice at Dick’s elbow, before Georgia could answer,
and they both turned to see Chanda Lal, who had mounted the steps
noiselessly with his bare feet, standing beside them, “there is
another old man in the court, wrapped up in a mantle, and he says he
is the Grand Vizier, Fath-ud-Din. He asks to see the _burra sahib_,
and he will not be turned away.”

“Good gracious!” cried Dick. “We shall have all Kubbet-ul-Haj here
before long. It only wants the King and Rustam Khan to make things
lively. But if Fath-ud-Din meets Jahan Beg, there’ll be murder done.
Miss Keeling, while I go and parley with this old wretch, do you mind
warning the Chief to get rid of Jahan Beg? I shouldn’t wonder if we
have to let him down through a window into the street behind, for it
won’t do for him to pass through the courtyard.”

He ran down the steps, and Georgia hurried to Sir Dugald’s private
office, where she found him in earnest confabulation with Jahan Beg.
The state of affairs was quickly explained, and Stratford hastened the
visitor away to the back of the house. Here, when the new-comer was
safely closeted with Sir Dugald, Dick joined him, and together they
succeeded in letting Jahan Beg down into the lane, where he alighted
softly on a convenient rubbish-heap, and whence he made the best of
his way home.

It was not until the rest of the party were thinking of going to bed
that Sir Dugald was able to get rid of his visitor and return to the
terrace. He smiled grimly as he glanced at the expectant faces which
awaited him.

“The worthy Fath-ud-Din has prepared a very pretty little plot,” he
said, “which is meant to remove both Jahan Beg and Rustam Khan from
his path, and we are expected to help.”

“We shall get into trouble,” remarked Lady Haigh, oracularly, “if all
the conspirators in Kubbet-ul-Haj make this house a rendezvous when
they want to plot against one another.”

“We shall,” agreed Sir Dugald; “and it is a mystery to me what these
good people see in our faces that leads them to think we shall be
willing to forward their schemes. I suppose it is only natural that
Bigg should wish to utilise us as a means of getting his son-in-law
acknowledged as heir to the throne; but I did not expect Fath-ud-Din.
It seems that he has for a long time suspected Jahan Beg of being an
Englishman, and the suspicion became a certainty yesterday, owing to
his ostentatious lack of interest in our entry. Jahan Beg thought that
his bearing showed how patriotic an Ethiopian he had become; but
Fath-ud-Din argued that such disregard of such a show could only be
due to his having often seen similar sights before.”

“I hope you taxed Fath-ud-Din with being an Englishman on the same
grounds,” said Lady Haigh.

“Certainly not,” replied Sir Dugald. “You forget that he was ill. His
illness may have been diplomatic and momentary; but it has to be
accepted as a fact. Well, Hicks supplied the next link in the chain.
It seems that Fath-ud-Din granted him the interview which Jahan Beg
refused, and in the course of conversation asked him casually what he
would think if he heard that a solitary Englishman had lived in
Ethiopia disguised for years. Hicks replied, as most men would
naturally do, that he should conclude he had done something which had
made British territory too hot to hold him, and had run away from fear
of the law. That struck Fath-ud-Din as a bright idea, and he came to
tell me of his suspicions, and to suggest that I should invite the
King to give up Jahan Beg as an escaped criminal. He assured me that
he and his party would give me all possible support, which I could
well believe; and he let out that he anticipated that Rustam Khan
would be involved in his father-in-law’s downfall. That would leave
the way clear for Antar Khan, to whom Fath-ud-Din hopes to marry his
daughter. A suitable _bakhshish_ was also understood, and in return
for these various boons, Fath-ud-Din would be good enough to further
the objects of the Mission, and guarantee its success.”

“And I hope you kicked him down the steps?” said Lady Haigh.

“No, Elma; I did not. I should have thought you knew by this time that
my disposition was eminently a peaceful one. I merely told Fath-ud-Din
that I knew of no criminal answering to the description of Jahan Beg,
but that if he could find out what he had done, and it was
sufficiently heinous, I would apply for his extradition with pleasure.
With that he had to be content, which leaves us a breathing-space.”

“I suppose you will be able to get the treaty concluded while he is
hunting about for proofs of Jahan Beg’s guilt?” said Georgia.

“That is what we must hope to do. I was most careful to make
everything hinge on his own efforts. It was necessary to avoid like
poison anything that might sound like offering him help in his quest,
or he would have understood it as a definite pledge to assist him by
fair means or foul to ruin Jahan Beg.”

 CHAPTER VIII.
 EAST MEETS WEST.

In spite of the very moderate encouragement he had received, hope must
have told a flattering tale to the Vizier Fath-ud-Din when he left the
Residency after his interview with Sir Dugald, for it became evident
very soon that the hindrances which had threatened to obstruct the
path of the Mission had suddenly been removed. Rustam Khan was
restored to a measure of his father’s favour and allowed to appear at
Court, besides being permitted to speak in the council on behalf of
the English alliance, while the Neustro-Scythian agent found his
promises received with unconcealed incredulity, and was tantalised
with evasive answers to his demands. Of these changes the party at the
Mission were kept informed both by Jahan Beg and by the Vizier
himself, the latter losing no opportunity of insisting on the
virulence with which his rival was opposing the English proposals, and
the eagerness with which he advised the extortion of every possible
concession. If it had not been for the explanation given behind the
scenes by Jahan Beg himself, it would have been difficult for Sir
Dugald to resist the conclusion, towards which Fath-ud-Din laboured
continually to urge him, that the Amir’s hatred of his native country
was deep-rooted and had a sinister origin; but the Vizier’s object was
so apparent that it was fairly easy to distinguish the embroidery
which he added to the speeches he professed to report. Jahan Beg’s
opposition was all on points of detail, not of principle; and although
he would haggle for hours over the rate of an import duty, or the
terms on which an imaginary passport was to be granted, Sir Dugald
forgave him the worry he caused in consideration of his services in
bringing his colleagues and the King to look at matters from a
business point of view. It was the Ethiopian idea that the King was
the greatest monarch on earth, and that he could settle any trouble
that might arise by the simple expedient of ordering the heads of the
disturbers of the peace to be brought him, and it was difficult at
first to wean the people, and especially the Amirs who formed the
royal council, from this mediæval way of looking at things. In spite
of Jahan Beg’s invaluable help in this respect, however, Sir Dugald
did his best more than once to induce him to abandon his simulated
policy of obstruction and support the Mission heartily, reminding him
that he could not now deceive Fath-ud-Din, who knew him to be an
Englishman. But Jahan Beg remained obdurate, declaring that if his
proceedings did not blind Fath-ud-Din, at least they continued to
deceive the rest of the Amirs, who would at once suspect him of having
been bribed by the English should he appear to be suddenly converted
to a warm interest in the treaty; while the Vizier himself, having
already concealed for some time the fact which had come to his
knowledge, was bound still to keep it secret, lest he should be
punished for not revealing it before.

In consequence of Jahan Beg’s educational work, and Fath-ud-Din’s
unexpected complaisance, Sir Dugald and the staff betook themselves
day after day to the Palace, and were conducted at once to the King’s
hall of audience. Here seats of rather an uncomfortable and
nondescript character were arranged for them, for the camp-chairs they
had brought with them were the only chairs in Kubbet-ul-Haj, or
possibly in all Ethiopia, and a laboured conversation took place. When
the King had satisfied a portion of his curiosity respecting men and
things in England and Khemistan, Sir Dugald would contrive to lead the
talk round to the more important matters in hand, and in this way the
various clauses of the proposed treaty were discussed in turn, notes
of the proceedings being taken in Ethiopian by the King’s scribe and
the interpreter Kustendjian, and in English by Fitz Anstruther. When
the Englishmen had taken their departure, the points touched upon
would be discussed afresh by the King and the Amirs, and if no
satisfactory conclusion had been reached, they reappeared the next
morning with great regularity, while if all was well, the discussion
moved on to a fresh stage.

In this way time passed not unpleasantly, varied with a certain amount
of incident, so far as regarded Sir Dugald and his staff; but for the
ladies it was at first very different. True, they had their own
terrace, where they could go about unveiled, and their own courtyard
in which to take exercise. When Georgia was in a cheerful frame of
mind she called this court her quarter-deck; when she was feeling
depressed she alluded to it as her prison-yard,--and here she paced
along during the cooler hours of each day until Sir Dugald told her
that her feet would wear a path in the stones. Sometimes, when public
business prevented the King from receiving the Mission, its members
would escort the ladies for a ride, but it was necessary to choose
secluded tracks for these excursions, since public opinion in
Kubbet-ul-Haj did not permit women to ride with men, unless simply for
protection on a journey.

But when the Mission had spent about a month in the city, there came a
change for Georgia. By way of propitiating Sir Dugald, who was
beginning to wax exceedingly wrathful over the King’s ostentatious
forgetfulness of the urgent request he had made for a lady doctor,
Fath-ud-Din ventured to remind his august master of Miss Keeling’s
existence, and her presence at his desire in Kubbet-ul-Haj. The King
happened to be in a good temper at the moment, or perhaps his
conscience had been pricking him for his neglect of Rustam Khan’s
unfortunate mother, and the result of the reminder was the arrival at
the Mission one morning of a covered litter carried by four men, and
accompanied by an escort of cavalry, at the head of which rode a
gorgeous negro, who brought the intimation that the doctor lady was
requested to wait on the Queen.

That was only the first of many days on which Georgia ensconced
herself in the litter with her maid Rahah, and with the curtains
closely drawn was borne off to the Palace. A very short preliminary
examination convinced her that the Queen was suffering from cataract
in both eyes, and that an operation was absolutely necessary. But the
matter did not appear by any means of so simple a character to the
dwellers in the harem. Even when, with the aid of the Khemistani girl,
Georgia had succeeded in getting things explained, in highly
colloquial Ethiopian, to the Queen and her attendants, she found that
they all shrank with horror from the idea of the operation. It was not
merely that they distrusted herself, as an alien both in race and
religion, but they were strongly of the opinion that whereas the use
of any amount of medicine, the nastier the better, was lawful in cases
of disease, the employment of the knife to give relief was a
blasphemous interference with the designs of Providence. In vain
Georgia told of the wonderful instances of recovery, following on
operations such as she intended to perform, which had come within her
own experience; it was Rahah who at last placed the question before
the Queen in a way that appealed to her. Whatever happened was
incontrovertibly due to the decrees of fate: if it was fated that the
Queen should be blind, blind she would continue to be; but if the
operation proved successful, it would be clear evidence that she was
not fated to be blind. Influenced by Rahah’s logic, the Queen
consented, with great reluctance, to allow the matter to be referred
to her husband; and the next day Georgia, with Rahah as interpreter,
held a colloquy on the subject with the King, through a grating which
effectually precluded either party from gaining a glimpse of the
other. The King was not so easily moved by Rahah’s eloquence as his
wife had been, but eventually a compromise was agreed upon. It was
evident to Georgia that, owing both to fright and to the sorrows of
the past few months, the Queen was in no state for the operation to be
performed at present. Some delay was therefore inevitable, and the
King was at last brought to consent to the trial of the plan, if a
week or two of careful diet and nursing, together with cheerful
society and the blessing of hopefulness, should prove to have a
beneficial effect on the patient’s general health.

It seemed to Georgia that, in view of the state of things in the
Palace, each portion of the prescription was more unattainable than
the rest; but after two or three days of vain endeavours to instruct
the shiftless harem servants in the arts of nursing and of invalid
cookery, and to restore tone to the mind of the poor Queen, weakened
and saddened as it was by years of sorrow, she found a new ally at her
side. Coming into the Queen’s room one day, she saw seated on the
divan a tall girl with a fresh English face, blue-eyed and
fair-haired, holding a closely-swathed baby in her arms. Although the
stranger wore the Ethiopian dress, Georgia would have greeted her at
once as a fellow-countrywoman, if she had not turned and stared at her
with undisguised interest and pleasure, saying something in Ethiopian
to the Queen. Then a great pang of pity seized Georgia’s heart, for
she knew that the English girl before her must be Nur Jahan, Jahan
Beg’s daughter and Rustam Khan’s wife.

Remembering her promise to Nur Jahan’s father, however, Georgia
composed her face and took her usual seat beside her patient. The
Queen was so much more cheerful this morning, that it was evident she
enjoyed the presence of her daughter-in-law and grandson; and after a
while, to Georgia’s delight, she brightened visibly at Nur Jahan’s
suggestion that, when the operation had been successfully performed,
she would be able to see the baby. When the medical examination was
over, the young wife felt herself at liberty to talk, and Georgia
learnt that, although she had now come for a few days to the Palace
solely for the purpose of cheering her mother-in-law, she had not
quitted it very long. When Rustam Khan fell into disfavour, he had put
his wife and her week-old baby under his mother’s protection at once,
fearing that neither his house nor that of Jahan Beg would be safe
from the rabble of the city, who were warm partisans of Fath-ud-Din.
With high glee, Nur Jahan narrated how her husband had come to visit
her in secret, always at hours when the King was not likely to enter
the harem, disguised sometimes as a woman and sometimes as a negro, in
order to escape the Vizier’s spies; and how once he had actually met
his father outside the Queen’s door, but stepping aside respectfully,
had passed him without being recognised under the thick veil. To
Georgia, the possibility of such adventures within the sacred walls of
the harem was a new thing, and she enjoyed the gusto with which Nur
Jahan related them. But the Queen thought differently, and began to
moan feebly, as she pulled at the edge of the coverlet.

“Thou art always thus, Nur Jahan,” she said, querulously; “laughing
and rejoicing when thy lord is in peril of his life. An Ethiopian
woman, seeing her husband in such straits, would have shed an ocean of
tears, and refused to be comforted until times had changed; but I have
seen thee, when Rustam Khan had but just gone from thee, planning
eagerly how he should enter the Palace on the next occasion, without
letting fall a tear.”

“But it was that which pleased my lord, O my mother,” said Nur Jahan,
eager to defend herself. “What delight had there been in our meetings,
if I had only sat at his feet and bedewed them with tears? There was
so much to tell, and so much to hear; how could I weep when my lord
was with me? And when he was gone, was it not happier for me to
consider how I might see him again, rather than weep because he could
not be with me still?”

“Go thy ways, Nur Jahan,” said the elder woman, bitterly. “Thou too
wilt one day learn that although the life of all women is sad, that of
a woman who is also a king’s wife is saddest of all. How canst thou
love thy lord as I, his mother, love him? Thine eyes are as bright as
when he married thee, while mine are blind with weeping for him. But
he loves the bright eyes better than the blind ones, and is it to be
wondered at?” and the Queen rocked herself to and fro, and wailed
hopelessly.

“O my mother, wilt thou break my heart?” sobbed Nur Jahan, throwing
herself down beside her. “Can we not both love my lord? I know well
that thy love for him has lasted longer, but must it needs be greater
than mine? My lord’s love is my life, and yet thou wilt not believe it
because I do not always weep when I am sad. O doctor lady, dost thou
not believe that I love my lord?”

“What does the doctor lady know of it?” demanded the Queen. “But thou
art my son’s beloved, Nur Jahan, and for that I love thee also. But I
would thou wert as we are. Thou art of the idolaters through thy
father, and thou dost not grow like us. But thy life is like ours,
and, as years pass on, it will be more and more like mine, and if thou
dost not weep then, what wilt thou do? Those who do not weep go mad.”

It was evident to Georgia that Nur Jahan was comforting herself with
the thought that her husband was very unlike his father, while the
Queen expected that in course of time he would exactly resemble him;
but she saw that the excitement was bad for her patient, and
interposed prosaically, with a suggestion as to the preparation of
beef-tea, which Nur Jahan took up at once, displaying practical powers
which encouraged Georgia to give her a first lesson in home nursing.
But in spite of this cheering fact, Georgia’s heart still ached as she
was carried back to the Mission in her litter, for she could not
forget the contrast between the girlish form of Nur Jahan and the
bowed and broken figure of the old Queen, who seemed so sure that her
daughter-in-law’s life must one day come to resemble her own. But
there was a trait in Nur Jahan’s character which had no part in that
of the Queen, and which would go far to render her lot even
harder--the adventurous spirit which her mother-in-law so bitterly
resented, and which had caused her to find a certain enjoyment in the
shifts and devices to which her husband had been obliged to have
recourse in order to see her.

“Jahan Beg ought to have escaped from the country and brought her to
England, as he thought of doing,” was Georgia’s mental comment. “It is
his spirit she inherits, and it is cruel of him to rest satisfied with
the life to which he has condemned her. She is ready to welcome any
excitement, even of a disagreeable kind, as a relief to the monotony
of her existence. I can see that she is pining for outside interests,
though she doesn’t know it. In a man of English blood this would seem
quite natural and proper to every one, and why should it be different
for a woman? And what a life it is to which she has to look forward!
Even if Rustam Khan keeps his promise and marries no other wife, she
can only spend her days in doing nothing. Nothing to do for husband or
children, in the house or outside, and to be surrounded by a number of
other women as idle as herself! ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a
cycle of Cathay.’ I had rather have my thirty-two years of life than
the poor Queen’s fifty, queen and wife and mother though she is. Her
only advantage in being Queen is that she must not do the little
pieces of work which would have fallen to her in another position. As
a wife she has to share her husband with an indefinite number of other
women, and as a mother she sees her sons treated like Rustam Khan, and
her daughters condemned to the same kind of life as herself. Perhaps
Nur Jahan’s children may inherit enough of her character to enable
them to break the spell; but I am afraid the change won’t come in her
time. The East moves so slowly.”

Since Georgia’s thoughts had been so deeply stirred on this subject,
it was not wonderful that she communicated her views to Dick when they
happened to be talking on the terrace that evening. She felt it a
necessity to share her reflections with some one, and to her surprise
he received them with unwonted meekness.

“Kipling doesn’t agree with you,” was all he said in answer to her
estimate of the probable happiness of the Eastern as compared with
that of the Western woman.

“Kipling!” said Georgia, in high scorn.

“I thought you admired him?”

“So I do. I think he is an excellent authority on men--at least, the
men seem to find it so--but what can he, or any man, know about women?
At best they can only see results and guess at causes. They observe
very carefully all that they can see, and give us the result of their
observations in knowing little remarks, half cynical and half
patronising, and think they have gauged a woman’s nature to its very
depths. Then she does something that throws all their calculations
wrong, and they say that she is shallow and fickle, and, above all,
unwomanly; whereas it is only that either their observations or their
deductions were incorrect.”

“Still,” said Dick, “I am inclined to agree with a very comforting
doctrine I heard you enunciating to Stratford the other night. You
were speaking of the principle of balance, and you said that when one
side of the truth had been exclusively insisted upon for a time the
pendulum swung back and the other side became prominent until it was
the first one’s turn again. I thought it was a very good idea--for the
people who can keep just in the middle. Those who rush to either
extreme must find themselves rather left when the pendulum swings.”

“But what has that to do with our present subject?” asked Georgia.

“It seems to me to apply. You see, the New--I beg your pardon; I know
you dislike the term--the modern female has had rather a long innings
lately. You have often said that you don’t agree with all her
developments, which seems pretty clear proof that she has at any rate
approached the extreme point. Well, Kipling comes to show us the other
side of the matter, exaggerated, perhaps; but that is unavoidable,
owing to the exaggerations on the lady’s part. At least, that is how
it strikes me.”

“North, where are you?” said Stratford, appearing suddenly on the
terrace. “The Chief wants you for something.”

Dick rose and disappeared, with an apology to Georgia, who leaned back
in her chair and smiled.

“He is improving wonderfully,” she said to herself. “Two months ago he
would never have talked as he has to-night. Crushing assertions
without any proof used to be his idea of arguments. He must have taken
a lesson from Mr Stratford. Was he really listening all the time I was
talking to him the other night? He has certainly changed very much,
and I am very glad of it. It would have been most unpleasant if the
only man who could not bring himself to be civil to me was such an old
friend, and Mab’s brother.”

If Mabel could have heard this soliloquy, it is probable that she
would have smiled darkly to herself, and remarked that her dear
Georgie must have been considerably piqued by Dick’s cavalier
behaviour for her to make such a point of having overcome his
opposition to herself. However, there was no one at hand to point out
to Georgia that she felt more satisfaction in one amicable
conversation with her former lover than in all the attentions of
Stratford and the doctor, who entertained no prejudice against medical
women, and always appreciated the honour of a talk with her. It may be
that it was merely the feeling that she had been victorious in
disarming Dick’s hostility which gave such a zest to her intercourse
with him; but if this was so, an incident which occurred a few days
later ought to have cast some additional light upon the subject.

Matters had been going very smoothly at the Palace of late, and Sir
Dugald had the satisfaction of knowing that all the clauses of the
projected treaty had been in substance agreed to. It now only remained
to draw it up in formal shape, and to ratify it by the signatures, or
rather seals, of the contracting parties. While the draughtsmen on
both sides were busy reducing the notes taken during Sir Dugald’s
audiences of the King into suitably involved phraseology, the members
of the Mission enjoyed a short holiday. They made several expeditions
into the districts lying around the city, and one day the King invited
the gentlemen of the party to visit a summer-palace which he had
erected on a spur of the hills some fifteen miles away. Mr Hicks, who
had remained doggedly at his post in spite of the rebuff he had
received, and contrived to glean sufficient news from his talks with
Fath-ud-Din and the gossip of the Mission servants to fill the
requisite number of columns per week for his paper when supplemented
by his own lively imagination, was to be of the party, and the younger
men anticipated some amusement in baffling his insatiable curiosity.
They rode off in high spirits, the outward expression of which was
modified in deference to Sir Dugald, to whom the excursion appeared in
a light which was anything but pleasurable; and Lady Haigh and Georgia
resigned themselves to a long, slow, quiet day. It was not one of the
days on which Georgia visited her patient at the Palace, and therefore
Lady Haigh and she wrote up their diaries with great industry,
compiled several lengthy descriptive letters for the benefit of
friends at home, and filled in odd corners of time with reading and
talking. As the afternoon wore on, Lady Haigh went to remind the cook
to make a particular kind of cake, likely to be appreciated after a
long, dusty ride, for tea, and Georgia was left alone on the terrace.

As she sat there reading, the noise of horses’ feet in the outer court
came to her ears, and she dropped her book, wondering whether the
party had already returned. Presently Fitz Anstruther made his
appearance under the archway which furnished a means of communication
between the two courtyards, and catching sight of Georgia on the
terrace, hurried towards her, followed by Dr Headlam. Fitz had
something in his hand, carefully wrapped up in leaves and tied with
wisps of grass, and as he reached the top of the steps he deposited it
at Georgia’s feet.

“There, Miss Keeling,” he cried, in high delight, “I’ve got a spotted
viper for you, for the collection! He’s a really fine beast; that
measly old specimen the doctor got hold of hasn’t a look-in compared
with him. See him, now,” and he unrolled the wrappings and displayed,
as he said, a remarkably good specimen of the deadliest snake known to
Kubbet-ul-Haj. It was only about twenty-seven inches long, but the
spots, from which the Mission had given it its hopelessly unscientific
name, were unusually brilliant.

“You very nearly had the chance of labelling him as a murderer,” Fitz
went on, holding up the snake’s head and examining its fangs with the
air of a connoisseur. “He reared up suddenly, just behind North, and
had his head stretched out to strike. North was leaning on his elbow
on the cushions, and when he saw all the Ethiopians staring at him as
pale as death, he turned round. There was no time to move away, and he
cut at the thing with his knife and missed. We were eating fruit just
then, all smothered in snow from the hills. Stratford had his revolver
out in a moment, and was going to fire, but I yelled out to him to
stop. I didn’t want the skin spoilt, and I knew that a shot at that
distance would smash the head all to smithereens. I had my riding-crop
handy, and I jumped up and managed to catch the beast such a whack
that it broke his spine or something. Anyhow, he was killed, and I
brought him home all the way on purpose for you, Miss Keeling.”

 [image: images/img_04.jpg
 caption:
 He reared up suddenly, just behind North, and had his head stretched
 out to strike.]

Georgia had turned pale and stepped back a little as Fitz looked up
for her approval. Seeing her hesitation, Dr Headlam interposed.

“It really was very neatly done, Miss Keeling, though it was a risky
thing, both for Anstruther and North. When I saw the crop come down, I
could hardly believe that in his ardour for science Anstruther had not
sacrificed North. It was a frightfully near business.”

“Who cares about North?” Fitz wanted to know. “It’s a jolly good
specimen, Miss Keeling, and your beast is better than the doctor’s, at
any rate. Your collection will take the cake now, I know.”

“Must it be stuffed?” asked Georgia, with unwonted timidity. “I don’t
like it. It--it frightens me.”

“Oh, Miss Keeling!” cried Fitz, deeply wounded. But Dr Headlam
interposed again.

“I should be pleased to stuff it for you, Miss Keeling; but don’t you
think that under the circumstances it would be better to take it home
in spirit? It is a new species, so far as we know, and this is quite
the finest specimen we have come across, so that some toxicologist
might be glad to dissect it. I think we must preserve it in the
interests of science.”

“Oh yes, of course, in the interests of science,” said Georgia,
unsteadily. “It is really very foolish of me to object to it,” she
went on, with a nervous little laugh. “I can stand most creatures, but
snakes are such horrible things. It makes me feel quite queer.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Fitz, moved to compunction. “I never thought
you mightn’t like it, Miss Keeling. I’ll tell my boy to throw the
beast away at once.”

“Oh no, please don’t,” said Georgia, “if Dr Headlam is kind enough to
preserve it. You will keep it over at your house with the rest of the
things, won’t you, doctor? And you mustn’t think I am not pleased with
it, Mr Anstruther. It was most kind and considerate of you to think of
me at such an exciting moment, and I shall value the snake always as a
memorial of your bravery and coolness,” and Georgia rushed away to her
own room, where she threw herself upon the divan and broke into wild
peals of laughter. That Fitz should think of saving the snake’s skin
whole for her when Dick North’s life was at stake! It was too funny!
Georgia laughed till she cried, and Lady Haigh came in and accused her
of going into hysterics--an accusation which was vehemently
denied--and administered cold water and particularly pungent
smelling-salts.

But the snake was duly deposited in a huge bottle of spirit, and, in
common with the rest of the collection, became a prominent object in
Dr Headlam’s waiting-room. It inspired both awe and interest in the
patients, especially after Fitz--who sometimes assisted the doctor in
receiving his visitors--had delivered a lecture on the subject.

“I don’t know when I have laughed so much,” said Dr Headlam, telling
the story after dinner that evening. “I happened to be a little late
in going into the surgery this morning, but when I got near the door I
became aware that Anstruther was improving the shining hour in the
waiting-room. His discourse sounded so interesting that I lay low just
outside and listened. It was delivered in English, helped out with all
the Eastern words he knew, but it was so vividly illustrated by
gestures that it seemed to have no difficulty in penetrating into the
minds of all the patients. ‘These all devils,’ he informed them,
pointing to the bottles of specimens; ‘big devils, little devils, all
shut up safe. See this one?’ he took down the celebrated snake, which
certainly does look rather vicious, coiled up in its bottle. ‘This
snake-devil--ghoul--_jinni_--_shaitan_; you see? This one, eye-devil,’
pointing to that diseased eye which I removed for a man a fortnight
ago, and took such pains to preserve, ‘finger-devil, tongue-devil,’
and so on. ‘Now, you like me to open one of these bottles?’ A
delicious shiver of anticipation went through the audience as he took
down the snake again. ‘You know what will happen if I throw it down?
There will be a great crash, and you will smell the vilest smell you
ever smelt in your lives, and you will see--what you will see, and
_the devil will be loose!_ Now, one, two, three and----’ but they were
all on their knees begging and imploring him not to do it, and I
judged it as well to make my appearance at that juncture.”

“You will have the town-boys raiding your diggings and destroying the
bottles to see what happens when the devil does get loose,” said
Stratford.

“I don’t think so,” returned the doctor. “They are all so frightened
that it is as much as I can do now to get them into the same room with
the collection. It is as good as a watch-dog to me.”

“Anstruther will have to be careful,” said Sir Dugald, with an
approach to a frown. “We don’t want our characters blackened by any
suspicion of dealings with infernal powers. I rather wish you had
broken one of the bottles before them, doctor, to convince them that
it was a joke.”

“Rather it would have convinced them that I was letting out a
pestilence on the country,” said the doctor; “and they would simply
have gone away and died of fright, which would be clear proof that I
was their murderer. I think we are safer with the bottles unbroken.”

“I never like fooling about with supernatural nonsense in these
countries,” said Sir Dugald. “It gives the people a handle, and they
are not likely to be slow in taking it. As we four are alone together,
I may give you a hint that I expect trouble before long. Things have
been going too smoothly of late, and Kustendjian tells me that Hicks
said to him yesterday, ‘Your old man has squared Fath-ud-Din nicely up
to now; but what will he do when the bill comes in? He ought to know
by this time that the man who calls for the drinks pays.’ I cannot
flatter myself, unfortunately, that I have squared Fath-ud-Din; but if
he considers that I have attempted to do it, it is quite on the cards
that he will send in his bill. We can refuse payment, of course; but I
am afraid that will not better our position very much.”

The justice of Sir Dugald’s words was recognised a little later, after
another mysterious evening visit from Fath-ud-Din. The Vizier came to
the Mission because he wished to know when his rival was to be
permanently removed from his path. He had done all in his power to
smooth the progress of the negotiations; but Sir Dugald had made no
attempt to accuse Jahan Beg to the King or to demand his extradition.
The answer was simple. Sir Dugald had declared his readiness to demand
the surrender of Jahan Beg if it could be proved that he was in exile
in consequence of any crime committed on British territory; but not a
vestige of evidence that such was the case had been brought forward,
and it was impossible to extradite him merely for the sake of pleasing
the Grand Vizier. On hearing this, Fath-ud-Din flew into a transport
of rage, and, from the words he let fall in his anger, Sir Dugald
gathered that he had been expected to be prepared with a case against
Jahan Beg, and false witnesses to support it, in return for the
Vizier’s help. This was a little too much even for Sir Dugald’s
self-control, and, in the few minutes that followed, Fath-ud-Din
probably heard a larger number of home-truths, delivered in a cold,
judicial voice that was more effective than any amount of shouting,
than he had ever done before in his life. Baffled and disappointed,
the Minister left the Mission, muttering curses between his teeth, and
was observed by Kustendjian to pause outside and shake his fist at the
building, and to spit towards the flagstaff on which the Union-jack
was wont to be hoisted in the outer courtyard. From which signs the
discerning Armenian inferred, as Mr Hicks had done before him, that
there was trouble brewing.

 CHAPTER IX.
 STRAINED RELATIONS.

On the following morning there was no change to be observed in the
aspect of the Mission. Only the gentlemen of the party were acquainted
with the fact of the Vizier’s sudden declaration of war, and they
shared Sir Dugald’s opinion that it would be bad policy to allow
Fath-ud-Din to see that his threats had any effect upon their minds.
The great gates were therefore opened as usual to allow the customary
throng of country-people and other sellers of fresh provisions to
enter and hold their market in the outer court, and the flag, hoisted
at sunrise, floated proudly from its staff in front of Bachelors’
Buildings.

Fitz Anstruther left the Mission early that morning on an errand of
his own. He had set his heart on getting Miss Keeling a Persian kitten
in the bazaar, and immediately after disposing of his _chota hazri_ he
induced the interpreter to come out with him and assist him in making
his purchase, as, although he had succeeded in making an Ethiopian
audience understand his scientific lecture, he felt a well-grounded
distrust of his own powers of conducting a bargain in the currency of
the country. The absence of the two was soon discovered; but although
Sir Dugald testified some displeasure when he found that Kustendjian
was not at hand to go on with the drafting of the treaty, no anxiety
was felt as to their safety, since none of the staff had hesitated to
walk or ride about the city without an escort after the first week of
their stay there.

It was considered advisable to take no notice of the Vizier’s visit,
and to exhibit a readiness to continue the negotiations as before, and
therefore Sir Dugald and his staff assembled as usual in what was
called the Durbar-hall, a large airy room on the ground-floor of
Bachelors’ Buildings. Here they awaited the appearance either of
Kustendjian or of an emissary from the Palace, Dr Headlam lingering
for a talk before departing to his expectant patients opposite. He had
just heaved a sigh and taken up his helmet, preparatory to seeking his
own domain, when a distant sound, gradually increasing in volume,
broke upon the ears of those in the room. It might have been rolling
thunder, or the roar of wild beasts, or the rush of a torrent; but
there was no reason why it should be any of these. Sir Dugald raised
his head and listened attentively.

“I have heard that in the Mutiny,” he said. “The town is up about
something, and they are coming in this direction. Have you all your
revolvers here, gentlemen?”

Each man produced his weapon promptly, and Sir Dugald led the way out
on the verandah, the whole party holding their breath to listen to the
sound. The servants had noticed it also, and were standing about in
the courtyard with pale faces, listening intently. Some, as the noise
grew nearer, crept back to their own quarters in terror, the rest
gathered in a group and looked to their masters for orders.

“Turn all those Ethiopians out,” said Sir Dugald, pointing to the
salesmen and women who had been exhibiting their wares in the
courtyard, “and shut the gates.”

No further command was needed. The servants obeyed the order
zealously, bundling the unhappy country-people out neck and crop, and
throwing their possessions after them. But before they could clear the
courtyard of the bewildered and terrified crowd there was a fresh
commotion at the gateway, and Fitz forced his way in, followed by
Kustendjian, and rushed up to Sir Dugald.

“There’s a regular howling mob coming this way, sir!” he cried. “We
saw old Fath-ud-Din’s steward, who goes to the Palace with him, and
another man, stirring them up against us in the bazaar, and when we
came away they followed us, and then chased us. They are saying that
we have annexed the country, and that the flag is the sign of it. They
mean to tear it down.”

“Ah!” said Sir Dugald, quietly, stepping down from the verandah. “Put
your revolvers into your pockets, gentlemen; we won’t use them at
present. Fetch your riding-whips, if you please, or a good strong
lithe cane, if you have one, any of you. We will not shed blood unless
we are driven to it.”

The young men rushed to their quarters for the required weapons,
returning to find Sir Dugald standing beside the flagstaff with his
revolver in his hand. The confusion at the gate had been increased by
the arrival of the mob outside, for they found their entrance impeded
not only by the servants who were doing their best to close the doors,
but by the mixed multitude of their own people who were in process of
being expelled. But the piles of merchandise thrown down or dropped in
the gateway made it impossible for the doors to be shut, and Sir
Dugald turned to Fitz.

“Go back to the verandah, Mr Anstruther, and blow your whistle to call
the servants in. Concentrate them in the front rooms on that floor,
and serve out the rifles and ammunition; but, remember, not a shot is
to be fired so long as we are out here. It would be the death of all
of us. If we are driven in we will bring the flag with us; but until
we come, you fire at your peril.”

As Fitz obeyed, and the sound of his whistle rang out clear and
shrill, penetrating even the hubbub at the gate, and causing the
servants to abandon their futile efforts and turn to run to the house,
Sir Dugald addressed his companions.

“Stratford, you are the tallest. Keep your revolver out, and stand by
the flagstaff. Shoot down the first man that lays a hand on the
halliards. No; on second thoughts I will take that post myself. It is
possible that I am a little cooler in the head than you, and it is
certain that you are a good deal stronger of arm than I am. Take your
places in front of the flag, gentlemen; that’s it. Your business is to
let no one pass you. This is not an armed mob; it is just
Fath-ud-Din’s _badmashes_, and sticks and whips ought to keep them
back. I needn’t tell you to lay it on well. Never mind how hard you
hit.”

“Here they come!” said the doctor; and as the last servant broke out
of the crowd by the gate and fled to the house the mob burst in with a
roar. They made straight for the flag, but paused and recoiled at the
sight of the three younger men with their whips, and Sir Dugald,
revolver in hand, leaning idly against the flagstaff.

“Not much pluck in _them_!” muttered Dick, disgustedly; but as though
they had understood the disparaging words, the mob gathered their
courage together and came on again. In a moment the younger men found
themselves engaged in a furious hand-to-hand encounter, in which fists
and whips were opposed to the force of numbers. Fitz declared
afterwards that he could hear over all the din of the struggle the
sound of the blows as they fell, although the howling of those who
received them ought to have drowned the noise. Once or twice Sir
Dugald raised his revolver and let it drop again, for in the whole
course of the short, sharp fight no one actually got within the ring
of defenders, and presently Fitz, exceeding his orders, seized the
psychological instant for a most opportune diversion. Besides rifles,
he had provided the servants with all the sticks he could muster; and
when he saw the mob begin to give way, he led forth half his force to
clear the courtyard. Fear of the defenders plainly visible at the
windows had hitherto kept the space between the flagstaff and the
house free of intruders, and now the sturdy frontiersmen, covered by
the rifles of their friends behind, advanced against the foe, laying
about them as they came with hearty goodwill. Gradually the mob
yielded their ground. Firing they might perhaps have faced, but this
extremely unheroic method of fighting disgusted them with the sport.
As the defenders closed their ranks and pressed the fugitives harder,
the retreat became a rout, nay, a headlong race--an obstacle race--in
which every man was eager to save his back from blows. The last
remnants of the mob struggled through the gateway at last, and the
courtyard was clear, and the honour of the flag maintained, without
the shedding of a drop of blood.

“Clear that rubbish away and close the gates,” said Sir Dugald. “We
will keep them shut in future, and the people must bring their things
to sell in the street outside. That market of theirs nearly did for us
to-day.”

Although the non-arrival of any help from the authorities might have
led to the conclusion that the riot had been inaudible in other parts
of the city, no sooner was it over, and the enemy driven out, than an
official appeared from the King to congratulate the victors--exactly,
said Fitz, as he would have done had the result gone the other way,
save that his congratulations might then have had a little sincerity
in them. But the messenger who came to congratulate went away grave,
for Sir Dugald committed to him a full statement of the morning’s
proceedings, to be laid before the King, with the intimation that
unless apologies were at once offered and the instigators of the
demonstration punished, the negotiations would be broken off forthwith
and the Mission would return to Khemistan. There was no doubt that it
was exceedingly injudicious of Fath-ud-Din to have allowed his
servants to be seen stirring up the mob; and the official, in deep
perplexity, turned over in his mind the relative disadvantages of
offending the Vizier by informing the King of the truth, and on the
other hand, of angering the King if Sir Dugald took his departure, and
the facts which had brought it about became known.

How the messenger settled matters with his conscience was unknown for
the present to the party at the Mission, for the next person they saw
was Mr Hicks, who flew to the spot on the wings of zeal the moment
that the news of the outbreak reached him. Stratford declared that his
countenance expressed deep disappointment when he realised that the
courtyard was not filled with the dead and dying, and that the flag
hung unscathed; but the doctor maintained that he was prejudiced, and
that Mr Hicks had hurried to offer his help in the defence, heedless
of the danger he might incur in meeting the defeated mob. However this
might be, Mr Hicks warmed with enthusiasm when he was told the story
of the morning, and finally advanced to Sir Dugald and grasped him by
the hand.

“General,” he said; “shake! You are a white man, you are. You have
licked that poor ordinary crowd of niggers in a way to earn you the
eternal gratitude of every Western stranger that circumstances may
drive to sojourn in this uncared-for state. But I guess that your
troubles are only beginning, sir.”

“Possibly,” said Sir Dugald, with perfect unconcern.

“Well, if things look black, you have only to pass me the word,
General, and I will vamoose my ranche yonder and come and give you a
hand. I should be right down proud to fight shoulder to shoulder with
the man that turned back that mob without shedding a drop of blood.”

“You are very kind,” said Sir Dugald, with a complete lack of
enthusiasm. “I can assure you that things must go very badly with us
before we seek to involve you in our troubles”--a reply delivered with
so much urbanity that Mr Hicks could not at first decide whether his
offer was accepted or refused.

The next visitor appeared in the course of the afternoon, and was no
other than the Grand Vizier himself. It was evident that the royal
messenger had decided upon telling his master the truth, for
Fath-ud-Din came to offer suitable apologies for the conduct of his
retainers. The steward, he said, was an old family servant, who, owing
to his constant intercourse with his master, had imbibed from him such
exalted ideas of patriotism that on hearing the treaty discussed, and
conceiving it to be unduly advantageous to England, he had felt moved
to stir up the townspeople against it, his religious zeal having also
been inflamed by the memories and hardships incidental to the month of
Ramadan, which had just ended. The other instigator of the outbreak
was a young theological student, a member of a class which was often
unruly and troublesome, and which had great influence with the people.
It was preposterous to imagine that the Vizier could have had any
previous knowledge of the doings of these two fanatics, and he had
come to declare his sorrow that it had been in the power of such
wretches not only to annoy and alarm the Mission, but also to involve
in their disgrace his own spotless name. He had given immediate orders
that they were both to be severely punished, and if Sir Dugald liked,
he would have them brought in and bastinadoed before him, so that he
might assure himself that they had received their deserts. In any case
(as Sir Dugald politely declined the proffered satisfaction for
himself, while intimating that he would send a representative to see
that the punishment was duly carried out), he brought assurances that
the King of all kings felt the deepest regret for the way in which
things had turned out, and entreated that the Envoy would not withdraw
the light of his countenance from Kubbet-ul-Haj, but would overlook
the fright and annoyance which had been caused to the Mission, and
remain in Ethiopia until the treaty had been duly concluded.

“Fright?” said Sir Dugald--for the Vizier had emphasised the word, and
repeated it more than once in different forms--“I saw no particular
signs of fright about our people. What we felt was more like disgust.
Apart from the violation of courtesy and propriety in the attack made
on the flag, it was disagreeably close work down in the court there
with that crowd pressing all round us.”

“Ah, my lord the Envoy is a soldier, and knows not fear, and his young
men are brave also,” replied Fath-ud-Din, stroking his beard; “but the
women--my lord’s household--surely their hearts became as water when
they heard the shouts of the people?”

“This is the first I have heard of it, if they did,” replied Sir
Dugald; “but then, I was not in a position to observe their behaviour.
Mr Anstruther, you were in command at the rear. What were the ladies
doing while the fighting was going on? Was there any fainting or
screaming?”

“Oh no, sir. The ladies were on our roof here, watching the fun.”

“But that was extremely injudicious. If we had been obliged to
evacuate Bachelors’ Buildings, their presence would have added
immensely to our difficulties. You should have ordered them down, and
insisted on their returning to their own quarters.”

“So I did, sir.” There was a gleam of fun in Fitz’s eyes. “I ran up
there myself to insist with greater effect, and they laughed at me. It
was flat mutiny, but I could not spare sufficient men to put them
under arrest.”

“Ah, the women were driven mad by terror. Their feet were weighed down
so that they could not move,” said Fath-ud-Din pityingly, when this
had been translated to him.

“And just at the beginning, sir,” Fitz went on to Sir Dugald, “when
there was that crush in the gateway, Miss Keeling sent her maid down
to ask me whether I couldn’t tell the people not to move about quite
so much, because she wanted to sketch them. That was how I first found
out that Lady Haigh and she were up there; but I didn’t think that the
remark showed a proper sense of the seriousness of the situation. I
assure you that it pained me very much, sir.”

“Just translate that to the Vizier, Mr Kustendjian,” said Sir Dugald,
but again incredulity was written on Fath-ud-Din’s face.

“Surely my lord knows, as I do,” he said, “that the young man is one
of those who delight to laugh at the beards of their elders, and to
utter the thing that is not true, to the confusion of their own
faces?”

“I see that we shall have to convince this gentleman by the evidence
of his own senses,” remarked Sir Dugald, addressing no one in
particular. “Mr Anstruther, would you be kind enough to find out what
the ladies are doing now?”

“They are working on the terrace, sir,” said Fitz, returning, “and the
servants are just bringing in afternoon tea.”

“Very well. Be so good as to ask Lady Haigh to have coffee brought in
as well, and tell her that Fath-ud-Din is coming to pay her a visit.
She and Miss Keeling had better put on those veils of theirs, by the
bye, for we don’t want any more complications introduced into this
business.”

Fitz departed on his errand in high glee, and when a decent interval
had been allowed for the transformation to be effected, Sir Dugald,
after a few preliminary remarks tending to impress Fath-ud-Din with a
sense of the greatness of the honour about to be conferred upon him,
led his guest into the inner courtyard, and up the steps to the
terrace. Here, indeed, there was little sign of panic. There were
books and work about, and Georgia’s sketching materials were visible
in a corner. She herself had the Persian kitten, which Fitz had
brought home in his pocket in the morning, asleep on her lap, while
Lady Haigh was pouring out tea with a hand in which the keenest gaze
could not distinguish the slightest tendency to tremble. The Vizier
looked disappointed--this is putting it mildly, for the young men
agreed afterwards that his expression was fiendish--but he appeared to
be reflecting that the veils in which his hostesses were shrouded
might be serving a useful purpose in concealing the traces of fear,
for presently he turned to Sir Dugald.

“Let not my lord be offended if I entreat him to inquire of his
household whether terror did not seize them this morning,” he said,
meekly enough.

“By no means,” returned Sir Dugald, genially. “Elma, the Vizier would
like to know whether you were frightened when his people were kicking
up that row in the courtyard?”

“Frightened?” snapped Lady Haigh. “What was there to be frightened
about, I should like to know?” The measureless scorn in her eyes and
voice evidently reached Fath-ud-Din in spite of the double barrier of
the foreign language and the _burka_, for he swallowed his cupful of
scalding coffee hastily, and it was necessary to recover him from a
choking fit before he could proceed with his inquiry.

“Then will my lord ask the doctor lady, who has no husband to protect
her with the might of his arm and the power of his name, whether she
was not terrified?” he asked.

“Frightened?” returned Georgia, when the question had been put to her.
“Oh dear, no! I have a revolver. I think,” she added, carelessly,
after a pause to let the information she had just given sink in, “that
it was only the kitten which was frightened. Poor little thing! It was
in a pitiable state when I rescued it from Mr Anstruther’s
coat-pocket.”

“By the head of our lord the King,” burst out Fath-ud-Din, rising
hurriedly, “these are no women, but fighting men!”

“Isn’t it worth your while, then, to strain a point in order to gain
an alliance with a nation that has such women?” asked Sir Dugald,
seizing the opportunity to point a moral.

“Nay, rather,” said the Vizier, retreating to the steps as he spoke,
“what are we doing to admit within our borders a nation whose very
women are of such a temper as this?”

“I’m sure that was the sweetest compliment that the New Woman has ever
received,” said Dick to Georgia, as Sir Dugald, followed by Stratford
and Fitz, escorted his discomfited guest across the courtyard.

“Major North,” said Lady Haigh, briskly, “I consider that you are
distinctly rude to your Chief’s wife. I don’t know whether you mean to
deny me a share in Fath-ud-Din’s pretty speech, or to insinuate that I
am a New Woman; but, in either case, I think that your conduct is
sadly lacking in respect.”

“I don’t think Major North meant to be rude, Lady Haigh,” said
Georgia, playing with the kitten’s tail. “His tongue ran away with
him. It is a habit it has sometimes.”

“I apologise humbly, Lady Haigh,” said Dick. “In any case, what I have
just heard would have forced me to believe that the New Woman was very
like the old one. Now if either you or Miss Keeling would do me the
honour of having the last word, my submission would be complete.”

“The question is,” said Sir Dugald, returning to the tea-table with
Stratford while Lady Haigh and Georgia were still laughing, “what was
it exactly that Fath-ud-Din hoped to gain by this attack on us?”

“Then you don’t think he was trying to wipe out the Mission at one
blow?” asked Stratford.

“No, I don’t, unless he hoped that we should be provoked into firing
on the mob, when the whole country would have risen against us. But I
don’t fancy that was his game. I think he must have been trying to
terrify us into withdrawing from Ethiopia at once, or else into
bribing him largely to get the treaty signed immediately.”

“I think he has received a little enlightenment as to the possibility
of squeezing us,” said Dick, with a grim smile. “My only cause for
misgiving is a doubt whether the ladies could ever again rise to the
superhuman height of heroism they displayed just now. Any weakening in
that attitude in the presence of danger might lead to unfavourable
remarks.”

“He is trying to punish us for what we said just now, Georgia,” said
Lady Haigh, amiably. “Never mind; when the danger comes he shall see
whether either of us weakens, as Mr Hicks would say.”

And the matter dropped amidst general laughter, which was perhaps what
Dick wanted, for after tea he asked for an interview with Sir Dugald,
and laid before him various expedients for rendering the Mission more
easily defensible. These measures he was authorised to adopt, but
without alarming the ladies, and he flattered himself that he was
successful in this, and that Lady Haigh and Georgia never perceived
that he drilled the servants each morning in the outer court, or that
he had divided them into watches, each of which took its turn in
remaining under arms. He had the more reason for this belief of his,
in that the ladies had other things to think of, for matters seemed to
have quieted down, and Georgia went to the Palace as usual, while Sir
Dugald’s audiences of the King were resumed, the subject of discussion
at present being the exact wording of the treaty, the provisions of
which had already been agreed upon.

It was noticed by the members of the Mission that the King’s manner
seemed to have changed since the outbreak, and that he was by no means
so easy to please even as he had been. He cavilled at points which had
already been definitely settled, and did his best to produce the
impression that he considered the treaty extremely disadvantageous to
Ethiopia. This was the more serious in that Jahan Beg reported the
reappearance upon the scene of the Scythian agent, with larger
presents and more abundant promises, and it was calculated to suggest
that the King wished to irritate Sir Dugald into breaking off the
negotiations. But long experience of the East had made Sir Dugald the
most patient of men--in public--and his staff were astonished at the
mildness with which he altered the wording of a clause again and
again, without ever abating one jot of the concessions he had
determined to obtain. His mingled tact and resolution carried the day
at last. The treaty was agreed upon in its entirety, and after being
engrossed on parchment by the King’s scribes, was read through to the
Envoy, behind whom stood the interpreter Kustendjian, ready to mark
the slightest deviation from the prescribed formula. There now
remained only the actual signing of the convention, and it was
arranged that Fath-ud-Din should bring the instrument, bearing the
seals of the King and the Grand Vizier, to the Mission in the morning,
there to receive Sir Dugald’s signature, after which the British
expedition might take its departure peacefully and honourably from
Kubbet-ul-Haj.

The day on which the treaty was to be signed was an important one also
to Georgia, for she had decided, after much consultation with Dr
Headlam, who could not, of course, see the patient, but who gave all
the advice that his experience of like cases suggested to him, to
undertake at last the operation on the Queen’s eyes. The state of the
patient’s general health was not yet as satisfactory as her doctor
could have desired, but when any day might bring about the departure
of the Mission, Georgia felt that she dared not delay longer. Even as
it was, there was little hope that she would be able to be present
when, after the necessary interval, the bandages could be removed from
the Queen’s eyes, and her professional conscience was troubled at the
possibility of leaving her work only half-done. But Sir Dugald was far
too anxious to get his followers safely out of Ethiopia to be willing
to spend a week or a fortnight longer in the country in order that
Georgia might see the result of her handiwork, and all she could do
was to explain everything very carefully, with Rahah’s help, to Nur
Jahan, and give her full directions in case of the occurrence of
various possible contingencies. The actual operation was performed
without a hitch, and Georgia felt deeply relieved as she fastened the
bandages, impressing on the Queen and all her attendants that they
were on no account to be removed until the specified time had elapsed.
The Mission was not likely, in any case, to take its departure until
three or four days had passed, and she promised to come in again at
least once more in order to note the patient’s state, and oftener if
she were summoned.

Nur Jahan escorted her to the door of the harem, plying her with
questions as to the treatment the patient ought to receive, and the
means by which Georgia had gained her medical skill. The girl had
already proved herself such an apt pupil that Georgia sighed again
over the thought that a medical career was an impossibility for her,
but she kept her promise loyally to Jahan Beg. The litter was not
ready when they reached the harem courtyard, and while it was being
prepared she stood in the doorway talking to Nur Jahan, but leaving
the questions as to her own hospital experiences unanswered, devoted
the time to reiterating her directions for the Queen’s treatment.
Presently a burst of laughter and loud talking reached her ears from
the rooms on the other side of the courtyard, and she looked across to
a balcony in which the forms of several women could be descried. They
were evidently attendants on the King’s second wife, Antar Khan’s
mother, who was frantically jealous of her rival owing to her monopoly
of the services of the doctor lady, and who had shown this feeling in
various unpleasant ways. She was much too proud to invite a visit from
Georgia, or even to feign illness as an excuse for summoning her, and
therefore she and her faction chose to regard the doctor lady as the
dirt under their feet. They drew aside their clothes when they passed
her, affected to consider the rooms in which she had been received as
unclean, and seized every opportunity of insulting her from a safe
distance.

The adherents of Rustam Khan’s mother, on the other hand, fully
appreciated the reasons for this state of things, and exulted over
their opponents on every possible occasion. They prided themselves on
their exclusive possession of the doctor lady, and would have rejoiced
in the opportunity of denying her services to the opposite party in a
case of dangerous illness. They had just shouted across the courtyard
the news of the satisfactory performance of the operation, and their
rivals were naturally moved to wrath. Hence they had assembled in
their balcony to point the finger of scorn at Georgia, and to jeer at
her and Nur Jahan, whose own position in the Palace was so uncertain
that she dared not run the risk of getting her husband into disgrace
by appealing to the King.

“Thou art very proud, O doctor lady,” cried a strong-lunged damsel,
leaning over the rail of the balcony, “but when next we see thee thou
wilt be entreating mercy at our lady’s feet.”

Rahah translated the prophecy to her mistress at once, and Georgia, in
sudden alarm, turned to Nur Jahan.

“You are our friend, Nur Jahan? If you knew of any plot against the
Mission, you would warn me?”

“I would risk my life and all that I have to warn thee in such a case,
O doctor lady,” replied Nur Jahan, earnestly; “but what I fear is a
plot of which I should know nothing.”

With these ominous words ringing in her ears, Georgia entered the
litter, and returned to the Mission in a somewhat perturbed state of
mind. It seemed, however, that there was nothing going on that need
excite her alarm. The Grand Vizier and his attendants had just brought
the treaty to be ratified, and Georgia caught a glimpse of the
assemblage as she passed through into the inner courtyard with Rahah.
Had she guessed what was about to happen in the Durbar-hall, nothing
would have induced her to leave the outer court.

On the table before Sir Dugald lay the treaty, written out with the
greatest care and delicacy on a huge sheet of parchment, and
displaying the most wonderful flourishes and other decorations at the
beginning of every clause. At the other side of the table stood
Fath-ud-Din, his attendants crowding behind him and peering eagerly
over his shoulder to watch Sir Dugald. The Envoy had taken the pen
from the hand of Fitz, and was glancing down the parchment for the
exact place at which he was to affix his signature. To all appearance
the treaty was the same that had been read over to him the day before,
and yet some suspicion entered his mind, prompted by his instinctive
caution. He would not trust to his own slight knowledge of the
Ethiopian language, but called Kustendjian forward.

“Be so good as to summarise that for me,” he said, laying his finger
on the clause which concerned the appointment of a British Resident,
with jurisdiction over British subjects in Ethiopia, who should take
up his abode at Iskandarbagh.

The Armenian’s eyes grew wide as he advanced and scanned the passage
pointed out by Sir Dugald. “The Resident is to have no power to decide
any cause in dispute between a British subject and an Ethiopian, nor
between two British subjects when the question concerns property or
other interests situated in Ethiopia, your Excellency,” he said, in a
low voice.

“And that,” said Sir Dugald, indicating the clause by which British
goods, with the exception of munitions of war and ardent spirits, were
to be allowed entrance into Ethiopia upon payment of duties not
exceeding a certain percentage of the value, which were to be imposed
by the King and approved by England.

“The minimum duty is to be a hundred per cent _ad valorem_, and there
is no proviso as to the approval of her Majesty’s Government, your
Excellency. Every one of the clauses has had additions or omissions
made in it, which render it absolutely useless for all practical
purposes.”

“Thank you, Mr Kustendjian.” Sir Dugald laid down the pen
deliberately, and took up the treaty. The Ethiopians present had
watched his actions with eager interest, but could read nothing from
his face. Now, however, he seemed to their guilty consciences to rise
and tower above them (under normal circumstances he was under middle
height), as he tore the tough parchment across and across, and flung
the fragments over the table to Fath-ud-Din.

 [image: images/img_05.jpg
 caption: He tore the tough parchment across and across...]

“Take those to your master,” he said; “and be thankful that I don’t
call the servants to drive you out of the courtyard as they drove your
hired ruffians last week. The Mission leaves Kubbet-ul-Haj to-day.”

 CHAPTER X.
 CAUGHT AND CAGED.

When the Grand Vizier and his companions had been conducted to the
door by the servants, and the gates had closed behind them, Sir Dugald
turned from the table at which he had been standing motionless, and
addressed Dick. The work of months had been overthrown, and the
success by which he had hoped to put the crowning touch to his
official career rendered impossible of attainment; but his first
thought was to vindicate the outraged dignity of his country, insulted
in his person.

“When you made your inspection of the stables this morning, Major
North, were the animals all in?”

“Yes, sir; this is my weekly inspection, and the camels which had been
out at pasture were brought in by their drivers to be passed. They all
looked very fit; but we have not much forage for them in store.”

“We must chance that. I should be glad if you would have our
riding-horses, together with a sufficient number of camels to carry
the tents and their furniture, brought round here two hours before
sunset. It would be impossible to travel far to-day, but if we are
outside the city the required moral effect will be produced. I shall
leave you and Anstruther behind to bring on the stores and the heavy
luggage. We will travel by slow stages until you come up with us, and
then we must make forced marches, and get out of the country as fast
as possible, for we shall have no escort this time.”

For the first time in his life Dick hesitated to obey an order.

“But the ladies, sir,” he suggested. “Is it safe?”

“Is it safe for them here? The sooner we have them out of the city,
the safer they will be,” and Dick, silenced, went to do his errand at
the various stables in which the baggage-animals of the Mission were
quartered.

To say that the sudden order to pack up and be ready to start on the
homeward journey that very afternoon was startling to the ladies would
be to mince matters, for it came upon them like a thunder-clap; but
Lady Haigh was an old traveller, whom no vicissitudes could disturb
for long, and Georgia was a soldier’s daughter, and they were both
resolved that the honour of England should not be dragged in the dust
on their account by the delay of a moment after the appointed hour of
starting. Accordingly, they set to work immediately to take down and
wrap up and stow away all the possessions with which they had made the
house homelike during their tenancy of it, and were in the act of
packing their dresses (which, as every lady will know, always occupy
the topmost place in a box), when Dick made his appearance on the
terrace. Georgia, who was standing at the table pulling out the
sleeves of a favourite silk blouse, which she had just rescued from
the ruthless hands of Rahah, looked at him in surprise, for his face
was grave and set.

“Please don’t say that you want us to start this moment,” she said,
cheerfully. “Lady Haigh and I are willing to make any sacrifice in
reason for our country, but we had rather not leave our best dresses
behind.”

“It won’t be necessary,” returned Dick, trying, but with poor success,
to speak in the same tone. “We shall not leave to-day, after all.”

“Not leave to-day!” cried Lady Haigh, coming out on the terrace, and
folding up a skirt at the same time. “Then when do we start?”

“Not just yet, I fear. The fact is, the King is trying on a little
joke with us. He has fetched away all our horses and camels, and we
can’t get them back.”

“But when did he do it? and where are they gone?” asked Lady Haigh, in
hot indignation.

“He must have done it immediately after I had come away from the
stables after picking out the beasts for your start this evening.
Where they are gone I don’t know; but we can’t hire any others, and we
can’t very well walk, and therefore I suppose we must stay here.”

“But it is such a bad precedent to let him get the better of us like
this!” cried Lady Haigh. “It is such absolute stealing, too. Are the
servants gone as well as the animals?”

“Yes, they have all been marched off to fresh quarters somewhere. That
thins our forces sadly.”

“So it does,” Lady Haigh assented, gravely. “But never mind; if the
King won’t let us leave the city, we will make ourselves happy where
we are.”

“And perhaps,” suggested Georgia, “it is merely that the King is sorry
for his treachery about the treaty, and wants to prevent Sir Dugald’s
leaving Kubbet-ul-Haj in anger. He may mean to resume the negotiations
to-morrow.”

“He may,” agreed Dick, but his face was not hopeful as he returned
across the courtyard, while the ladies took the things out of the
boxes they had just packed. Still, the events of the next morning
seemed to confirm Georgia’s cheerful augury, for an embassy came from
the King to Sir Dugald, headed, not by the Grand Vizier (possibly he
felt a slight doubt as to the nature of the reception he was likely to
meet with), but by the official who had superintended the
establishment of the Mission in its present quarters. In the message
which he brought, Sir Dugald was entreated to overlook the incident of
the day before, which had been devised by the King merely as a test of
his shrewdness, and was in no way a serious attempt to induce him to
sign a false treaty. If he would only come to the Palace to-day, the
original treaty should be ready for his signature, and the King would
affix his seal to it in his presence. At first Sir Dugald returned an
absolute refusal to this invitation, but the messenger reappeared with
it twice, adding such solemn and earnest assurances of its genuine
character, that he consented to talk the matter over with his staff.
Lady Haigh and Georgia invited themselves to assist at the discussion,
and the first thing that opened Georgia’s eyes to the gravity of the
situation was the fact that Sir Dugald made no protest against the
irregularity of this proceeding.

“You won’t go, Dugald?” said Lady Haigh, anxiously. “Probably it is
only a trap. Remember Macnaghten.”

“Couldn’t you manage to suggest any more cheerful reminiscence?” asked
Sir Dugald.

“You really mean to go, sir?” asked Dick.

“I think so. After all, what happened yesterday may have been only a
trick, as this man says, though I don’t think the King would have
hesitated to profit by it if I had signed the false treaty. At any
rate, so long as there is a chance of our coming off victorious, we
ought not to let it slip. This treaty is of immense importance, for it
brings Ethiopia within our sphere of influence, and when once it is
concluded, we can snap our fingers at Scythia and Neustria. You see as
well as I do that if we withdraw now and negotiations are resumed
later, Scythia will have had time to slip in and conclude her treaty.
I grant that we have a very slender chance of success, but if it
depends on me I will not lose it. Still, I don’t wish to take you into
danger against your better judgment, gentlemen. Your lives are at
stake as much as mine, and if you think it advisable not to go to the
Palace, I will dispense with your attendance on this occasion.”

“We will go wherever you go, Sir Dugald,” said Dick.

“Wherever you go,” echoed the rest.

“But I can’t take all of you,” said Sir Dugald. “Two of you must stay
here and look after the ladies. I don’t like dividing our force, but
it would be poor strategy to let them be seized as hostages while we
were away. You see what I mean, Elma? I will leave you North and the
doctor as a garrison, and you and the servants must put yourselves
under their orders and help to defend the place if it is attacked.”

“No, Dugald,” returned Lady Haigh, resolutely, regardless of the fact
that she was indulging in open mutiny, “unless Major North goes with
you, you shall not go to the Palace at all. Dr Headlam and we can
defend ourselves quite well behind stone walls; but it would be
madness for you to trust yourself outside without a man with you that
knew anything about fighting. Only take Major North, and I am
content.”

For peace’ sake, Sir Dugald accepted this view of the case, and a
little later the party set out with the ambassador, who had brought
with him several horses from the King’s stables for them to ride--huge
fat animals, most of them a peculiar pinkish-white in colour, with
highly arched necks and flowing manes and tails decorated with ribbons
and sham jewellery. They were provided with high native saddles and
elaborate saddle-cloths, and the ambassador explained that they were
intended as gifts to Sir Dugald and to his staff. Asked what had
become of the animals belonging to the Mission, he confessed
ingenuously that the King had had them removed in order to frustrate
Sir Dugald’s design of leaving the city, but that they would be
returned as soon as ever the treaty was signed, so that the Envoy and
his young men might depart in peace.

Arrived at the Palace, the members of the Mission were conducted to
the usual hall of audience. It was not without some unpleasant
sensations that they heard the gates of the courtyard close behind
them, and Dick involuntarily loosened his sword in the scabbard, and
noticed that Stratford and Fitz were feeling whether their revolvers
were safe. Sir Dugald alone showed no signs of disturbance, even when
on reaching the hall he was requested to enter the King’s
presence-chamber by himself, the rest remaining in the outer room.
Before he could answer, his staff pressed around him, regardless of
etiquette.

“Don’t go, sir,” said Dick. “It’s a trap.”

“They mean mischief, Sir Dugald,” said Stratford. “The King has never
asked to see you alone before.”

“Let us put a pistol to this fellow’s head, sir, and keep him as a
hostage until we are safely back at the Mission,” suggested Fitz,
looking daggers at the smiling official, who was bowing and spreading
out his hands in token of the welcome which awaited Sir Dugald in the
King’s presence.

“Nonsense!” said Sir Dugald, irritably, motioning Stratford aside.
“You mean well, gentlemen; but we can’t make fools of ourselves in
this way. Look there. You see that there’s nothing but a curtain
between the two rooms, and you would hear the slightest scuffle or cry
for help. I give you free leave to interfere if you do hear anything
of the kind, but pray keep cool.”

He went on, following the official, and passed under the heavy curtain
which covered the doorway of the inner room. Some minutes of painful
suspense ensued, while the three Englishmen and Kustendjian strained
their ears to hear what was going on within. Suddenly there came a
sound as of the ringing of metal on a marble floor, and Dick sprang to
the doorway with a bound, followed by the rest, and tore aside the
curtain. He never quite knew what he had expected to see, but it was
certainly not the sight which met his eyes. The King was sitting on
his raised divan, with Fath-ud-Din standing beside him. Before them
there lay on a gorgeous Persian carpet a great pile of bags of money,
one of which had been kicked across the room. It had burst open, and
the clash of the escaping silver was the sound which the listeners had
heard. They had no time to meditate further on the situation, for Sir
Dugald, his face white with anger, was coming towards them, actually
turning his back on the King, and as he reached the doorway he looked
round over his shoulder and spoke.

“Your Majesty understands that under no circumstances will I consent
to enter the Palace again. Any communication you may wish to make to
me can pass through my secretary.”

“But which is he?” inquired Fath-ud-Din smoothly in Arabic, the
language in which Sir Dugald had spoken. “Is he the mighty man of
whose deeds the hillmen sing, and with whose name the women of
Khemistan terrify their children?”

Sir Dugald silently indicated Stratford, and the Vizier looked at him
and grunted softly to himself. But the King sat up suddenly (he had
been leaning forward with his chin on his hand, listening to what
passed), and said--

“Ye cannot leave this place without camels, and camels ye shall not
have until the treaty is signed.”

“No; but we can wait here until a British force comes to escort us
away,” said Sir Dugald, and marched down the hall. His staff followed
him, not without an uneasy feeling that they might be attacked from
behind. Indeed, Kustendjian confessed afterwards that he had never
felt quite so much frightened in his life as when Fitz gave him a poke
in the ribs.

“What was it that they really did, sir?” asked Dick, when they were
riding back to the Mission.

“They tried bribery and corruption, North--offered me the heap of
money you saw on the floor if I would sign that precious treaty of
theirs and make no bones about it. I have had experiences of the kind
before, in out-of-the-way places, where the people knew little of
British rule, but this is quite the biggest thing of its sort that has