Captain Desmond, V.C. Part 19

"An opening--an opening, Captain Sahib! By the mercy of G.o.d we are saved!"

Five minutes later the whole party drew rein on the upper levels of earth, and their sometime pursuer swept tumultuously onward fifteen feet below.

Desmond's eyes had an odd light in them as he turned from the swirling waters to the impa.s.sive face of the man who had saved their lives.

"I do--not--forget," he said with quiet emphasis.

The old Sikh shook his head with a rather uncertain smile.

"True talk, Hazur. I had known it without a.s.surance. Yet was mine own help no great matter. It was written that my Captain Sahib should not die thus!"

"That may be," Desmond answered gravely, for he had been strangely upheld by the same conviction. "Yet there be also--these others. In my thinking it is no small _matter_ that, except for your quickness of mind and hearing, forty-four good men and horses would now be at the mercy of that torrent. But this is no time for words. It still remains to reach Kohat before sundown."

The sun was slipping behind the hills, with the broad smile of a tyrant who fully enjoys the joke, when Desmond drew up before his own verandah and slid to the ground.

"Thank G.o.d that's over!" he muttered audibly. But he did not at once enter the house. His first care, as always, was for the horse he rode; and with him it was no mere case of the "merciful man," but of sheer love for that unfailing servant of the human race.

He accompanied Badshah Pasand to the stable, superintended the removal of his saddle, and looked him carefully all over. That done, he issued explicit orders for his treatment and feeding: the great charger--as though fully aware of his master's solicitude,--nuzzling a mouse-coloured nose against his shoulder the while.

Arrived in the comparative coolness of the hall, he shouted for a drink, and a bath. Then, turning towards the drawing-room, promised himself a few minutes blessed relaxation in the depths of his favourite chair.

But pa.s.sing between the gold-coloured curtains he saw that which checked his advance, and banished all thought of relaxation from his brain.

Harry Denvil--whose buoyancy and simplicity of heart had led Desmond to christen him the Boy--sat alone at Evelyn's bureau, his head between his hands, despair in every line of his figure.

Desmond regarded him thoughtfully, marvelling that the sounds of his own arrival should have pa.s.sed unheard. Then he went forward, and laid his hand on the Boy's shoulder.

"Harry! I don't seem to recognise _you_ in that att.i.tude. Anything seriously wrong?"

Denvil started, and revealed a face of dogged dejection.

"You here?" he said listlessly. "Never heard you come in."

"That's obvious. But--about yourself?"

The Boy choked down a sigh.

"Why the deuce should I bore you with myself, when you're hot and tired? I've been a confounded fool; if not worse, and the devil's in the luck wherever I turn."

But Desmond waited in expectant silence for the Boy's trouble to overflow. While he waited, the coveted "drink" arrived, and he emptied the long tumbler almost at a gulp. The station had run out of ice--a cheerful habit of Frontier stations; but at least the liquid was cool and stinging.

"Well?" he said at length, Denvil having returned to his former att.i.tude. "I want something more explicit. How am I to help you, if you slam the door in my face?"

"Don't see how you can help me. I've only been ... a great many kinds of a fool: and _you_----"

"Well, what of me? I've been plenty of kinds of fool in my time, I a.s.sure you. Money's the backbone of your trouble, no doubt. Nothing worse, I hope?"

Denvil's honest eyes met his own without flinching.

"No, on my honour--nothing worse. The money's bad enough." And the trouble came out in a quick rush of words--explanatory, contrite, despairing--all in one breath. For the Boy had Irish blood in his veins; and the initial difficulty over, he found it an unspeakable relief to disburden his soul to the man who had "brothered" him ever since he joined the Force.

Desmond, perceiving that the overflow, once started, was likely to be exhaustive and complete, took out pipe and tobacco, balanced himself on the arm of a chair, and listened gravely to the Boy's disjointed story.

It was a long story, and a commonplace one, if even the most trivial record of human effort and failure can be so styled. It was the story of half the subalterns in our Imperial Army--of small pay, engulfed by heavy expenses, avoidable and unavoidable; the upkeep of much needless uniform; too big a wine bill at Mess; polo ponies, and other luxurious necessities of Indian life, bought on credit; the inevitable appeal to the "_shroff_,"[21] involving interest upon interest; the final desperate attempt to mend matters by high stakes at cards, and fitful, injudicious backing of horses, most often with disastrous results.

[21] Native money-lender.

"Have you the smallest idea what the total damage amounts to?" asked Desmond, when all was said. "I'm bound to know everything now."

Denvil nodded.

"Close on fifteen hundred, I think," he answered, truthfully.

"Why, in Heaven's name, didn't you tell me all this sooner?"

"Oh, I kept hoping to get square somehow--without that. I wanted to stay in your good books; and I saw you were rather down on chaps who are casual about money. But I seem to be made that way, and----"

"So are most of us, my dear chap. But it's up to you to make yourself some other way, if you don't want to come a cropper and leave the Service. I hope I am no Pharisee, but I've been reared to believe that living in debt is an aristocratic, and rather mean form of theft. My notion of you doesn't square with that; and I know a good man when I see one. You'll never mend matters, I a.s.sure you, by playing the fool over horses and cards. How about your mother?"

Denvil looked down at the blank sheet of foreign note-paper before him, and answered nothing. He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.

"Can't you see that the fact of your having no father to pull you up sharp puts you on your honour to keep straight in every way, on her account? Does she know anything about all this?"

"How _could_ I tell her?" the Boy murmured, without looking up. "She thinks me no end of a fine chap; and--and--I'm hanged if I know how to answer her letters since--things have got so bad----"

"When did you write last?"

"About six weeks ago."

Desmond flung out an oath.

"Confound you!" he cried hotly. "What do you think she's imagining by now? All manner of hideous impossibilities. I suppose you never gave _that_ a thought----"

The Boy looked up quickly, pain and pleading in his blue eyes. "I say, Desmond, don't hit so straight. I know I've been a brute to her; and I feel bad enough about it, without being slanged--by _you_."

Theo Desmond's face softened, and he took the Boy's shoulders between his hands.

"My dear lad," he said gently. "I'm sorry if I hit too hard. But I feel rather strongly on that subject. I've no wish to slang you. I only want to set you on your feet, and _keep you_ there. So we may as well get to business at once."

"Set me on my feet! How the devil's _that_ to be done?"

Desmond smiled.

"It's simply a question of making up one's mind to things. In the first place we must sell Roland. He's the best pony you have."

Harry straightened himself sharply, but Desmond's gesture commanded silence.

"It's a cruel wrench, I know," he said gently. "Few men understand that better than myself. But it's all you can do. And you're bound to do it. You can advertise him as trained by me. He's safe to fetch seven hundred that way."