The Great Amulet Part 29

"Yes."

"So are we."

"And Garth?"

"I suppose so. But I want _you_ to ride with me. Will you--darling?"

She added the entreaty of her eyes to the last word, and he hesitated.

"It will look a little odd, and sudden, of course. But I don't see why I shouldn't."

"Nor do I. We can at least begin our courts.h.i.+p--can't we?--to prepare people for what is to come! Besides--if it isn't you, it will be Major Garth, and . . . I'm a little afraid of him after last night."

"Why? What the devil did he do?"

"Nothing--nothing definite. He only spoke rather strangely before I sent him away; and I don't want to be alone with him, if I can help it.

You see, he . . . he cares for me, Eldred; and I am afraid he thinks now that I--care for him. Oh, I feel contemptuously wicked! But I have been rather desperate this week, all on account of you; and I really think it's your business to protect me from the consequences!"

"Of course it is my business, and my privilege to protect you," he answered fervently. Her confession of dependence was sweeter to him than honey in the honeycomb. "But you gave me an almighty snubbing the other day when I made a clumsy attempt at it."

"Make allowances, _mon cher_, and don't fail me now."

"Fail you?" He flashed a reproachful glance at her. "I hope I may never do that, while there's breath in my body! Trust me to be at your right hand when we start. Mrs Desmond will have wit enough to capture--your friend, if she sees that I want you."

"Why? Does she know all about it?"

"Just the bare facts. I told her myself."

"And he?"

"Certainly. They are one, those two, if ever man and woman achieved the miracle."

"Does that account for his flattering attentions to me since Chumba?"

"Quite possibly."

"But that wasn't fair play! He is such a grand fellow; and I was so proud of my small conquest!"

Her lighter mood was even more irresistible than her seriousness had been: but Lenox palled himself together.

"Tell him so, and you'll make your conquest at once, if you've not made it already! Hullo--there is the last breakfast bugle. Shall we go in together? If I am doomed to fall in love with you, I may as well set about it at once!"

Her answering look set a crown on him.

"Ah, my dear," she whispered. "In spite of all you said last night, I am happy beyond words."

"So am I," he answered simply. "Come."

From her own area of luggage-strewn ground, Honor Desmond,--carrying little Paul, whom she had insisted on bringing into camp,--looked after them as they went, her glad heart in her eyes; and Desmond, coming up from behind, took her lightly by the arm.

"Well, old lady," he asked. "Are you satisfied yet?"

"Abundantly."

"And am I to get my wife back again as a reward for distinguished services rendered?"

"I imagine so!" she answered, laughing happily. "Unless you would rather keep your grievance!--Now go on to breakfast, darling; and I'll follow when I have packed this priceless person into his dandy.

Whatever happens, he and Parb.u.t.ti must run no risk of getting drenched."

Breakfast was half through before Garth sauntered into the mess-tent: and Honor, who had watched for his coming, felt an unbidden pang of pity at sight of his blank face, when he beheld Quita sitting beside her husband, a bright spot of colour in either cheek, her eyes radiating a light that refused to be hidden under a bushel.

The unexpected blow roused all the devil in him. Man of prudence though he was, he could have murdered Lenox at that moment. But life rarely lends itself to melodrama: and instead he sat down at the far end of the table; and, for once in his life, ate a meal without being aware of its quality. His brain was busy reviewing the events of the previous day; putting two and two together, and trying not to see that they made four. A physical chill took him as he realised how narrowly he had escaped the ignominy of betraying the fact that he had counted on the consent of this proudest among women to the only proposals possible in the circ.u.mstances.

It was an awkward corner for James Garth; and in his chequered experience of awkward corners the _role_ of victim had rarely been his.

Even the witness of his eyes did not carry conviction. By some means he must contrive to ride home with her, and learn from her lips the 'wherefore' of this astonis.h.i.+ng change of front. He reflected that Lenox had little _finesse_, and antic.i.p.ated small trouble in circ.u.mventing him.

But he reckoned without Honor Desmond, whose strategical skill came to her from a long line of distinguished soldiers, and whose sympathies had been touched to the quick by the grave contentment in Eldred Lenox's eyes when they lingered on his wife's face and figure.

Breakfast over, she accosted Garth straightway with a cheerful morning greeting: and from that moment, to the time of their departure, she took charge of him, gently yet irresistibly; keeping him well away from Quita's neighbourhood; and so isolating him that he could not desert her without open rudeness: proceedings that at once mystified and flattered him, as Honor herself was delightedly aware.

For a full hour the exodus of man and beast went noisily forward. But Colonel Mayhew's departure was delayed by his desire to see the Chumba contingent well under weigh before leaving: and by the time he announced his readiness to start, the last remaining units of the Great Camp were out of sight, trotting briskly along the shadowed road that winds up through the forest to Bukrota Mall.

"If we push along briskly we may get in with dry skins yet," he said, scanning the sky, where a vanguard of tattered cloud trailed aimlessly across the blue.

"And I was actually hoping we might get caught!" Quita confessed on a mock note of apology. "It would make such a thrilling _finale_: and I delight in your Indian storms."

Colonel Mayhew laughed and shook his head.

"When you have seen and heard as many of them as I have, Miss Maurice, you will simply find them 'demnition damp and disagreeable,' like Mantalini's dead body! And even at the risk of disappointing you, I intend to make a bolt for it.--Come on, my contingent!"

Lenox was at his wife's right hand, as he had promised: and Garth had so far succ.u.mbed as to lift Mrs Desmond into her saddle.

"You are a practised hand at it!" she said, smiling down upon his obvious annoyance at the fate in store for him. "Why shouldn't you and I head the contingent? Some one must go first!"

There was nothing for it but to acquiesce; and to endure, as best he might, the torment of Quita's clear tones close behind, alternating with her husband's ba.s.s; both voices pitched too low to be articulate, Desmond followed with Mayhew, while Maurice and Elsie, and the customary string of coolies, brought up the rear.

For the first few miles splashes of sunlight gleamed and quivered on the rough pathway, on red-pine stems, and moss-coated rocks. But before half their journey was accomplished, it became evident that they were not to escape the opening storm of the great monsoon.

A shuddering wind set the dense pines above and below them swaying and moaning, a sound of strange and infinite melancholy. The sunlight went out like a snuffed candle; battalions of clouds, charged with electricity, rolled silently northward, obliterating all things; and an ochreous twilight settled down upon the forest. Save for the whispering of wind-tossed trees, all Nature seemed hushed, expectant, holding her breath.

The dusky stillness wrought upon the nerves of the riders, producing a vague, discomfortable sense of foreboding. Talk grew fitful; and was instinctively carried on in lowered tones.

"Push on a bit faster, Mrs Desmond. It would be as well to get out where the trees are thinner before the worst is upon us."

Colonel Mayhew's voice had an anxious note. He had weathered the opening storm of many monsoons; but his daughter's presence wakened in him a new fear of the thunderbolts of the G.o.ds.

Even as he spoke, a phosph.o.r.escent gleam sped through the trees, like a pa.s.sing soul; and a threatening growl rumbled up from the South. It was the prelude. Two minutes later, rocks, stems, branches, and the minutest fir-needles that flickered against the grey, showed like ink-strokes on tarnished silver as a forked flash, leaped, quivering, from the heart of a blue-black cloud. The report that followed, after scarce five seconds of stillness, was smart, crisp, short as a revolver-shot; and long before a hundred peaks had made an end of flinging back the sound, a second flash and crash--in swifter succession--smote the eyes and ears of the riders, who now urged their horses to a canter, _saises_, coolies, and three devoted dogs panting zealously behind them.