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Read Ebook: Een verlaten post by Woude Johanna Van
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Ebook has 775 lines and 28956 words, and 16 pages
THE PLAGUE OF THE HEART
FRANCIS PREVOST
LONDON WARD, LOCK & CO LIMITED NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE 1902
TO APRIL
Contents
THE SIEGE OF SAR HER REPUTATION THE MEASURE OF A MAN
The Siege of Sar
She sat upon the table, all in white; her hat slung upon her arm, her feet swinging to and fro amid the muslin fulness of her skirt, pointing her remarks with the tips of their gilded slippers.
The man who had just entered the bungalow in khaki riding kit stood a straight six feet. His face, strong and silent, was as brown as his jacket, and his spare figure had an air of tempered energy. The only break in its entire brownness was the faded strip of ribands on his left breast. At the sight of Mrs. Chantry he had checked the stride with which he entered, lifted his helmet, and pushed back from his forehead its damp brown lock of hair.
As he stood staring at her with a frown, she set her wrists on the edge of the table, and rocked her body gently in time with her feet.
"Well!" she exclaimed with a laugh as he stopped before her; "what did I tell you? I said if you'd only leave Sar for a week I'd get the Durbar, and I've got it in three days!"
She ceased her swinging, and looked up at him with an excited triumph in her eyes. "Well?" she repeated provocatively, leaning back and putting the tip of a tiny tongue between her lips.
He drew a wicker chair from the wall and threw himself into it with a sigh.
"I only hope it isn't true," he said.
She leaned forward over the table, gripping its edge, her face thrust out, like a figure on a ship's prow.
"Honest Injun!" she cried, sparkling. "Every word. Durbar to-morrow. Khan's guard and tom-toms round at eleven, and off we march at noon. Oh! don't you wish you were going?"
"Not at all," he said drily. "I've never wished to die like a trapped mouse."
She drew herself up resentfully.
"How dare you say that," she cried; "when you know Lewis will be there!"
"All right," he said, too tired to argue; "I'll try to see its good points. How did this happen?"
She was a flouting pouting bird again at once.
"I did it," she declared.
"Oh, did you," he replied without conviction. "When?"
She gave a shrug to her pretty shoulders.
"Well?" enquired Terrington.
"Well, a woman's only got to let a man see she thinks he's afraid of anything to put him at it. I let 'em all see," she said, smiling.
He looked at her hard.
"You think I couldn't?" she challenged.
"I've never thought of anything you couldn't," he said simply.
She looked at him, laughing softly. Then, raising herself on her wrists, poised her dainty figure above the table, letting it swing between her arms, while she met with the fluttering twist of a smile the intent displeasure in his eyes.
"What did you do it for?" he asked.
She pushed herself back along the polished table till her knees and knuckles were side by side.
"What does a woman ever do anything for?" she retorted, leaning over her perch with her elbows upon her knees. "To show she can," she added, as he offered no solution. "I was going to let you see you weren't the king of Sar."
"Good God," he groaned in weary bewilderment. "Where's Sir Colvin?"
She shook her head slowly, smiling, from side to side.
"Don' know, don' know, don' know!" she babbled. "What did you get?"
He took no notice of the question.
"And your husband?" he said.
"Lewis is with Sir Colvin. May be anywhere. Probably messing up my room. They're preparing for the Durbar," she drawled with soft malice.
His preoccupation paid no heed to it; and she went on:
"It's wonderful the hours we do things at here. Just decent breakfast-time and we've had half a day. When did your Majesty breakfast?" she asked.
"Some time yesterday," he said indifferently. "Has Gale written?"
But she was on her feet at once.
"Oh, I say!" she cried. "How horrid of you not to tell me!"
The tatties on the anteroom entrance had closed behind her, like reeds behind a snowy pheasant, ere she finished speaking, and Terrington could hear the "Kitmatgar, O Kitmatgar!" of her lifted childish voice ring along the empty mess-room.
As Rose Chantry left the room the light went out of Terrington's face, and an irresistible lassitude crept like a gray smoke across it. He had been for three days in the saddle, with but a couple of his own guides, in a country cut by torrents from precipitous stone, among a silent and lurking people who were only waiting the word to murder him, and for the last day and night he had been living on food snatched from a holster as he rode.
There was no one in Sar to whom he could delegate the duty; no one acquainted as he with the country and the people; no one who knew so intimately their private avarices and animosities; no one who could utilize their tribal treacheries and pretensions, to extract from them the grain they had a mind to keep. They had known him five years before, while Sar was as yet unembroiled of its neighbours, and still admitted British influence and rupees, when his shooting feats had won him the nickname by which everywhere he was known, and the friendship of the men who were waiting now, without breach of friendliness, to put an end to him.
It was on account of this intimate acquaintance that he had been selected to command the escort which accompanied Sir Colvin Aire, whose mission was to settle finally the standing of a resident, and of road repair and protection between Sar and the frontier.
Such simple questions hung however like dewdrops on the web of a wide and hostile political influence. Their disappearance would only be of importance as a signal that the meshes had been cut.
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