our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what, we have been makes us what we are.
there was a momentary pause; then major agar spoke.
“in that case,” he observed, “the british force occupying this country for the last week has consisted of myself and thirty goorkhas.”
“precisely so! and it was by the merest chance that i found out that you were here. it was only guesswork at the best. a bazaar report reached me that poor old stevenor had been cut to pieces. i hate blaming a dead man, but i really don't know what he can have been about. he made some hideous mistake somewhere. we buried him yesterday. on hearing the report, i thought it better to come up myself, having a little knowledge of the country. brought two companies, and half a squadron to act as scouts. we reached barkoola yesterday, and found the poor chaps as they had fallen. and some of those carpet-warriors at home say that a black man can't fight! can't he! not so much brandy this time, please. yes, fill it up.”
agar set the regulation water-bottle down on his gifted table.
“i have the devil's own luck!” he murmured. “while they were burying i missed you from among the officers; and then it struck me that you might have got away before the disaster. we counted the men, and found thirty-four short, so we came on here. by god! what a chap mistley was! we came here without a check. his maps are perfect!”
“yes,” admitted agar, “that man knew his business!”
there was something in his tone that might have been envy or perhaps mere admiration; for this man knew himself to be inferior in many ways to him who had first crossed the mountain pass on which he stood.
“the worst of it is,” went on the great officer, “that you are telegraphed home as killed.”
he paused on the last word, watching its effect. it would seem that, behind the busy black eyes, there was the beginning of a thought hatched within the grey close-cut head which, en fait de têtes, was without its rival in the empire.
“that is soon remedied,” opined the major with a cheerful laugh.
“ye—es!”
the great man was thoughtfully rubbing his chin with the tips of the first and second fingers, drawing in his under lip at the same time, and apparently taking pleasure in the rasping sound caused by the friction over the shaven chin.
there is usually something written in the human countenance—some single virtue, vice, or quality which dominates all petty characteristics. most faces express weakness—the faces that pass one in the streets. some are the incarnation of meanness, some pleasanter types verge on sensuality. the face of the man who sat watching agar expressed indomitable, invincible determination, and nothing else. it was the face of one who was ready to sacrifice any one, even himself, to a single all-pervading purpose. in this respect he was a splendid commander, for he was as nearly heartless as men are made.
the big fair englishman who had occupied mistley's plateau for a week, exactly one hundred and seventy miles from assistance of any description, and in the heart of the enemy's country, smiled down at his companion with a simple wonder.
“got something up your sleeve, sir?” he inquired softly, for he knew somewhat of his superior officer's ways.
“yes!” replied the other curtly. “a trump card!”
he continued to look at jem agar with a cold and calculating scrutiny, as a jockey may look at his horse or a butcher at living meat.
“it's like this,” he said. “you're dead. i want you to stay dead for a little while—say six months to a year!”
agar seated himself on the corner of the table, which creaked under the weight of his spare muscular person, and then, true to his cloth, he awaited further orders; true to his nature, he waited in silence.
after a short pause the other proceeded to explain.
“you frontier men,” he said, “are closely watched; we know that. there will be great rejoicing over there, in northern europe, over this mishap to stevenor, although, god knows, he was not a very dangerous man. not so dangerous as you, agar. they will be delighted to hear that you are out of the way. stay out of the way for a year, and during that twelve months you will be able to do more than you could get done in twelve years when you were being watched by them.”
“i see,” answered agar quietly. “not dead, but gone—up country.”
“precisely so; where they certainly will not be on the look-out for you.”
the bright black eyes were shining with suppressed excitement. the great man was afraid that his tool would refuse to work under this exacting touch.
“but what about my people?” asked agar.
“oh, i will put that right. you see, they have got over the worst of it by this time. it is wonderful how soon people do get over it. they have known it for a week now, and have bought their mourning and all that.”
there came a look into agar's face which the little officer did not understand. we never do understand what we could not feel ourselves, and it is not a matter of wonder that the lesser intelligence should foil the greater in this instance. there was a depth in jem agar which was beyond the fathom of his keen-witted companion.
“i am going home,” continued general michael, “almost at once. the first thing i do on landing is to go straight to your people and tell them. we cannot afford to telegraph it. telegraph clerks are only human, and it is worth the while of the newspapers in these days of large circulation to pay a heavy price for their news. we all know that some items, published can only have been bought from the telegraph clerks.”
agar was making a mental calculation.
“that means,” he said, “two months before they hear.”
the expression on the face of the little man was scarcely human in its heartless cunning.
“hardly,” he answered carelessly. “and when they hear the reason they will admit that the result is worth the sacrifice. it will be the making of you!—and of me!” added the black eyes with a secretive gleam.
“it is,” went on the general, “such a chance as only comes once to a man in his lifetime. i wish i had had it at your age.”
the voice was a pleasant one, with that ring of friendliness and familiarity which is usually heard in the tones of an educated jew; for general michael was that rare combination, a jew and a soldier.
“i don't like leaving them so long under the mistake,” answered agar, half yielding to authoritative persuasion, half tempted by ambition and a love of adventure. “i don't like it, general. the straight thing would be to telegraph home at once.”
in the wavering smile that crossed the dark face there was suggested a fine contempt for the straight thing unaccompanied by some tangible advantage.
“who are they?” inquired the general almost affectionately. “who are your people?”
agar walked to the tent door and looked out. there was some clatter of swords going on outside, and as commander of this post it was his duty to know all that was passing. he turned, and standing in the doorway, quite filling it with his bulk, he answered:
“my father died three years ago. i have a step-mother and a step-brother, that is all—besides friends.”
the general stooped to loosen the strap of his spur.
“of course,” he said in that attitude, “i know you are not a married man.”
“no.”
beneath the brim of the helmet, which he had not laid aside, the jew's keen black eyes were watching, watching. but they saw nothing; for there is no one so impenetrable as a man with a clear conscience and a large faith.
“my idea was,” continued general michael, “that two, or at the most three, people besides you and i be let into the secret.”
“three,” said agar, with quiet decision.
“three?”
“yes.”
the general tacitly allowed this point and passed on with characteristic promptitude to another.
“are you a man of property?”
“yes, i inherit my father's place down in hertfordshire.”
“i'll tell you why i ask. there are those beastly lawyers to think of. at your death it is to be presumed that the estate comes to your brother. the legal operations must be delayed somehow. i will see to it,” he added in a concise, almost snappish way.
agar smiled, although he was conscious of a vague feeling of discomfort. he was not a highly sensitive or a nervous man, and this feeling was more than might have been expected to arise from an attendance, as it were, at one's own obituary arrangements. the general seemed to be remarkably well informed on these smaller points, and something prompted jem agar to ask him if the idea he had just propounded was a suddenly conceived one.
“no,” replied the general with a singular pause.
“no, i once knew a man who did the same thing for a different purpose, but the idea was identical. i do not claim to be the originator.”
“and there was no hitch? it was successful?” inquired agar.
“yes,” replied the older soldier in a far-away voice, as if he had mentally gone back to the results of that man's deception. “yes, it was successful. by the way, you say your people live down in hertfordshire?”
“yes.”
“i once knew a girl—long ago, in my younger days—who married a man called agar, and went to live in hertfordshire. the name did not strike me until you mentioned the county. i wonder if the lady is now your step-mother.”
“my step-mother's name was hethbridge,” replied jem agar.
“the same. how strange!” said the general indifferently. “well, she has probably forgotten my existence these thirty years. she has one son, you say?”
“yes, arthur. he is twenty-three—five years younger than myself.”
the shifty black eyes excelled themselves at this moment in rapidity of observation. they seemed to be full of question, of many questions, but none were forthcoming.
“ah!” said general michael indifferently. “he is,” pursued jem agar, “a delicate fellow; does nothing; though i believe he is going to be called to the bar.”
the general, having passed most of his life in india, where men work or else go home, did not take in the full meaning of this; but he was keen as a ferret, and he saw easily that jem agar despised his step-brother with that cruel contempt which strong men feel for weak.
“mother's darling?” he suggested.
“yes, that is about it,” replied agar. he was too simple, too innately upright and honest to perceive the infinite possibilities opened up by the fact upon which general michael had pounced.
“in case you decide to accept my offer,” the older man went on, “you would wish your stepmother and step-brother to be told?”
“yes, and one other person.”
“ah, and another person. you could not limit it to two?” urged the general.
“no!” replied agar with a decision which the other was wise enough to consider final. moreover, the general omitted to ask the name of this third person, urged thereto by one of those strokes of instinct which indicate the genius of the commander of men.
general michael, moreover, deemed it prudent to carry the matter no further at that moment. he rose from his seat on the bed, stretched his lithe limbs, and said:
“well, this won't do! we must get to work. i propose retreating to-morrow morning at daylight.”
they passed out of the tent together and proceeded to give their orders, moving in and out among the busy men. there was a subtle difference in their reception which was perhaps patent to both, though neither deemed it necessary to make any comment. wherever agar went the eager little black faces of his goorkhas met him with a smile or a grin of delight; when general michael passed by, the dusky features hardened suddenly to a marble stillness, and the beady eyes were all soldier-like attention.
they feared and loved the one because they felt that there was something in him which they could not understand; they feared and hated the other because his nature was nearer to their own, and they defined the evil in it.
moreover, each had his reputation—that of general michael dating from the mutiny; the other, a younger and a cleaner record.
it is considered the proper thing to talk in england of the unvoiced millions of india. no greater mistake could be made. these millions have a voice, but it does not reach to us because they do not raise it. they talk with it among themselves.
they had talked of general michael for thirty years, and all that there was in him had been discussed to its very dregs. thus their impenetrable faces hardened when he passed, their shadowy secretive eyes looked beyond him with a vacancy which was not the vacancy of dulness.
