The Secret Service Man

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Title:     The Secret Service Man
Author: Ethel May Dell [More Titles by Dell]

I

A TIGHT PLACE

"Shoulder to shoulder, boys! Give it 'em straight! There's no going back this journey." And the speaker slapped his thigh and laughed.

He was penned in a hot corner with a handful of grinning little Goorkhas, as ready and exultant as himself. He had no earthly business in that particular spot. But he had won his way there in a hand-to-hand combat, which had rendered that bit of ground the most desirable abiding-place on the face of the earth. And being there he meant to stay.

He was established with the inimitable effrontery of British insolence. He had pushed on through the dark, fired by the enthusiasm which is born of hard resistence. It had been no slight matter, but neither he nor his men were to be easily dismayed. Moreover, their patience had been severely tried for many tedious hours, and the removal of the curb had gone to their heads like wine.

Young Derrick Rose, war correspondent, was hot of head and ready of hand. He had a knack also of getting into tight places and extricating himself therefrom with amazing agility; which knack served to procure for him the admiration of his friends and the respect of his enemies. It was his first Frontier campaign, but it was not apparently destined to be his last, for he bore a charmed life. And he went his way with a cheery recklessness that seemed its own security.

On the present occasion he had planted himself, with a serene assumption of authority, at the head of a handful of Goorkhas who had been pressed forward too far by an over-zealous officer in the darkness, and had lost their leader in consequence.

Derrick had stumbled on the group and had forthwith taken upon himself to direct them to a position which, with a good deal of astuteness, he had marked out in his own mind earlier in the day as a desirable acquisition.

There had been a hand-to-hand scuffle in the darkness, and then the tribesmen had fallen back, believing themselves overwhelmed by superior numbers.

Derrick and his Goorkhas had promptly taken possession of the rocky eminence which was the object of their desire, and now prepared, with commendable determination, to maintain themselves at the post thus captured; an impossible feat in consideration of the paucity of their numbers, which fact a wily enemy had already begun to suspect.

That the main force could by any means fail them was a possibility over which for long neither Derrick nor his followers wasted a thought. Nevertheless half-an-hour of mad turmoil passed, and no help came.

Derrick charitably set down its non-appearance to ignorance of his state and whereabouts, and he began at length to wonder within himself how the place was to be defended throughout the night. Retreat he would not think of, for he was game to the finger-tips. But even he could not fail to see that, when the moon rose, he and his followers would be in a very tight fix.

"Confound their caution! What are they thinking of?" he muttered savagely. "If they only came straight ahead they would be bound to find us."

And then a yelling crowd of dim figures breasted the rocks and dashed forward with the force of a hurricane upon the little body of Goorkhas. In a second Derrick was fighting in the dark with mad enthusiasm for bare foothold, and shouting at the top of his voice exhortations to his men to keep together.

It was a desperate struggle, but once more the little party of invaders held their ground. And Derrick, yelling encouragement to his friends and defiance to his foes, became vaguely conscious of a new element in the strife.

Someone, not a Goorkha, was standing beside him, fighting as he fought, but in grim silence.

Derrick wondered considerably, but was too busy to ask questions. Only when he missed his footing, and a strong hand shot out and dragged him up, his wonder turned to admiration. Here was evidently a mighty fighting-man!

The tribesmen drew off at length baffled, to wait for the moon to rise. They were pretty sure of their prey despite the determined resistance they had encountered. They did not know of the new force that had come to strengthen that forsaken little knot of men. Had they known, their estimate of the task before them would have undergone a very material amendment.

"Hullo!" said Derrick, rubbing his sleeve across his forehead. "Where on earth did you spring from?"

A steady voice answered him out of the gloom. "I came up from the valley. The troops are halted at the entrance of the ravine. There will be no further advance to-night."

Derrick swore a sudden, fierce oath.

"No further advance! Do you mean that? Then Carlyon doesn't know we are here."

"Oh, yes, he knows," answered the man indifferently. "But he says very reasonably that he didn't order you to come up here, and he can't sacrifice twice the number of men here to get you down again. Unfortunate for you, of course; but we all have to swallow bad luck at one time or another. Make the best of it!"

Derrick swore again with less violence and greater resolution.

"And who, in wonder, may you be?" he broke off to enquire. "I'm a war correspondent myself."

There was a vein of humour in the quiet reply.

"Oh, I'm a non-combatant, too. It's always the non-combatants that do the work. Have you got a revolver? Good! Any cartridges? That's right. Now, look here, it's out of the question to remain in this place till moonrise."

"I won't go back," said Derrick doggedly. "I'll see Carlyon hang first."

"Quite right. I wasn't going to propose that. It's impossible, in the first place. Perhaps it is only fair to Colonel Carlyon to mention that he had no notion that there is anything so important as a newspaper man at the head of this expedition. It's a detail, of course. Still, if you get through, it is just as well that you should know the rights of the case."

Derrick broke into an involuntary laugh.

"Did Carlyon get you to come and tell me so?" He turned and peered through the darkness at the man beside him. "You never got up here alone?" he said incredulously.

"Oh, yes. It wasn't difficult. I was guided by the noise you made. How many men have you?"

"Ten or twelve; not more--all Goorkhas."

"Good! We must quit this place at once. It will be a death-trap when the moon rises. There are some boulders higher up, away to the right. We can occupy them till morning and fight back to back if they try to rush us. There ought to be plenty of shelter among those rocks."

The man's cool speech caught Derrick's fancy. He spoke as quietly as if he were sitting at an English dinner-table.

"You had better take command," said Derrick.

"No, thanks; you are going to pull this through. Are you ready to move? Pass the word to the men! And then all together! It is now or never!"

A few seconds later they were stumbling in an indistinguishable mass towards the haven indicated by the latest comer. It was a difficult scramble, not the least difficult part of it being the task of keeping in touch with each other. But Derrick's spirits returned at a bound with this further adventure, and he began to rejoice somewhat prematurely in his triumph over Carlyon's caution.

The man who had come to his assistance kept at his elbow throughout the climb. Not a word was spoken. The men moved like cats through the dimness. Below them was a confused din of rifle-firing. Their advance had evidently not been detected.

"Silly owls! Wasting their ammunition!" murmured Derrick to the man beside him. He received no response. A warning hand closed with a grip on his elbow. And Derrick subsided.

When the moon rose, magnificent and glowing from behind the mountains, Derrick and his men looked down from a high perch on the hillside, and watched a furious party of tribesmen charge and occupy their abandoned position.

"Now, this is good!" said Derrick, and he was in the act of firing his revolver into the thick of the crowd below him when again the sinewy hand of his unknown friend checked him.

"Hold your fire, man!" the man said, in his quiet, unmoved voice. "You will want it presently."

But the stranger's hold tightened. He was standing in the shadow slightly behind Derrick.

"Wait!" he said. "They will find you soon enough. You are not in a position to take the offensive."

Derrick swung round with a restless word. And then he pulled up short. He was facing a tribesman, gaunt and tall, with odd, light eyes that glittered strangely in the moonlight. Derrick stared at the apparition, dumbfounded. After a pause the man took his hand from the correspondent's arm.

"Don't give the show away for want of a little caution!" he said. "There are your men to think of, remember. This is no picnic."

Derrick was still staring hard at the strange figure before him.

"I say," he said at length, "what in the name of wonder are you?"

He heard a faint, contemptuous laugh. The unknown drew the end of his _chuddah_ farther across his face.

"You are marvellously guileless for a war correspondent," he said. And he turned on his heel and stalked away into the shadows.

Derrick stood gazing after him in stupefaction.

"A Secret Service agent, is he?" he murmured at length to himself. "By Jove! What a marvellous fake! On Carlyon's business, I suppose. Confound Carlyon! I'll tell him what I think of him if I come through this all right."

Carlyon, in times of peace, was one of Derrick Rose's most intimate friends. That Carlyon, upon whom he relied as upon a tower of strength should fail him at such a pinch as this, and for motives of caution alone, was a circumstance so preposterous and unheard-of that Derrick's credulity was hardly equal to the strain.

He began to wonder if this stranger who had guided him into safety, from what he now realized to be a positive death-trap, had given him a wholly unexaggerated account of Carlyon's attitude.

He waited awhile, thinking the matter over with rising indignation; and at length, as the noise below him subsided, he moved from his shelter to find his informant. It was a rash thing to do, but prudence was not his strong point. Moreover, the Secret Service man had aroused his curiosity. He wanted to see more of this fellow. So, with an indifference to danger, foolhardy, though too genuine to be contemptible, he strolled across an unprotected space of moonlight to join him.

Two seconds later he was lying on his face, struggling with the futile, convulsive effort of a stricken man to recover his footing. And even while he struggled, he lost consciousness.

He awoke at length as one awakes from a troublous dream, and looked about him with a dazed consciousness of great tumult.

The space in which he lay was no longer wide and empty. The white world was peopled with demons that leapt and surged around his prostrate body. And someone, a man in white, with naked, uplifted arms, stood above him and quelled the tumult.

Derrick saw it all, heard the mad yells lessen and die down, watched with a dumb amazement the melting away of the fierce crowd.

And then the man who stood over him turned suddenly and, kneeling, lifted him from his prostrate position. It was a man in native dress whose eyes held for Derrick an odd, half-familiar fascination.

Where had he met those eyes before? Ah, he remembered. It was the Secret Service man. And that was strange, too. For Carlyon always scoffed at Secret Service men. Still, this was a small matter which, no doubt, would right itself. Everything looked a little peculiar and distorted on this night of wonders. Carlyon himself had sadly degenerated in his opinion since the morning. Bother Carlyon!

Suddenly a great sigh burst from Derrick, and the moonlight broke up into tiny, dazzling fragments. The darkness was full of them, alive with them.

"Fire-flies!" gasped Derrick, and began to cough, at first slowly, with pauses for breath, then quickly, spasmodically, convulsively. For breath had finally failed him.

The arm behind him raised him with the steady strength of iron muscles, and a hand pressed his chest. But the coughing did not cease. It was the anguished strife of wounded Nature to assert her damaged authority; the wild, last effort to clutch and hold fast the elusive torch that, flickering in the midst of darkness, is called life--the one priceless possession of our little mortal treasury.

And while he coughed and fought with the demon of suffocation Derrick was strongly aware of the eyes that watched him, burning like two brilliant blue points out of the darkness. Wonderful eyes! Steady, strong, unflinching. The eyes of a friend--a true friend--not such an one as Carlyon--Carlyon who had failed him.

A thick, unexplored darkness fell upon Derrick as he thought of Carlyon's desertion; and he forgot at length to wonder at the strangeness of the night.

 

II

A BROKEN FRIENDSHIP

By and bye, when the light dawned in his eyes, Derrick began to dream of many strange things.

But he came back at last out of the shadows, weak and faint and weary. And then he found that he was in hospital and had been there for weeks.

The discovery was rather staggering. Somehow he had never quite rid himself of the impression that he was still lying on the great, rocky boulder where the Secret Service man had so magically scattered his enemies. But as life and full consciousness returned to him he became aware that this had for weeks been no more than a fevered illusion.

When he was at length fairly out of danger he was dispatched southwards on the first stage of the homeward journey.

He sailed for Home with his resentment against Carlyon yet strong upon him. He had no parents. In his reckless young days, during the last three years of his minority, Carlyon had been this boy's guardian. But Derrick had been his own master for nearly four years, and the conscious joy of independence was yet dear to his heart. He had no settled home of his own, but he had plenty of money. And that, after all, was the essential thing.

He had been brought up with the daughter of a clergyman in whose home he had lived all his early life. The two had grown up together in close companionship. They had been comrades all their lives.

Only of recent years, at the end of an uneventful college career, had Derrick awakened to the astounding fact that Averil Eversley, his little playmate, was a maiden sweet and comely whom he wanted badly for his very own. She was three years younger than himself, but she had always taken the lead in all their exploits.

Derrick discovered for the first time that this was not a proper state of affairs. He had tried, not over tactfully, to show her that man was, after all, the superior animal. Averil had first stared at his efforts, and then laughed with uncontrollable mirth.

Then Derrick had set to work with splendid energy, and achieved in two years a certain amount of literary success. Averil had praised him for this; which reward of merit had so turned his head that he had at once clumsily proposed to her. Averil had not laughed at that. She had rejected him instantly, with so severe a scolding that Derrick had lost his temper, and gone away to sulk. Later, he had turned his attention again to journalistic work, hoping thereby to recover favour.

Then, and this had brought him to the previous winter, he had returned to find Averil going in for a little innocent hero-worship on her own account. And Carlyon, his own particular friend and adviser, had happened to be the hero.

Whether Carlyon were aware of the state of affairs or not, Derrick in his wrath had not stopped to enquire. He had simply and blindly gone direct to the attack, with the result that Averil had been deeply and irreconcilably offended, and Carlyon had so nearly kicked him for making such a fool of himself that Derrick had retired in disgust from the fray, had clamoured for and, with infinite difficulty, obtained a post as war-correspondent in the ensuing Frontier campaign, and had departed on his adventurous way, sulking hard.

Later, Carlyon had sought him out, had shaken hands with him, called him an impetuous young ass, and had enjoined him to stick to himself during the expedition in which Derrick was thus recklessly determined to take part. They had, in fact, been entirely reconciled, avoiding by mutual consent the delicate ground of their dispute. Carlyon was a man of considerable reputation on the Frontier, and Derrick Rose was secretly proud of the friendship that existed between them.

Now, however, the friendship had split to its very foundation. Carlyon had failed him when life itself had been in the balance.

Impetuous as he was, Derrick was not one to forgive quickly so gross an injury as this. He did not think, moreover, that Averil herself would continue to offer homage before so obvious a piece of clay as her idol had proved himself to be. Derrick was beginning to apply to Carlyon the most odious of all epithets--that of coward.

He had set his heart upon a reconciliation with Averil, and earnestly he hoped she would see the matter with his eyes.

 

III

DERRICK'S PARADISE

"So it was the Secret Service man who saved your life," said Averil, with flushed cheeks. "Really, Dick, how splendid of him!"

"Finest chap I ever saw!" declared Derrick. "He looked about eight feet high in native dress. I shall have to find that man some day, and tell him what I think of him."

"Yes, indeed!" agreed Averil. "I expect, you know, it was really Colonel Carlyon who sent him."

"Being too great a--strategist to advance himself," said Derrick.

"But he didn't know you were at the head of the Goorkhas," Averil reminded him.

"Perhaps not," said Derrick. "But he knew I was there. And, putting me out of the question altogether, what can you think of an officer who will coolly leave a party of his men to be slaughtered like sheep in a butcher's yard because the poor beggars happen to have got into a tight place?"

Derrick spoke with strong indignation, and Averil was silent awhile. Presently, however, she spoke again, slowly.

"I can't help thinking, Dick," she said, "that there is an explanation somewhere. We ought not--it would not be fair--to say Colonel Carlyon acted unworthily before he has had a chance of justifying himself."

There was justice in this remark. Derrick, who was lying at the girl's feet on the hearthrug in the Rectory drawing-room, reached up a bony hand and took possession of one of hers. For Averil had received him with a warmer welcome than he had deemed possible in his most sanguine moments, and he was very happy in consequence.

"All right," he said equably. "We'll shunt Carlyon for a bit, and talk about ourselves. Shall we?"

Averil drew the bony hand on to her lap and looked at it critically.

"Poor old boy!" she said. "It is thin."

Derrick drew himself up to a sitting position. There was an air of mastery about him as he raised a determined face to hers.

"Averil," he said suddenly, "you aren't going to send me to the right-about again, are you?"

"Oh, don't let us squabble on your first night!'" said Averil hastily.

"Squabble!" the boy exclaimed, springing to his feet vigorously. "Do you call--that--squabbling?"

Averil stood up, too, tall and straight, and slightly defiant.

"I don't want you to go away, Dick," she said, "if you can stay and behave nicely. I thought it was horribly selfish of you to go off as you did last winter. I think so still. If you had got killed, I should have been very--very--"

"What?" demanded Derrick impatiently. "Sorry? Angry--what?"

"Angry," said Averil, with great decision. "I should never have forgiven you. I am not sure that I shall, as it is."

Derrick uttered a sudden passionate laugh. Then abruptly his mood changed. He held out his hands to her.

"Averil!" he said. "Averil! Can't you see how I want you--how I love you? Why do you treat me like this? I've thought about you, dreamt about you, day after day, night after night, ever since I went away. You thought it beastly selfish of me to go. But it hasn't been such fun, after all. All the weeks I was in hospital I felt sick for the sight of you. It was worse than starvation. Can't you see what it is to me? Can't you see that I--I worship you?"

"My dear Dick!" Averil put her hands into his, but her gesture was one of restraint. "You mustn't talk so wildly," she said. "And, dear boy, do try not to be quite so impulsive--so headstrong. You know, you--you--"

She broke off. Derrick, with a set jaw and burning eyes, was drawing her to him, strongly, irresistibly.

"Derrick!" she said, with a flash of anger.

"I can't help it!" Derrick said passionately. "I've been counting on this, living for this. Averil I--I--you can call me mad if you like, but if you send me away again--I believe I shall shoot myself."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Averil, half-angry, half-scornful.

He dropped her hands and stood quite still for the space of a few seconds, his face white and twitching. And then, to her utter amazement, he sank heavily into a chair and covered his face with his hands.

"Dick!" she ejaculated.

Silence followed the word, a breathless silence. Derrick sat perfectly motionless, his fingers gripping his hair. At last Averil moved up to him, a little frightened by his stillness, and very intensely compassionate. She bent and touched his shoulder.

"Dick!" she said. "Dick! Don't!"

He stirred under her hand, but did not raise his head. "Get away, Averil!" he muttered. "You don't understand."

And quite suddenly Averil was transported back to the far, receding schooldays, when Derrick had got into trouble for smoking his first cigar. The memory unconsciously influenced her speech.

"But, Dick," she said persuasively, "don't you think you are the least bit in the world unreasonable? It's true I don't quite understand. We've been such splendid chums all our lives, I really don't see why we should begin to be anything different now. Besides, Dick"--there was appeal in her voice--"I don't truly want to get married. It seems such a silly thing to go and do when one had such really jolly times without. It does spoil things so."

Derrick sat up. He was still absurdly boyish, despite his four-and-twenty years.

"Look here, Averil!" he said doggedly. "If you won't have me, I'm not going to hang about after you like a tame monkey. It's going to be one thing or the other. I've made a big enough fool of myself over you. We can't be chums, as you call it"--a passionate ring crept into his voice--"when all the while you're holding me off at arm's length as if I'd got the plague. So"--rising abruptly and facing her--"which is it to be?"

Averil looked at him. His face was still white, but his lips were sternly compressed. He was weak no longer. She was conscious of a sudden thrill of admiration banishing her pity. After all, was he indeed only a boy? He scarcely seemed so at that moment. He was, moreover, straight and handsome despite his gaunt appearance.

"Answer me, Averil!" he said with determination.

But Averil had no answer ready. She stood silent.

Derrick laid his hand on her arm. It was a light touch, but somehow it conveyed to her the fact that he was holding himself in with a tighter rein than ever before.

"Don't torture me!" he said, speaking quickly, nervously. "Tell me either to stay or--go!" His voice dropped on the last word, and for a second Averil saw the torture on his face.

It was too much for her resolution. All her life she had been this boy's chosen companion and confidante. She felt she could not turn from him now in his distress, and deliberately break his heart. Yet for one tumultuous second she battled with her impulse. Then--she yielded. Somehow that look in Derrick's eyes compelled her.

She put her hands on his shoulders.

"Dick--stay!" she said.

His arms closed round her in a second. "You mean--" he said, under his breath.

"Yes, Dick," she answered bravely, "I do mean. Dear boy, don't ever look like that again! You have hurt me horribly."

Derrick turned her face up to his own and kissed her repeatedly and passionately.

"You shall never regret it, my darling," he said. "You have turned my world into a paradise. I will do the same for yours."

"It doesn't take much to make me happy," Averil said, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. "I hope you will be a kind master, Dick, and let me have my own way sometimes."

"Master?" scoffed Derrick, kissing her hair. "You know you can lead me by the nose from world's end to world's end."

"I wonder," said Averil, with a little sigh. "Do you know, Dick, I'm not quite sure of that."

"What!" said Derrick softly. "Not--quite--sure!"

"Not when you look as you did thirty seconds ago," Averil explained. "Never mind, dear old boy! I'm glad you can look like that, though, mind, you must never, never do it again if you live to be a hundred."

She looked up at him suddenly and clasped her hands behind his neck. "You do love me, don't you, Dick?" she said.

"My darling, I worship you!" Derrick answered very solemnly.

And Averil drew his head down with a quivering smile and kissed him on the lips.

 

IV

CARLYON DEFENDS HIMSELF

"Ah, Derrick! I thought I could not be mistaken."

Derrick turned swiftly at the touch of a hand on his shoulder, and nearly tumbled into the roadway. He had been sauntering somewhat aimlessly down the Strand till pulled up in this rather summary fashion. He now found himself staring at a tall man who had come up behind him--a man with a lined face and drooping eyelids, and a settled weariness about his whole demeanour which, somehow, conveyed the impression that, in his opinion, at least, there was nothing on earth worth striving for.

Derrick recovered his balance and stood still before him. Speech, however, quite unexpectedly failed him. The quiet greeting had scattered his ideas momentarily.

The hand that had touched his shoulder was deliberately transferred to his elbow.

"Come!" said his acquaintance, smiling a little. "We are blocking the gangway. I am staying at the Grand. If you are at liberty you might dine with me. By the way, how are you, old fellow?"

He spoke very quietly and wholly without affectation. There was a touch of tenderness in his last sentence that quite restored Derrick's faculties.

He shook his arm free from the other's hand with a vehemence of action that was unmistakably hostile.

"No, thanks, Colonel Carlyon!" he said, speaking fast and feverishly. "If I were starving, I wouldn't accept hospitality from you!"

"Don't be a fool!" said Carlyon.

His tone was still quiet, but it was also stern. He pushed a determined hand through Derrick's arm. "If you won't come my way," he said, "I shall come yours."

Derrick swore under his breath. But he yielded. "Very well," he said aloud. "I'll come. But I swear I won't touch anything."

"You needn't swear," said Carlyon; "it's unnecessary."

And Derrick bit his lip nearly through, being exasperated. He did not, however, resist the compelling hand a second time, realizing the futility of such a proceeding.

So in dead silence they reached the Grand and entered. Then Carlyon spoke again.

"Come up to my room first!" he said.

Derrick went with him unprotesting.

In his own room Carlyon turned round and took him by the shoulders. "Now," he said, "are you ill or merely sulky? Just tell me which, and I shall know how to treat you!"

"It's no thanks to you I'm not dead!" exclaimed Derrick stormily. "I didn't want to meet you, but, by Heaven, since I have, and since you have forced an interview upon me, I'll go ahead and tell you what I think of you."

Carlyon turned away from him and sat down. "Do, by all means," he said, "if it will get you into a healthier frame of mind!"

But Derrick's flow of eloquence unexpectedly failed him at this juncture, and he stood awkwardly silent.

Carlyon turned round at last and looked at him. "Sit down, Dick," he said patiently, "and stop being an ass! I'm a difficult man to quarrel with, as you know. So sit down and state your grievance, and have done with it!"

"You know very well what's wrong!" Derrick burst out fiercely, beginning to prowl to and fro.

"Do I?" said Carlyon. He got up deliberately and intercepted Derrick. "Just stop tramping," he said, with sudden sternness, "and listen to me! You have your wound alone to thank for keeping you out of the worst mess you ever got into. If you hadn't gone back in a hospital truck, you would have gone back under escort. Do you understand that?"

"Why?" flashed Derrick.

"Why?" echoed Carlyon, striking him abruptly on the shoulder. "Tell me your own opinion of a hot-headed, meddling young fool who not only got into mischief himself at a most critical moment, but led half-a-score of valuable men into what was practically a death-trap, for the sake of, I suppose he would call it, an hour's sport. On my soul, Derrick," he ended, with a species of quiet vigour that carried considerable weight behind it, "if you weren't such a skeleton I'd give you a sound thrashing for your sins. As it is, you will be wise to get off that high horse of yours and take a back seat. I never have put up with this sort of thing from you. And I never mean to."

Derrick had no answer ready. He stood still, considering these things.

Colonel Carlyon turned his back on him and cut the end of a cigar. "Do you grasp my meaning?" he enquired at length, as Derrick remained silent.

Derrick moved to a chair and sat down. Somehow Carlyon had taken the backbone out of his indignation. He spoke at last, but without anger. "Even if it were as you say," he said, "I don't consider you treated me decently."

Carlyon suddenly laughed. "Even if by some odd chance I have actually spoken the truth," he said, "I shall not, and do not, feel called upon to justify my action for your benefit."

"I think you owe me that," Derrick said quickly.

"I disagree with you," Carlyon rejoined. "I owe you nothing whatever except the aforementioned thrashing which must, unfortunately, under the circumstances, remain a debt for the present."

Derrick leant forward suddenly

"Stop rotting, Carlyon!" he said, with impulsive earnestness. "I can't help talking seriously. You didn't know, surely, what a tight fix we were in? You couldn't have intended us to--to--die in the dark like that?"

"Intended!" said Carlyon sharply. "I never intended you to occupy that position at all, remember."

"Yes; but--since we were in that position, since--if you choose to put it so--I exceeded all bounds and intentions and took those splendid little Goorkhas into a death-trap; I may have been a headstrong, idiotic fool to do it; but, granted all that, you did not deliberately and knowingly leave us to be massacred? You couldn't have done actually that."

Carlyon laid his cigar-case on the table at Derrick's elbow, and lighted his own cigar with great deliberation.

"You may remember, Dick," he said quietly, after a pause, "that once upon a time you wrote--and published--a book. It had its merits and it had its faults. But a fool of a critic took it into his head to give you a thorough slating. You were furious, weren't you? I remember giving you a bit of sound advice over that book. Probably you have forgotten it. But it chances to be one of the guiding principles of my life. It is this: Never answer your critics! Go straight ahead!"

He paused.

"I remember," said Derrick. "Well?"

"Well," said Carlyon gravely, "that is what I have done all my life, what I mean to do now. You are in full possession of the facts of the case. You have defined my position fairly accurately. I did know you were in an impossible corner. I did know that you and the men with you were in all probability doomed. And--I did not think good to send a rescue. You do not understand the game of war. You merely went in for it for the sake of sport, I for the sake of the stakes. There is a difference. More than that I do not mean to say."

He sat down opposite Derrick as he ended and began to smoke with an air of indifference. But his eyes were on the boy's face. They had been close friends for years.

Derrick still sat forward. He was staring at the ground heavily, silently Carlyon had given him a shock. Somehow he had not expected from him this cool acknowledgment of an action from which he himself shrank with unspeakable abhorrence.

To leave a friend in the lurch was, in Derrick's eyes, an act so infamous that he would have cut his own throat sooner than be guilty of it. It did not occur to him that Carlyon might have urged extenuating circumstances, but had rather scornfully abstained from doing so.

He did not even consider the fact that, as commanding-officer, Carlyon's responsibility for the lives in his charge was a burden not to be ignored or lightly borne. He did not consider the risk to these same valuable lives that a rescue in force would have involved.

He saw only himself fighting for a forlorn hope, his grinning little Goorkhas gallantly and intrepidly following wherever he would lead, and he saw the awful darkness down which his feet had stumbled, a terrible chasm that had yawned to engulf them all.

He sat up at last and looked straight at Carlyon. He spoke slowly, with an effort.

"If it had been only myself," he said, "I--perhaps, I might have found it easier. But there were the men, my men. You could not alter your plans by one hair's-breadth to save their gallant lives. I can't get over that. I never shall. You left us to die like rats in a hole. But for a total stranger--a spy, a Secret Service man--we should have been cut to pieces, every one of us. You did not, I suppose, send that man to help us out?"

Carlyon blew a cloud of smoke upwards. He frowned a little, but his look was more one of boredom than annoyance.

"What exactly are you talking about?" he said. "I don't employ spies. As to Secret Service agents, I think you have heard my opinion of them before."

"Yes," said Derrick. He rose with an air of finality. His young face was very stern. "He was probably attached to General Harford's division. He found us in a fix, and he helped us out of it. He knew the land. We didn't. He was the most splendid fighting-man I ever saw. He tried to stick up for you, too--said you didn't know. That, of course, was a mistake. You did know, and are not ashamed to own it."

"Not in the least," said Carlyon.

"The men couldn't have held out without him," Derrick continued. "After I was hit, he stood by them. He only took himself off just before morning came and you ventured to move to our assistance."

"He had no possible right to do it," observed Carlyon thoughtfully ignoring the bitter ring of sarcasm in the boy's tone.

"Oh, none whatever," said Derrick. He spoke hastily, jerkily, as a man not sure of himself. "No doubt his life was Government property, and he had no right to risk it. Still he did it, and I am weak-minded enough to be grateful. My own life may be worthless; at least, it was then. And I would not have survived my Goorkhas. But he saved them, too. That, odd as it may seem to you, made all the difference to me."

"Is your life more valuable now than it was a few months ago?" enquired Carlyon, in a casual tone.

"Yes," said Derrick shorty.

"Has Averil accepted you?" Carlyon asked him point-blank.

"Yes," said Derrick again.

There was a momentary pause. Then: "Permit me to offer my felicitations!" said Carlyon, through a haze of tobacco-smoke.

Derrick started as if stung. "I beg you won't do anything of the sort!" he said with vehemence. "I don't want your good wishes. I would rather be without them. I may be a hare-brained fool. I won't deny it. But as for you--you are a blackguard--the worst sort of blackguard! I hope I shall never speak to you again!"

Carlyon, lying back in his chair, neither stirred nor spoke. He looked up at Derrick from beneath steady eyelids. But he offered him nothing in return for his insulting words.

Derrick waited for seconds. Then patience and resolution alike failed him. He swung round abruptly on his heel and walked out of the room.

As for Colonel Carlyon, he did not rise from his chair till he had conscientiously finished his cigar. He had stuck to his principles. He had not answered his critic. Incidentally he had borne more from that critic than any man had ever before dared to offer him, more than he had told Derrick himself that he would bear. Yet Derrick had gone away from the encounter with a whole skin in order that Colonel Carlyon might stick to his principles. Carlyon's forbearance was a plant of peculiar growth.

 

V

A WOMAN'S FORGIVENESS

"Colonel Carlyon," said Averil, turning to face him fully, her eyes very bright, "will you take the trouble to make me understand about Derrick? I have been awaiting an opportunity to ask you ever since I heard about it."

Carlyon paused. They chanced to be staying simultaneously in the house of a mutual friend. He had arrived only the previous evening, and till that moment had scarcely spoken to the girl.

Carlyon smothered an involuntary sigh. He could have wished that this girl, with her straight eyes and honest speech, would have spared him the explanation which she had made such speed to demand of him.

"Make you understand, Miss Eversley!" he said, halting deliberately before a bookcase. "What exactly is it that you do not understand?"

"Everything," Averil said, with a comprehensive gesture. "I have always believed that you thought more of Derrick than anything else in the world."

"Ah!" said Carlyon quietly. "That is probably the root of the misunderstanding. Correct that, and the rest will be comparatively easy."

He took a book from the shelf before him and ran a quick eye through its pages. After a brief pause he put the volume back and joined the girl on the hearthrug.

"Is my behaviour still an enigma?" he said, with a slight smile.

She turned to him impulsively. "Of course," she said, colouring vividly, "I am aware that to a celebrated man like you the opinion of a nobody like myself cannot matter one straw. But--"

"Pardon me!" Carlyon gravely. "Even celebrated men are human, you know. They have their feelings like the rest of mankind. I shall be sorry to forfeit your good opinion. But I have no means of retaining it. Derrick cannot see my point of view. You, of course, will share his difficulties."

"That does not follow, does it?" said Averil.

"I should say so," said Carlyon. "You see, Miss Eversley, you have already told me that you do not understand my action. Non-comprehension in such a matter is synonymous with disapproval. You are, no doubt, in full possession of the facts. More than the bare facts I cannot give you. I will not attempt to justify myself where I admit no guilt."

"No," Averil said. "Pray don't think I am asking you to do anything of the sort! Only, Colonel Carlyon," she laid a pleading hand on his arm and lifted a very anxious face, "you remember we used to be friends, if you will allow the presumption of such a term. Won't you even try to show me your point of view in this matter? I think I could understand. I want to understand."

Carlyon leant his elbow on the mantelpiece and looked very gravely into the girl's troubled eyes.

"You are very generous, Averil," he said.

"Generous," she echoed, with a touch of impatience. "No; I only want to be just--for my own sake. I hate to take a narrow, cramped view of things. I hate that Dick should. A few words from you would set us both right, and we could all be friends again."

"Ah!" said Carlyon. "But suppose--I have nothing to say?"

"You must have something!" she declared vehemently. "You never do anything without a reason."

"Generous again!" said Carlyon.

"Oh, don't laugh at me!" cried Averil, stung by the quiet unconcern of his words.

He straightened himself instantly, his face suddenly stern. "At least you wrong me there!" he said, and before the curt reproof of his tone she felt humbled and ashamed. "Listen to me a moment! You want my point of view clearly stated. You shall have it.

"I am employed by a blundering Government to do a certain task which bigger men shirk. Carlyon of the Frontier, they say, will stick at no dirty job. I undertake the task. I lay my plans--subtle plans which you, with your blind British generosity, would neither understand nor approve. I proceed to carry them out. I am within sight of the end and success, when an idiotic fool of a boy, who is not so much as a combatant himself, blunders into the business and throws the whole scheme out of gear. He assumes the leadership of a dozen stranded Goorkhas, and instead of bringing them back he drags them forward into an impossible position, and then expects a rescue.

"I meanwhile have my own work to do. I am responsible to the Government for the lives of my men. I cannot expend them on other than Government work.

"On one side of the scale is this same Government and the plans made in its interest; on the other the life of a boy, strategically speaking, worth nothing, and the lives of half-a-score of fighting men, already accounted a loss. It may astonish you to know that the Government turned the scale. Those who had incurred the penalty of rashness were left to pay it. That, Miss Eversley, is all I have to say. You will be good enough to remember that I have said it at your request and not in my own defence."

He ceased to speak as abruptly as he had begun. He was standing at his full height, and, tall though she was, Averil felt unaccountably small and insignificant before him. Curtly, almost rudely, as he had spoken, she admired him immensely for the stern code of honour he professed.

She did not utter a word for several seconds. He had impressed her very strongly. She stayed to weigh his words in the balance of her own judgment.

"It is a man's point of view," she said slowly at last, "not a woman's."

"Even so," said Carlyon, dropping back suddenly to his former attitude.

She looked at him very earnestly, her brows drawn together.

"You have not told me about the Secret Service man," she said at length. "You sent him, did you not, on the forlorn chance of saving Dick?"

Carlyon shook his head in a grim disclaimer.

"Derrick's information was the first I heard of the individual," he said. "I was unaware of the existence of a Secret Service agent within a radius of fifty miles. I believe General Harford encourages the breed. I do the precise opposite. I have no faith in professional spies in that part of the world. Russian territory is too near, and Russian gold too tempting."

Averil's face fell. "Colonel Carlyon," she said, in a very small voice, "forgive me, but--but--you cannot be so hard as you sound. You are fond of Dick, surely?"

"Yes," he said deliberately. "I am fond of you both, if I may be permitted to say so."

Averil coloured a little. "Thank you," she said. "I shall try presently to make him understand."

"Understand what?" said Carlyon curiously.

"Your feeling in the matter."

"My what?" he said roughly. Then hastily, "I beg your pardon, Miss Eversley. But are you sure you understand it yourself?"

"I am doing my best," she said, in a low voice.

"But you are sorely disappointed, nevertheless," he said, in a more kindly tone. "You expected something different. Well, it can't be helped. I should leave Dick's convictions alone, if I were you. At least he has no illusions left with regard to Carlyon of the Frontier."

There was an involuntary touch of sadness in the man's quiet speech. He no longer looked at Averil, and his face in repose wore an expression of unutterable weariness.

Averil held out her hand with an abrupt, childlike impulse.

"Colonel Carlyon," she said, speaking very rapidly, "you are right. I don't understand. I think you hold too stern a view of your responsibilities. I believe no woman could think otherwise. But at the same time I do still believe you are a good man. I shall always believe it."

Carlyon glanced at her quickly. Her face was flushed, her eyes very eager. He looked away again almost instantly, but he took her outstretched hand.

"Thank you, Averil," he said gravely. "I believe under the circumstances few women would have said the same. Tell me! Did I hear a rumour that you are going out to India yourself very shortly?"

She nodded. "I have almost promised to go," she said. "I have a married sister at Sharapura. I wrote to her of my engagement, and she wrote back, begging me to go to her if I could. She and her husband have been disappointed several times about coming home, and it is still uncertain when they will manage it. She wants to see me before I marry and settle down, she says."

"And you want to go?"

"Of course I do," said Averil, with enthusiasm. "It has always been a standing promise that I should go some day."

"And what does Derrick say to it?"

"Oh, Dick! He was very cross at first. But I have propitiated him by promising to marry him as soon as I get back, which will be probably this time next year."

Averil's face grew suddenly grave.

"I hope you will both be very happy," said Carlyon, rather formally.

"Thank you," said Averil, looking up at him. "It would make me much happier if--you and Dick could be friends before then."

"Would it?" said Carlyon thoughtfully. "I wonder why."

"I should like my friends to be Dick's friends," she said, with slight hesitation.

Carlyon smiled a little. "Forgive me, Miss Eversley, for being monotonous!" he said.... "But, once more--how generous!"

Averil turned sharply away, inexplicably hurt by what she considered the note of mockery in his voice, and went out, leaving him alone before the fire. Emphatically this man was entirely beyond her understanding.

But, nevertheless, when they met again, she had forgiven him.

 

VI

FIEND OR KING?

"Hullo, doctor! What news?" sang out a curly-haired subaltern on the steps of the club, a newly-erected, wooden bungalow of which the little Frontier station was immensely proud. "You're looking infernally serious. What's the matter?"

Dr. Seddon rolled stoutly off his steaming pony and went to join his questioner.

"What do you think you're doing, Toby?" he said, with a glance at an enormous pair of scissors in the boy's hand.

"I'm making lamp-shades," Toby responded, leading the way within. "What's your drink? Nothing? What a horribly dry beast you are! Yes, lamp-shades--for the ball, you know. Got to be ready by to-morrow night. We're doing them with crinkly paper. Miss Eversley promised to come and help me. But she hasn't turned up."

"What?" exclaimed Seddon. "Not come back yet?"

Toby dropped his scissors with a clatter, and dived for them under the reading-room table.

"Don't make me jump, I say, doctor!" he said pathetically. "I'm quite upset enough as it is. That lazy lout, Soames, won't stir a finger. The other chaps are on duty. And Miss Eversley has proved faithless. Why can't you turn to and help?"

But Seddon was already striding to the door again in hot haste.

"That idiot of a girl must have crossed the Frontier!" he said, as he went. "There was a fellow shot on sentry-go last night. It's infernally dangerous, I tell you!"

Toby raced after him swearing inarticulately. A couple of subalterns just entering were nearly overwhelmed by their vigorous exit. They recovered themselves and followed to the tune of Toby's excited questioning. But none of the party got beyond the veranda steps, for there the sound of clattering hoofs arrested them, and a jaded horse bearing a dishevelled rider was pulled up short in front of the club.

"Miss Eversley herself!" cried Toby, making a dash forward.

A native servant slipped unobtrusively to the sweating horse's bridle. Averil was on the ground in a moment and turned to ascend the steps of the club-house.

"Is my brother-in-law here?" she said to Toby, accepting the hand he offered.

"Who? Raymond? No; he's in the North Camp somewhere. Do you want him? Anything wrong? By Jove, Miss Eversley, you've given us an awful fright!"

Averil went up the steps with so palpable an effort that Seddon hastily dragged forward a chair. Her lips, as she answered Toby, were quite colourless.

"I have had a fright myself," she said. Then she looked round at the other men with a shaky laugh. "I have been riding for my life," she said a little breathlessly. "I have never done that before. It--it's very exciting--almost more so than riding to hounds. I have often wondered how the fox felt. Now I know."

She ignored the chair Seddon placed for her, turning to the boy called Toby with great resolution.

"Those lamp-shades, Mr. Carey," she said. "I'm sorry I'm so late. You must have thought I was never coming. In fact"--the colour was returning to her face, and her smile became more natural--"I thought so myself a few minutes ago. Let us set to work at once!"

Toby burst into a rude whoop of admiration and flung a ball of string into the air.

"Miss Eversley, well done! Well done!" he gasped. "You--you deserve a V.C.!"

"Indeed I don't," she returned. "I have been running away hard."

"Tell us all about it, Miss Eversley!" urged one of her listeners. "You have been across the Frontier, now, haven't you? What happened? Someone tried to snipe you from afar?"

But Miss Eversley refused to be communicative. "I am much too busy," she said, "to discuss anything so unimportant. Come, Mr. Carey, the lamp-shades!"

Toby bore her off in triumph to inspect his works of art. There was a good deal of understanding in Toby's head despite its curls which he kept so resolutely cropped. He attended to business without a hint of surprise or inattention. And he was presently rewarded for his good behaviour.

Averil, raising her eyes for a moment from one of the shades which she was tacking together while he held it in shape, said presently:

"A very peculiar thing happened to me this morning, Mr. Carey."

"Yes?" he replied, trying to keep the note of expectancy out of his voice.

Averil nodded gravely. "I crossed the Frontier," she said, "and rode into the mountains. I thought I heard a child crying. I lost my way and fell among thieves."

"Yes?" said Toby again. He looked up, frankly interested this time.

"I was shot at," she resumed. "It was my own fault, of course. I shouldn't have gone. My brother-in-law warned me very seriously against going an inch beyond the Frontier only last night. Well, one buys one's experience. I certainly shall never go again, not for a hundred wailing babies."

"Probably a bird," remarked Toby practically.

"Probably," assented Averil, equally practical. "To continue: I didn't know what to do. I was horribly frightened. I had lost my bearings. And then out of the very midst of my enemies there came a friend."

"Ah!" said Toby quickly. "The right sort?"

"There is only one sort," she said, with a touch of dignity.

"And what did he do?" said Toby, with eager interest.

"He simply took my bridle and ran by my side till we were out of danger," Averil said, a sudden soft glow creeping up over her face.

Toby looked at her very seriously. "In native rig, I suppose?" he said.

"Yes," said Averil.

"Carlyon of the Frontier," said Toby, with abrupt decision.

She nodded. "I did not know he had left England," she said.

"He hasn't--officially speaking," said Toby. He was watching her steadily. "Do you know, Miss Eversley," he said, "I think I wouldn't mention your discovery to any one else?"

"I am not going to," she said.

"No? Then why did you tell me?" he asked, with a tinge of rude suspicion in his voice.

Averil looked him suddenly and steadily in the face. It was a very innocent face that Toby Carey presented to a serenely credulous world.

"Because," said Averil slowly, "he told me to tell you alone. 'Tell Toby Carey only,' he said, 'to watch when the beasts go down to drink.' They were his last words."

"Good!" said Toby unconcernedly. "Then he knew you recognized him?"

"Yes," Averil said; "he knew." She smiled faintly as she said it. "He told me he was in no danger," she added.

"Is he a friend of yours?" asked Toby sharply.

"Yes," said Averil, with pride.

"I'm sorry to hear it," said Toby bluntly.

"Why?" she asked, with a swift flash of anger.

"Why?" he echoed vehemently. "Ask your brother-in-law, ask Seddon, ask any one! The man is a fiend!"

Averil sprang to her feet in sudden fury.

"How dare you!" she cried passionately. "He is a king!"

Toby stared for a moment, then grew calm. "We are not talking about the same man, Miss Eversley," he said shortly. "The man I know is a fiend among fiends. The man you know is, no doubt--different."

But Averil swept from the club-room without a word. She was very angry with Toby Carey.

 

VII

THE REAL COLONEL CARLYON

Averil rode back to her brother-in-law's bungalow, vexed with herself, weary at heart, troubled. She had arrived at the station among the mountains on the Frontier two months before, and had spent a very happy time there with the sister whom she had not seen for years. The ladies of the station numbered a very scanty minority, but there was no lack of gaiety and merriment on that account.

That the hills beyond the Great Frontier were peopled by tribes in a seething state of discontent was a matter known, but little recked of, by the majority of the community. Officers went their several ways, fully awake to threatening rumours, but counting them of small importance. They went to their sport; to their polo, their racing, their gymkhanas, with light hearts and in perfect security. They lay down in the dread shadow of a mighty Empire and slept secure in the very jaws of danger.

The fierce and fanatical hatred that raged over the Frontier was less than nothing to most of them. The power that sheltered them was wholly sufficient for their confidence.

The toughness of the good northern breed is of a quality untearable, made to endure in all climates, under all conditions. Ordered to carry revolvers, they stuffed them unloaded into side-pockets, or left them in the hands of _syces_ to bear behind them.

Proof positive of their total failure to realize the danger that threatened from amidst the frowning, grey-cragged mountains was the fact that their womenkind were allowed to remain at the station, and even rode and drove forth unattended on the rocky, mountain roads.

True, they were warned against crossing the Frontier. A few officers, of whom Captain Raymond, who was Averil's brother-in-law, and Toby Carey, the innocent-faced subaltern, were two, saw the rising wave from afar; but they saw it vaguely as inevitable but not imminent. Captain Raymond planned to himself to send his wife and her sister to Simla before the monsoon broke up the fine weather.

And this was all he accomplished beyond administering a severe reprimand to his young sister-in-law for running into danger among the hills.

"There are always thieves waiting to bag anyone foolish enough to show his nose over the border," he said. "Isn't the Indian Empire large enough for you that you must needs go trespassing among savages?"

Averil heard him out with the patience of a slightly wandering attention. She had not recounted the whole of her experience for his benefit, nor did she intend to do so. She was still wondering what the mysterious message she had delivered to Toby Carey might be held to mean.

When Captain Raymond had exhausted himself she went away to her own room and sat for a long while gazing towards the great mountains, thinking, thinking.

Her sister presently joined her. Mrs. Raymond was a dark-eyed, merry-hearted little woman, the gay originator of many a frolic, and an immense favourite with men and women alike.

"Poor darling! I declare Harry has made you look quite miserable!" was her exclamation, as she ran lightly in and seated herself on the arm of Averil's chair.

"Harry!" echoed Averil, in a tone of such genuine scorn that Mrs. Raymond laughed aloud.

"You're very rude," she said. "Still, I'm glad Harry isn't the offender. Who is it, I wonder? But, never mind! I have a splendid piece of news for you, dear. Shut your eyes and guess!"

"Oh, I can't indeed!" protested Averil. "I am much too tired."

Mrs. Raymond looked at her with laughing eyes.

"There! She shan't be teased!" she cried gaily. "It's the loveliest surprise you ever had, darling; but I can't keep it a secret any longer. I wanted to see him now that he is grown up, and quite satisfy myself that he is really good enough for you. So, dear, I wrote to him and begged him to join us here. And the result is--now guess!"

Averil had turned sharply to look at her.

"Do you mean you have asked Dick to come here?" she said, in a quick, startled way.

"Exactly, dear; I actually have," said Mrs. Raymond. "More--we had a wire this morning. He will be here to dinner."

"Oh!" said Averil. She rose hastily, so hastily that her sister was left sitting on the arm of the bamboo chair, which instantly overturned on the top of her.

Averil extricated her with many laughing apologies, and, by the time Mrs. Raymond had recovered her equilibrium, the younger girl had lost her expression of astonishment and was looking as bright and eager as her sister could desire.

"Only Dick is such a madcap," she said. "How shall we keep him from getting up to mischief in No Man's Land precisely as I have done?"

Mrs. Raymond opined that Averil ought by then to have discovered the secret of managing the young man, and they went to _tiffin_ on the veranda in excellent spirits.

Dr. Seddon was there and young Steele, one of Raymond's subalterns. Averil found herself next to the doctor, who, rather to her surprise, forebore to twit her with her early morning adventure. He was, in fact, very grave, and she wondered why.

Steele, strolling by her side in the shady compound, by and bye volunteered information.

"Poor old Seddon is in a mortal funk," he said, "which accounts for his wretched appetite. He has been wasting steadily ever since Carlyon went away. He thinks Carlyon is the only fellow capable of taking care of him. No one else is monster enough."

"Is Colonel Carlyon expected out here?" Averil asked, in a casual tone.

One of Steele's eyelids contracted a little as if it wanted to wink. He answered her in a low voice: "Carlyon is never expected before his arrival, Miss Eversley."

"No?" said Averil indifferently. "And, why, please do you call him a monster?"

Steele laughed a little. "Didn't you know?" he said. "Why, he is the King of Evil in these parts!"

Averil felt her face slowly flushing. "I don't understand," she said.

"Don't you?" said Steele. "Honestly now?"

The flush heightened. "Of course I don't," she said. "Otherwise why should I tell you so?"

"Pardon!" said Steele, unabashed. "Well, then, you must know that we are all frightened of Carlyon of the Frontier. We hate him badly, but he has the whip-hand of us, and so we have to do the tame trot for him. Over there"--he jerked his head towards the mountains--"they would lie down in a row miles long and let him walk over their necks. And not a single blackguard among them would dare to stab upwards, because Carlyon is immortal, as everyone knows, and it wouldn't be worth the blackguard's while to survive the deed.

"They don't call him Carlyon in the mountains, but it's the same man, for all that. He is a prophet, a deity, among them. They believe in him blindly as a special messenger from Heaven. And he plays with them, barters them, betrays them, every single day he spends among them. He is strong, he is unscrupulous, he is merciless. He respects no friendship. He keeps no oath. He betrays, he tortures, he slays. Even we, the enlightened race, shrink from him as if he were the very fiend incarnate.

"But he is a valuable man. The information he obtains is priceless. But he trades with blood. He lives on treachery. He is more subtle than the subtlest Pathan. He would betray any one or all of us to death if it were to the interest of the Empire that we should be sacrified. That, you know, in reason, is all very well. But, personally, I would sooner tread barefoot on a scorpion than get entangled in Carlyon's web. He is more false and more cruel than a serpent. At least, that is his reputation among us. And those heathen beggars trust him so utterly."

Steele stopped abruptly. He had spoken with strong passion. His honest face was glowing with indignation. He was British to the backbone, and he loathed all treachery instinctively.

Suddenly he saw that the girl beside him had turned very white. He paused in his walk with an awkward sense of having spoken unadvisedly.

"Of course," he said, with a boyish effort to recover his ground, "it has to be done. Someone must do the dirty work. But that doesn't make you like the man who does it a bit the better. One wouldn't brush shoulders with the hangman if one knew it."

Averil was standing still. Her hands were clenched.

"Are you talking of Colonel Carlyon--my friend?" she said slowly.

Steele turned sharply away from the wide gaze of her grey eyes.

"I hope not, Miss Eversley," he said. "The man I mean is not fit to be the friend of any woman."

 

VIII

THE STRANGER ON THE VERANDA

It was to all outward seeming a very gay crowd that assembled at the club-house on the following night for the first dance of the season. For some unexplained reason sentries had been doubled on all sides of the Camp, but no one seemed to have any anxiety on that account.

"We ought to feel all the safer," laughed Mrs. Raymond when she heard. "No one ever took such care of us before."

"It must be all rot," said Derrick who had arrived the previous evening in excellent spirits. "If there were the smallest danger of a rising you wouldn't be here."

"Quite true," laughed Mrs. Raymond, "unless the road to Fort Akbar is considered unsafe."

"I never saw a single border thief all the way here!" declared Derrick, departing to look for Averil.

He claimed the first waltz imperiously, and she gave it to him. She was the prettiest girl in the room, and she danced with a queenly grace of movement. Derrick was delighted. He did not like giving her up, but Steele was insistent on this point. He had made Derrick's acquaintance in the Frontier campaign of a year before, and he parted the two without scruple, declaring he would not stand by and see a good chap like Derrick make a selfish beast of himself on such an occasion.

Derrick gave place with a laugh and sought other partners. In the middle of the evening Toby Carey strolled up to Averil and bent down in a conversational attitude. He was not dancing himself. She gave him a somewhat cold welcome.

After a few commonplace words he took her fan from her hand and whispered to her behind it:

"There's a fellow on the veranda waiting to speak to you," he said. "Calls himself a friend."

Her heart leapt at the murmured words. She glanced hurriedly round. Everyone in the room was dancing. She had pleaded fatigue. She rose quietly and stepped to the window, Toby following.

She stood a moment on the threshold of the night and then passed slowly out. All about her was dark.

"Go on to the steps!" murmured Toby behind her. "I shall keep watch."

She went on with gathering speed. At the head of the veranda-steps she dimly discerned a figure waiting for her, a figure clothed in some white, muffling garment that seemed to cover the face. And yet she knew by all her bounding pulses whom she had found.

"Colonel Carlyon!" she said, and on the impulse of the moment she gave him both her hands.

His quiet voice answered her out of the strange folds. "Come into the garden a moment!" he said.

She went with him unquestioning, with the confidence of a child. He led her with silent, stealthy tread into the deepest gloom the compound afforded. Then he stopped and faced her with a question that sent a sudden tumult of doubt racing through her brain.

"Will you take a message to Fort Akbar for me, Averil?" he said. "A matter of life and death."

A message! Averil's heart stood suddenly-still. All the evil report that she had heard of this man raised its head like a serpent roused from slumber, a serpent that had hidden in her breast, and a terrible agony of fear took the place of her confidence.

Carlyon waited for her answer without a sign of impatience. Through her mind, as it were on wheels of fire, Steele's passionate words were running: "He lives on treachery. He would betray any one or all of us to death if it were to the interest of the Empire that we should be sacrificed." And again: "I would sooner tread barefoot on a scorpion than get entangled in Carlyon's web."

All this she would once have dismissed as vilest calumny. But Carlyon's abandonment of Derrick, and his subsequent explanation thereof, were terribly overwhelming evidence against him. And now this man, this spy, wanted to use her as an instrument to accomplish some secret end of his.

A matter of life or death, he said. And for which of these did he purpose to use her efforts? Averil sickened at the possibilities the question raised in her mind. And still Carlyon waited for her answer.

"Why do you ask me?" she said at last, in a quivering whisper. "What is the message you want to send?"

"You delivered a message for me only yesterday without a single question," he said.

She wrung her hands together in the darkness. "I know. I know," she said; "but then I did not realize."

"You saved the camp from destruction," he went on. "Will you not do the same to-night?"

"How shall I know?" she sobbed in anguish.

"What have they been telling you?"

The quiet voice came in strange contrast to the agitated uncertainty of her tones. Carlyon laid steady hands on her shoulders. In the dim light his eyes had leapt to blue flame, sudden, intense. She hid her face from their searching; ashamed, horrified at her own doubts--yet still doubting.

"Your friendship has stood a heavier strain than this," Carlyon said, with grave reproach.

But she could not answer him. She dared scarcely face her own thoughts privately, much less utter them to him.

What if he were urging the tribes to rise to give the Government a pretext for war? She had heard him say that peace had come too soon, that war alone could remedy the evil of constantly recurring outrages along that troublous Frontier.

What if he counted the lives of a few women and their gallant protectors as but a little price to pay for the accomplishment of this end?

What if he purposed to make this awful sacrifice in the interests of the Empire, and only asked this thing of her because no other would undertake it?

She lifted her face. He was still looking at her with those strange, burning eyes that seemed to pierce her very soul.

"Averil," he said, "you may do a great thing for the Empire to-night--if you will."

The Empire! Ah, what fearful things would he not do behind that mask! Yet she stood silent, bound by the spell of his presence.

Carlyon went on. "There is going to be a rising, but we shall hold our own, I hope without loss. You can ride a horse, and I can trust you. This message must be delivered to-night. There is not an officer at liberty. I would not send one if there were. Every man will be wanted. Averil, will you go for me?"

He was holding her very gently between his hands. He seemed to be pleading with her. Her resolution began to waver. They had shattered her idol, yet she clung fast to the crumbling shrine.

"You will not let them be killed?" she whispered piteously. "Oh, promise me!"

"No one belonging to this camp will be killed if I can help it," he said. "You will tell them at Fort Akbar that we are prepared here. General Harford is marching to join them from Fort Wara. Whatever they may hear they must not dream of moving to join us till he reaches them. They are not strong enough. They would be cut to pieces. That is the message you are going to take for me. Their garrison is too small to be split up, and Fort Akbar must be protected at all costs. It is a more important post than this even."

"But there are women here," Averil whispered.

"They are under my protection," said Carlyon quietly. "I want you to start at once--before we shut the gates."

"Have they taken you by surprise, then?" she asked, with a sharp, involuntary shiver.

"No," Carlyon said. "They have taken the Government by surprise. That's all." He spoke with strong bitterness. For he was the watchman who had awaked in vain.

A moment later he was drawing her with him along the shadowy path.

"You need have no fear," he whispered to her. "The road is open all the way. I have a horse waiting that will carry you safely. It is barely ten miles. You have done it before."

"Am I to go just as I am?" she asked him, carried away by his unfaltering resolution.

"Yes," said Carlyon, "except for this." He loosened the _chuddah_ from his own head and stooped to muffle it about hers. "I have provided for your going," he said. "You will see no one. You know the way. Go hard!"

He moved on again. His arm was round her shoulders.

"And you?" she said, with sudden misgiving.

"I shall go back to the camp," he said, "when I have seen you go."

They went a little farther, ghostly, white figures gliding side by side. Wildly as her heart was beating, Averil felt that it was all strangely unreal, felt that the man beside her was a being unknown and mysterious, almost supernatural. And yet, strangely, she did not fear him. As she had once said to him, she believed he was a good man. She would always believe it. And yet was that awful doubt hammering through her brain.

They reached the bounds of the club compound and Carlyon stopped again. From the building behind them there floated the notes of a waltz, weird, dream-like, sweet as the earth after rain in summer.

"I want to know," Carlyon said steadily, "if you trust me."

She stretched up her hands like a child and laid them against his breast. She answered him with piteous entreaty in which passion strangely mingled.

"Colonel Carlyon," she whispered brokenly, "promise me that when this is over you will give it up! You were not made to spy and betray! You were made an honourable, true-hearted man--God's greatest and best creation. You were never meant to be twisted and warped to an evil use. Ah, tell me you will give it up! How can I go away and leave you toiling in the dungeons?"

"Hush!" said Carlyon. "You do not understand."

Later, she remembered with what tenderness he gathered her hands again into his own, holding them reverently. At the time she realized nothing but the monstrous pity of his wasted life.

"It isn't true!" she sobbed. "You would not sacrifice your friends?"

"Never!" said Carlyon sharply.

He paused. Then--"You must go, Averil," he said. "There are two sentries on the Buddhist road, and the password is 'Empire.' After that-straight to Akbar. The moon is rising, and no one will speak to you or attempt to stop you. You will not be afraid?"

"I trust you," she said very earnestly.

Ten minutes later, as the moon shot the first silver streak above the frowning mountains, a white horse flashed out on the road beyond the camp--a white horse bearing a white-robed rider.

On the edge of the camp one sentry turned to another with wonder on his face.

"That messenger's journey will be soon over," he remarked. "An easy target for the black fiends!"

In the mountains a dusky-faced hillman turned glittering, awe-struck eyes upon the flying white figure.

"Behold!" he said. "The Heaven-sent rides to the moonrise even as he foretold. The time draws near."

And Carlyon, walking back in strange garb to join his own people, muttered to himself as he went: "One woman, at least, is safe!"

 

IX

A FIGHT IN THE NIGHT

An hour before daybreak the gathering wave broke upon the camp. It was Toby Carey who ran hurriedly in upon the dancers in the club-room when they were about to disperse and briefly announced that there was going to be a fight. He added that Carlyon was at the mess-house, and desired all the men to join him there. The women were to remain at the club, which was already surrounded by a party of Sikhs and Goorkhas. Toby begged them to believe they were in no danger.

"Where is Averil?" cried Mrs. Raymond distractedly.

"Carlyon has already provided for her safety," Toby assured her, as he raced off again.

Five minutes later Carlyon, issuing rapid orders in the veranda of the mess-house, turned at the grip of a hand on his shoulder, and saw Derrick, behind him, wild-eyed and desperate.

"What have you done with Averil?" the boy said through white lips.

"She is safe at Akbar," Carlyon briefly replied. Then, as Derrick instantly wheeled, he caught him swiftly by the arm.

"You wait, Dick!" he said. "I have work for you."

"Let me go!" flashed Derrick fiercely.

But Carlyon maintained his hold. He knew what was in the lad's mind.

"It can't be done," he said. "It would be certain death if you attempted it. We are cut off for the present."

He interrupted himself to speak to an officer who was awaiting an order then turned again to Derrick.

"I tell you the truth, Dick," he said, a sudden note of kindliness in his voice. "She is safe. I had the opportunity--for one only. I took it--for her. You can't follow her. You have forfeited your right to throw away your life. Don't forget it, boy, ever! You have got to live for her and let the blackguards take the risks."

He ended with a faint smile, and Derrick fell back abashed, an unwilling admiration struggling with the sullenness of his submission.

Later, at Carlyon's order, he joined the party that had been detailed to watch over the club-house, the most precious and the safest position in the whole station. He chafed sorely at the inaction, but he repressed his feelings.

Carlyon's words had touched him in the right place. Though fiercely restless still, his manhood had been stirred, and gradually the strength, the unflinching resolution that had dominated Averil, took the place of his feverish excitement. Derrick, the impulsive and headstrong, became the mainstay as well as the undismayed protector of the women during that night scare of the Frontier.

There was sharp fighting down in the camp. They heard the firing and the shouts; but with the sunrise there came a lull. The women turned white faces to one another and wondered if it could be over.

Presently Derrick entered with the latest news. The tribesmen had been temporarily beaten off, he said, but the hills were full of them. Their own losses during the night amounted to two wounded sepoys. Fighting during the day was not anticipated.

Carlyon, snatching hasty refreshment in a hut near the scene of the hottest fighting, turned grimly to Raymond, his second in command, as gradual quiet descended upon the camp.

"You will see strange things to-night," he said.

Raymond, whose right wrist had been grazed by a bullet, was trying clumsily to bandage it with his handkerchief.

"How long is it going to last?" he said.

"To-night will see the end of it," said Carlyon, quietly going to his assistance. "The rising has been brewing for some time. The tribesmen need a lesson, so does the Government. It is just a bubble--this. It will explode to-night. To be honest for once"--Carlyon smiled a little over his bandaging--"I did not expect this attack so soon. A Heaven-sent messenger has been among the tribesmen. They revere him almost as much as the great prophet himself. He has been listening to their murmurings."

Carlyon paused. Raymond was watching him intently, but the quiet face bent over his wound told him nothing.

"Had I known what was coming," Carlyon said, "so much as three days ago, the women would not now be in the station. As things are, it would have been impossible to weaken the garrison to supply them with an escort to Akbar."

Raymond stifled a deep curse in his throat. Had they but known indeed!

Carlyon went on in his deliberate way: "I shall leave you in command here to-night. I have other work to do. General Harford will be here at dawn. The attacking force will be on the east of the camp. You will crush them between you! You will stamp them down without mercy. Let them see the Empire is ready for them! They will not trouble us again for perhaps a few years."

Again he paused. Raymond asked no question. Better than most he knew Carlyon of the Frontier.

"It will be a hard blow," Carlyon said. "The tribesmen are very confident. Last night they watched a messenger ride eastwards on a white horse. It was an omen foretold by the Heaven-sent when he left them to carry the message through the hills to other tribes."

Raymond gave a great start. "The girl!" he said.

For a second Carlyon's eyes met his look. They were intensely blue, with the blueness of a flame.

"She is safe at Akbar," he said, returning without emotion to the knotting of the bandage. "The road was open for the messenger. The horse was swift. There is one woman less to take the risk."

"I see," said Raymond quietly. He was frowning a little, but not at Carlyon's strategy.

"The rest," Carlyon continued, "must be fought for. The moon is full to-night. The Great Fakir will come out of the hills in his zeal and lead the tribes himself. Guard the east!"

Raymond drew a sharp breath. But Carlyon's hand on his shoulder silenced the astounded question on his lips.

"We have got to protect the women," Carlyon said. "Relief will come at dawn."

 

X

SAVED A SECOND TIME

All through the day quiet reigned. An occasional sword-glint in the mountains, an occasional gleam of white against the brown hillside; these were the only evidences of an active enemy.

The women were released from durance in the club-house, with strict orders to return in the early evening.

Derrick went restlessly through the camp, seeking Carlyon. He found him superintending the throwing-up of earthworks. The most exposed part of the camp was to be abandoned. Derrick joined him in silence. Somehow this man's personality attracted him strongly. Though he had defied him, quarrelled with him, insulted him, the spell of his presence was irresistible.

Carlyon paid small attention to him till he turned to leave that part of the camp's defences. Then, with a careless hand through Derrick's arm, he said:

"You will have your fill of stiff fighting to-night, boy. But, remember, you are not to throw yourself away."

As evening fell, the attack was resumed, and it continued throughout the night. Tribesmen charged up to the very breastworks themselves and fell before the awful fire of the defenders' rifles. Death had no terrors for them. They strove for the mastery with fanatical zeal. But they strove in vain. A greater force than they possessed, the force of discipline and organized resistance--kept them at bay. Behind the splendid courage of the Indian soldiers were the resource and the resolution of a handful of Englishmen. The spirit of the conquering race, unquenchable, irresistible, weighed down the balance.

In the middle of the night Captain Raymond was hit in the shoulder and carried, fainting, to the closely guarded club-house, where his wife was waiting.

The command devolved upon Lieutenant Steele, who took up the task undismayed. Down in the hastily dug trenches Toby Carey was fiercely holding his men to their work.

And Derrick Rose was with him, unrestrained for that night at least.

"Relief at dawn!" Toby said to him once.

And Derrick responded with a wild laugh.

"Relief be damned! We can hold our own without it."

* * * * *

Relief came with the dawn, at a moment when the tribesmen were spurring themselves to the greatest effort of all, sustained by the knowledge that their Great Fakir was among them.

General Harford, with guides, Sikhs, Goorkhas, came down like a hurricane from the south-east, cut off a great body of tribesmen from their fellows, and drove them headlong, with deadly force, upon the defences they had striven so furiously to take.

The defenders sallied out to meet them with fixed bayonets. The brief siege, if siege it could be called, was over.

In the early light Derrick found himself fighting, fighting furiously, sword to sword. And the terrible joy of the conflict ran in his blood like fire.

"Ah!" he gasped. "It's good! It's good!"

And then he found another fighting beside him--a mighty fighting man, grim, terrible, silent. They thrust together; they withdrew together; they charged together.

Once an enemy seized Derrick's sword and he found himself vainly struggling against the awful, wild-faced fanatic's sinewy grasp. He saw the man's upraised arm, and knew with horrible certainty that he was helpless, helpless.

Then there shot out a swift, rescuing hand. A straight and deadly blow was struck. And Derrick, flinging a laugh over his shoulder, beheld a man dressed as a tribesman fall headlong over his enemy's body, struck to the earth by another swordsman.

Like lightning there flashed through his brain the memory of a man who had saved his life more than a year before on this same tumultuous Frontier--a man in tribesman's dress, with blue eyes of a strange, keen friendliness. He had it now. This was the Secret Service man. Derrick planted himself squarely over the prostrate body, and there stood while the fight surged on about him to the deadly and inevitable end.

 

XI

THE SECRET OUT

"All Carlyon's doing!" General Harford said a little later. "He has pulled the strings throughout, from their very midst. Carlyon the ubiquitous, Carlyon the silent, Carlyon the watchful! He has averted a horrible catastrophe. The Indian Government must be made to understand that he is a servant worth having. They say he personally led the tribesmen to their death. They certainly walked very willingly into the trap arranged for them. Now, where is Carlyon?"

No one knew. In the plain outside the camp wounded men were being collected. The General was relieved to hear that Carlyon was not among them. He sat down to make his report, a highly eulogistic report, of this man's splendid services. And then he went to late breakfast at the club-house.

In the evening Averil rode back to the station with an escort. The terrible traces of the struggle were not wholly removed. They rode round by a longer route to avoid the sight.

Seddon was the first of her friends who saw her. He was standing inside the mess-house. He went hurriedly forward and gave her brief details of the fight. Then, while they were talking, Derrick himself came running up. He greeted her with less of his boyish effusion than was customary.

"How is the Secret Service man?" he asked abruptly of Seddon. "Is he badly damaged?"

The latter looked at him hard for a second.

"You can come in and see him," he said, and led the way into the mess.

Averil and Derrick followed him hand in hand. In a few low words the boy told her of his old friend's reappearance.

"He has saved my life twice over," he said.

"He has saved more lives than yours," Seddon remarked abruptly, over his shoulder.

He led the way "to the little ante-room where, stretched on a sofa, lay Derrick's Secret Service man. He was dressed in white, his face half covered with a fold of his head-dress. But the eyes were open--blue, alert, beneath drooping lids. He was speaking, softly, quickly, as a man asleep.

"The women must be protected," he said. "Let the blackguards take the risks!"

Averil started forward with a cry, and in a moment was kneeling by his side. The strange eyes were turned upon her instantly. They were watchful still and exceeding tender--the eyes of the hero she loved. They faintly smiled at her. To his death he would keep up the farce. To his death he would never show her the secret he had borne so long.

"Ah! The message!" he said, with an effort. "You gave it?"

"There was no need of a message," Averil cried. "You invented it to get me away, to make me escape from danger. You knew that otherwise I would not have gone. It was your only reason for sending me."

He did not answer her. The smile died slowly out. His eyes passed to Derrick. He looked at him very earnestly, and there was unutterable pleading in the look.

The boy stooped forward. Shocked by the sudden discovery, he yet answered as it were involuntarily to the man's unspoken wish. He knelt down beside the girl, his arm about her shoulders. His voice came with a great sob.

"The Secret Service man and Carlyon of the Frontier in one!" he said. "A man who does not forsake his friends. I might have known."

There was a pause, a great silence. Then Carlyon of the Frontier spoke softly, thoughtfully, with grave satisfaction it seemed. He looked at neither of them, but beyond them both. His eyes were steady and fearless.

"A blackguard--a spy--yet faithful to his friends--even so," he said; and died.

The boy and girl were left to each other. He had meant it to be so--had worked for it, suffered for it. In the end Carlyon of the Frontier had done that which he had set himself to do, at a cost which none other would ever know--not even the girl who had loved him.

[The end]
Ethel May Dell's short story: The Secret Service Man

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