Book online «Gil the Gunner by George Manville Fenn (rainbow fish read aloud TXT) 📕». Author George Manville Fenn

passed out, and the two white-robed men turned to look at us wonderingly before hurrying out, and the door fell to.

“They must have heard,” I said to myself; “and they’ll go and tell the others. It will be all round the station directly that Captain Brace is a coward.” For a few moments I felt as if I dared not raise my eyes, but it was as if something was dragging me to look up, and as I did, I saw that Brace was looking at me fixedly, and there was something very singular in his gaze; but for some time he did not speak, and there was so strange a tumult in my breast that no words would come.

“Well,” he said at last. “What are you thinking?”

“Of all this,” I said huskily.

“And that as an officer and a gentleman I ought to have knocked Barton down?”

“Something of the kind,” I replied.

“Of course; and then, according to the code of honour among gentlemen, I ought to fight him at daybreak to-morrow morning.”

I was silent.

“Yes,” he said passionately; “that is what you are thinking.”

“I can’t help it,” I cried angrily. “He almost struck you, and the khansamah saw it, and that other man too. It will be all over the place. You must fight him now.”

He looked at me very strangely, and I saw his brows contract as he said gravely—

“Duelling is a thing of the past, Vincent; a cowardly, savage practice in which the life of a man is at the mercy of his skilful adversary. Life is too valuable to throw away in a quarrel. I do not feel as if I had done all my work yet.”

“But what can you do?” I said excitedly, for my brain was in a turmoil. I loved him, but his conduct frightened me; it was so unlike anything I could have expected from a gallant soldier; and there was a singularly cold sensation of dread creeping over me. I felt afraid that I was going to dislike him as one unworthy to be known, as I cried angrily, “But what can you do?”

He looked at me as if he could read me through and through, and his face grew very sad as he replied—

“There is the proper course open to me, Vincent, and that I am about to do.”

“Fight him?” I cried eagerly, and the miserable sensation of dread began to pass off.

“No, boy; I am going to explain everything to Major Lacey, who will report to head-quarters if he considers it right.”

He passed slowly out of the room, and I heard his step echoing beneath the broad verandah, as he went in the direction of Major Lacey’s, while, unable to restrain myself in my bitterness and contempt, I too got up and hurried out.

“He is a coward!” I muttered; “a coward!”—for I could not see the bravery of the man’s self-control; “and I have been gradually growing to like him, and think of him always as being patient and manly and noble. Why, I would have tried to knock Barton down, if he had killed me for it.”

“Gone to report,” I thought again, after a pause; “gone to tell, like a little schoolboy who has been pushed down. Him a soldier; and a coward like that!”

Chapter Eleven.

Joined to the love of a military life, I had all a boy’s ideal notions of bravery and chivalry. By which I mean the frank, natural, outside ideas, full of the show and glitter, and I could not see beneath the surface. I did not know then that it might take more courage to refuse to fight and face the looks and scorn of some people than to go and meet an adversary in the field, after the braggart fashion of some of our French neighbours, whose grand idea of honour is to go out early some morning to meet an enemy about some petty, contemptible quarrel, fence for a few moments till one or the other is pricked or scratched, and then cry, “Ah, mon ami! mon ami!” embrace, and go home to breakfast together.

Very beautiful, no doubt, to a certain class of Frenchman, but to a nineteenth-century Englishman—fluff.

I’m afraid that I was very Gallic in my ideas in more ways, so that when next morning I knew that both Brace and Barton had had long interviews separately with Major Lacey, and then met him together in the presence of the doctor, and found that a peace had been patched up, my feelings toward Brace were very much cooled, and I was ready to become fast friends with Barton—at least, I could have been if he had been a different kind of man. As it was, I was thrown a great deal on the society of the doctor and the other officers, while Brace, who rightly interpreted my coolness, held himself aloof at mess.

I found myself near the major that evening, and after a time he began chatting to me in a low tone.

“Let’s see; you were in the squabble yesterday,” he said. “Great pity. We don’t want any references to head-quarters, Vincent, nor court-martial; and as for their fighting, that sort of thing’s as dead as Queen Anne. We’ve got to keep our fighting for the Queen’s enemies, eh?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“Of course you suppose so,” he said sharply. “Why, you did not want them to fight, did you?”

“That, it seems to me, would have been the most honourable course, sir,” I said stiffly.

He turned his head and stared in my face.

“You’re a young goose—gander, I mean. No: gosling,” he said. “There, I’ve made them shake hands, after Barton had apologised. I’m not going to have any of that nonsense. And look here, you’ve got to be friends with Barton too. Why, hang it, boy, a handful of Englishmen here, as we are, in the midst of enemies, can’t afford to quarrel among ourselves; we must hold together like—like—well, like Britons. Here, I’ve something else for you to think about. I’ve had a messenger over from the nawab. A couple of man-eaters have been doing a lot of mischief a few miles from his place, and he wants some of us to go over very early to-morrow to rid the country of the brutes. Perhaps I shall go too.”

The thoughts of such an exciting expedition soon drove away those of the trouble, and upon the major making the announcement, it was at once discussed, while in imagination I pictured the whole scene, ending with the slaughter of the monsters, and their being brought home in triumph upon a pad elephant.

“I thought so,” the major whispered to me with a chuckle; “that has put them both in a good temper. I did think of going, but I shall send them.”

I went across the square to my bed that night, full of thoughts of the expedition, and not far from my quarters came upon three figures in white, talking eagerly together, but ready to start apart when they caught sight of me, and salaam profoundly. “Ah, Ny Deen,” I said. “Fine night.”

“Yes, sahib,” he said in his soft low voice. “Does the sahib go to the hunt to-morrow?”

“How did you know there was to be a hunt to-morrow?” I said sharply.

“There are orders to have the buggies ready, sahib, before day.”

“Oh,” I said. “Then your master is going?”

“No, sahib; he stays with the men.”

“I don’t think he does,” I said to myself, as I went into my quarters, where I gave orders for all my shooting things to be put out; and then, after making sure that I should be called in time, I dived in behind the mosquito curtains, so as to get all the rest I could, and in half a minute was sleeping heavily, but not until I had repented leaving the mess-room without saying “good night” to Brace, Barton having gone some time before, as he was on duty that evening.

I scarcely seemed to have fallen asleep before a hand was laid upon my shoulder.

“Master’s bath and coffee ready,” said a voice; and I looked up to see by the light of a lamp that my man Dost was gazing down at me, with the curtains held aside, and a curiously troubled fixed look in his face.

“Time to get up already?” I said.

“Yes, sahib,” he said hurriedly. “All the other gentlemen call and get up.”

“All right,” I said; and springing out, I stepped into my tiled bath-room, and had myself refreshed with some chatties of cold water poured over my head, after which, feeling elastic as steel, I towelled, and began to dress.

“Why, hallo, Dost,” I said, as I saw that the man was trembling, “what’s the matter? Not ill?”

“No, no, sahib; quite well, quite well!” he cried hastily.

“But you are not,” I cried. “You are all of a shiver. Let me give you something.”

He shook his head violently, and kept on reiterating that he was quite well.

“Come, out with it, Dost,” I said. “You are not deceiving me. What is the matter?”

He looked round quickly, and I could see that the poor fellow evidently was in great alarm about something.

“Master always good to Dost,” he said.

“Of course I am, when you are good and attentive to me. Is my rifle ready?”

“Yes, sahib. Dost afraid for his lord.”

I laughed at him, though I felt touched, as I grasped what he seemed to mean.

“You coward!” I said. “Do you think the first tiger I see will get into my howdah and maul me?”

He nodded his head, and looked more nervous than before.

“And that I shall be a job for Dr Danby, and you will have to nurse me?”

He bowed his head again.

“Then you would like me to stop, and not go to the tiger-hunt?”

“No, no, sahib,” he cried excitedly, and I smiled again at him, as I thought that it was very doubtful whether Ny Deen and his other men were in such anxiety about Barton.

Dost hung about me with the greatest of solicitude as, fully equipped at last, I made my way to where the buggies and their attendants were in waiting. It was very dark, and it was only by the light of the lanterns that I made out who was there, and saw Brace, the doctor, and a quiet gentlemanly lieutenant of ours named Haynes.

Just then the major came bustling up, his genial nature having urged him to leave his comfortable bed, and come to see us off.

“All here?” he cried. “You’ll have a glorious day. Needn’t have taken rifles; the rajah would have everything for you, and better pieces than your own, I dare say. Wish I was going with you.”

“Why not come?” said Brace.

“No, no! Don’t tempt me; I’ve quite work enough. Some one ought to stay.”

“I will stop with pleasure,” cried Brace.

“No, no, my dear boy; we settled that you should go. I’ll have my turn another time.”

“But really—” began Brace.

“Be quiet, man!” cried the major. “You are going. Keep an eye on Vincent here, and don’t let a tiger get him. He can’t be spared.”

“I dare say we shall be in the same howdah,” replied Brace; and somehow I did not feel pleased any more than I did at the major taking such pains to have me looked after like a little boy.

“These young chaps are so thoughtless,” continued the major. “They run into danger before they know where they are, and then, when they are in the midst of it, they forget to be cool.”

“Oh, I shall be careful, sir,” I said pettishly.

“You think so, of course,” said the major. “I suppose you will not be back till quite late. Like an escort to meet you?”

“Oh no, it is not necessary,” said Brace.

“Hullo! Where’s Barton?” cried the doctor. “Any one seen him?”

“Not coming,” said the major quietly.

“Not coming?”

“No; he sent me a line last thing to say he preferred not to go.”

I heard Brace draw his breath in a hissing way, and then he hesitated and descended from the buggy to