Rosa Mundi by Ethel May Dell (e books free to read .TXT) 📖

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,"