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

with a wild gesture.
"No, I'm damned!" he cried violently. "I'm damned if they shall! They are my men--the men I made. I've taught 'em every blessed thing they know. I've taught 'em to reverence the old flag, and I'm damned if I'll see them betrayed! You can go back to the Chief, and tell him so! Tell him they're British subjects, staunch to the backbone! Why, they can even sing the first verse of the National Anthem! You'll hear them at it to-night before they turn in. They always do. It's a sort of evening hymn to them. Oh, Monty, Monty, what cursed trick will our fellows think of next, I wonder? Are we men, or are we reptiles, we English? And we boast--we boast of our national honour!"
He broke off, breathing short and hard, as a man desperately near to collapse, and leaned his head on his arm against the rough wall as if in shame.
Herne glanced at him once or twice before replying.
"You see," he said at length, speaking somewhat laboriously, "what we've got to do is to obey orders. We were sent out here not to think but to do. We're on Government service. They are responsible for the thinking part. We have to carry it out, that's all. They have decided to evacuate this district, and withdraw to the coast. So"--again he shrugged his shoulders--"there's no more to be said. We must go."
He paused, and glanced again at the slight, khaki-clad figure that leaned against the wall.
After a moment, meeting with no response, he resumed.
"There's no sense in taking it hard, since there is no help for it. You always knew that it was an absolutely temporary business. Of course, if we could have smashed the Wandis, these chaps would have had a better look-out. But--well, we haven't smashed them."
"We hadn't enough men!" came fiercely from Duncannon.
"True! We couldn't afford to do things on a large scale. Moreover, it's a beastly country, as even you must admit. And it isn't worth a big struggle. Besides, we can't occupy half the world to prevent the other half playing the deuce with it. Come, Bobby, don't be a fool, for Heaven's sake! You've been treated as a god too long, and it's turned your head. Don't you want to get Home? What about your people? What about----"
Duncannon turned sharply. His face was drawn and grey.
"I'm not thinking of them," he said, in a choked voice. "You don't know what this means to me. You couldn't know, and I can't explain. But my mind is made up on one point. Whoever goes--I stay!"
He spoke deliberately, though his breathing was still quick and uneven. His eyes were sternly steadfast.
Herne stared at him in amazement.
"My good fellow," he said, "you are talking like a lunatic! I think you must have got a touch of sun."
A faint smile flickered over Duncannon's set face.
"No, it isn't that," he said. "It's a touch of something else--something you wouldn't understand."
"But--heavens above!--you have no choice!" Herne exclaimed, rising abruptly. "You can't say you'll do this or that. So long as you wear a sword, you have to obey orders."
"That's soon remedied," said Duncannon, between his teeth.
With a sudden, passionate movement he jerked the weapon from its sheath, held it an instant gleaming between his hands, then stooped and bent it double across his knee.
It snapped with a sharp click, and instantly he straightened himself, the shining fragments in his hands, and looked Montague Herne in the eyes.
"When you go back to the Chief," he said, speaking very steadily, "you can take him this, and tell him that the British Government can play what damned dirty trick they please upon their allies. But I will take no part in it. I shall stick to my friends."
And with that he flung the jingling pieces of steel upon the table, took up his helmet, and passed out into the fierce glare of the little parade-ground.


II

"Oh, is it our turn at last? I am glad!"
Betty Derwent raised eyes of absolute honesty to the man who had just come to her side, and laid her hand with obvious alacrity upon his arm.
"You don't seem to be enjoying yourself," he said.
"I'm not!" she declared, with vehemence. "It's perfectly horrid. I hope you're not wanting to dance, Major Herne? For I want to sit out, and--and get cool, if possible."
"I want what you want," said Herne. "Shall we go outside?"
"Yes--no! I really don't know. I've only just come in. I want to get away--right away. Can't you think of a quiet corner?"
"Certainly," said Herne, "if it's all one to you where you go."
"I should like to run away," the girl said impetuously, "right away from everybody--except you."
"That's very good of you," said Herne, faintly smiling.
The hand that rested on his arm closed with an agitated pressure.
"Oh, no, it isn't!" she assured him. "It's quite selfish. I--I am like that, you know. Where are we going?"
"Upstairs," said Herne.
"Upstairs!" She glanced at him in surprise, but he offered no explanation. They were already ascending.
But when they had mounted one flight of stairs, and were beginning to mount a second, the girl's eyes flashed understanding.
"Major Herne, you're a real friend in need!"
"Think so?" said Herne. "Perhaps--at heart--I am as selfish as you are."
"Oh, I don't mind that," she rejoined impulsively. "You are all selfish, every one of you, but--thank goodness!--you don't all want the same thing."
Montague Herne raised his brows a little.
"Quite sure of that?"
"Quite sure," said Betty vigorously. "I always know." She added with apparent inconsequence, "That's how it is we always get on so well. Are you going to take me right out on to the ramparts? Are you sure there will be no one else there?"
"There will be no one where we are going," he said.
She sighed a sigh of relief.
"How good! We shall get some air up there, too. And I want air--plenty of it. I feel suffocated."
"Mind how you go!" said Herne. "These stairs are uneven."
They had come to a spiral staircase of stone. Betty mounted it light-footed, Herne following close behind.
In the end they came to an oak door, against which the girl set her hand.
"Major Herne! It's locked!"
"Allow me!" said Herne.
He had produced a large key, at which Betty looked with keen satisfaction.
"You really are a wonderful person. You overcome all difficulties."
"Not quite that, I am afraid." Herne was smiling. "But this is a comparatively simple matter. The key happens to be in my charge. With your permission, we will lock the door behind us."
"Do!" she said eagerly. "I have never been at this end of the ramparts. I believe I shall spend the rest of the evening here, where no one can follow us."
"Haven't you any more partners?" asked Herne.
She showed him a full card with a little grimace.
"I have had such an awful experience. I am going to cut the rest."
He smiled a little.
"Rather hard on the rest. However----"
"Oh, don't be silly!" she said impatiently. "It isn't like you."
"No," said Herne.
He spoke quietly, almost as if he were thinking of something else. They had passed through the stone doorway, and had emerged upon a flagged passage that led between stone walls to the ramparts. Betty passed along this quickly, mounted the last flight of steps that led to the battlements, and stood suddenly still.
A marvellous scene lay spread below them in the moonlight--silent land and whispering sea. The music of the band in the distant ballroom rose fitfully--such music as is heard in dreams. Betty stood quite motionless with the moonlight shining on her face. She looked like a nymph caught up from the shimmering water.
Impulsively at length she turned to the man beside her.
"Shall I tell you what has been happening to me to-night?"
"If you really wish me to know," said Herne.
She jerked her shoulder with a hint of impatience.
"I feel as if I must tell someone, and you are as safe, as any one I know. I have danced with six men so far, and out of those six three have asked me to marry them. It's been almost like a conspiracy, as if they were doing it for a wager. Only, two of them were so horribly in earnest that it couldn't have been that. Major Herne, why can't people be reasonable?"
"Heaven knows!" said Herne.
She gave him a quick smile.
"If I get another proposal to-night I shall have hysterics. But I know I am safe with you."
Herne was silent.
Betty gave a little shiver.
"You think me very horrid to have told you?"
"No," he answered deliberately, "I don't. I think that you were extraordinarily wise."
She laughed with a touch of wistfulness.
"I have a feeling that if I quite understood what you meant, I shouldn't regard that as a compliment."
"Very likely not." Herne's dark face brooded over the distant water. He did not so much as glance at the girl beside him, though her eyes were studying him quite frankly.
"Why are you so painfully discreet?" she said suddenly. "Don't you know that I want you to give me advice?"
"Which you won't take," said Herne.
"I don't know. I might. I quite well might. Anyhow, I should be grateful."
He rested one foot on the battlement, still not looking at her.
"If you took my advice," he said, "you would marry."
"Marry!" she said with a quick flush. "Why? Why should I?"
"You know why," said Herne.
"Really I don't. I am quite happy as I am."
"Quite?" he said.
She began to tap her fingers against the stonework. There was something of nervousness in the action.
"I couldn't possibly marry any one of the men who proposed to me to-night," she said.
"There are other men," said Herne.
"Yes, I know, but--" She threw out her arms suddenly with a gesture that had in it something passionate. "Oh, if only I were a man myself!" she said. "How I wish I were!"
"Why?" said Herne.
She answered him instantly, her voice not wholly steady.
"I want to travel. I want to explore. I want to go to the very heart of the world, and--and learn its secrets."
Herne turned his head very deliberately and looked at her.
"And then?" he said.
Half defiantly her eyes met his.
"I would find Bobby Duncannon," she said, "and bring him back."
Herne stood up slowly.
"I thought that was it," he said.
"And why shouldn't it be?" said Betty. "I have known him for a long time now. Wouldn't you do as much for a pal?"
Herne was silent for a moment. Then:
"You would be wiser to forget him," he said. "He will never come back."
"I shall never forget him," said Betty almost fiercely.
He looked at her gravely.
"You mean to waste the rest of your life waiting for him?" he asked.
Her hands gripped each other suddenly.
"You call it waste?" she said.
"It is waste," he made answer, "sheer, damnable waste. The boy was mad enough to sacrifice his own career--everything that he had--but it is downright infernal that you should be sacrificed too. Why should you pay the penalty for his madness? He was probably killed long ago, and even if not--even if he lived and came back--you would probably ask yourself if you had ever met him before."
"Oh, no!" Betty said. "No!"
She turned and looked out to the water that gleamed so peacefully in the moonlight.
"Do you know," she said, her voice very low, scarcely more than a whisper, "he asked me to marry him--five years