The Far Pavilions - Mary Margaret Kaye [613]
‘May Allah have mercy on them,’ whispered the Sirdar. ‘This is the end…’ And then sharply: ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the palace,’ said Ash curtly. ‘The Amir must be told –’
The Sirdar caught his arm and jerked him back. ‘True. But you are not the man to do it. Not now. You would be set on even as I was – and you they would kill. Besides, Cavagnari-Sahib will send a message at once, if he has not done so already. There is nothing you can do.’
‘I can go down there and fight with them. They will obey my orders because they know me. They are my own men – it is my own Corps, and if the Amir does not send help they will have no chance. They will die like rats in a trap –’
‘And you with them!’ snapped Nakshband Khan, grappling with him.
‘Better that than stay here and watch them die. Take your hands off me, Sirdar-Sahib. Let me go.’
‘And what of your wife?’ demanded the Sirdar furiously. ‘Have you no thought for her? Or of what will become of her if you die?’
‘Juli –’ thought Ash in horror; and was suddenly still.
He had actually forgotten about her. Unbelievably, in all the turmoil and panic of the last half hour, he had not spared a single thought for her. His mind had been wholly taken up with Wally and the Guides and the terrible danger that menaced them, and he had had no time to think of anyone else. Not even of Anjuli…
‘She has no kin here, and this is not her own country,’ said the Sirdar sternly, relieved at having hit upon an argument that appeared to weigh with Ash. ‘But if you die and your wife, being widowed, wishes to return to her own people, she might find it hard to do so: and harder still to remain here among strangers. Have you made arrangements for her future? Have you thought –?’
Ash pulled the restraining hand from his arm and turning away from the door said harshly: ‘No, I have thought too much and too long of my friends and my Regiment, and not enough of her. But I am a soldier, Sirdar-Sahib. And she is the wife of a soldier – and the granddaughter of another. She would not have me put my love for her above my duty to my Regiment. Of that I am sure, for her father was a Rajput. If – if I should not return, tell her that I said so… and that you and Gul Baz and the Guides will look after her and see that she comes to no harm.’
‘I I will do so,’ said the Sirdar – and as he spoke reached stealthily for the door, and before Ash had time to turn, snatched it open, whisked through and slammed it shut behind him. The heavy iron key had been on the outside, and even as Ash swung round and leapt forward he heard it turn in the lock.
He was caught and he knew it. The door was far too stout to be broken down and the window-bars were of iron and would not bend. Nevertheless he tugged frantically at the heavy latch and shouted to Nakshband Khan to let him out. But the only answer was the rasp of metal as the key was withdrawn, and then the Sirdar's voice speaking softly through the empty keyhole: ‘It is better this way, Sahib. I go now to Wali Mohammed's house, where I shall be safe. It is only a stone's throw from here, so I shall reach it long before those shaitans return; and when all is quiet again I will come back and release you.’
‘And what of the Guides?’ demanded Ash furiously. ‘How many of them do you think will be alive by then?’
‘That is in God's hands,’ replied the Sirdar, his voice almost inaudible, ‘– and there is neither hem nor border nor fringe to the mercy of Allah.’
Ash abandoned his assault on the door and fell to pleading, but there was no answer, and presently he realized that Nakshband Khan had gone – taking the