The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier. Mitford Bertram

Whirling it in the air he brought it down with incredible swiftness, striking here and there on head and face, while looking around for more to smite. And then the rabble of assailants began to give way, or try to. “Cops” was the cry that now went up, and immediately thereupon a strong posse of the splendid men of the City Police had forced their way to the scene of disturbance – or very nearly.

      Crushed, borne along by the swaying crowd, the man who had so effectually aided the distressed Oriental had become separated from his friends. For his foes he cared nothing, and, indeed, these had all they could think of to effect their own retreat, the motive being not so much fear of immediate consequences as the consciousness with many of them that they were desperately wanted by the police in connection with other matters, which would infallibly assert their claims once identity was established. At last, to his relief, he found himself in a side street and outside the crowd.

      “You’re better ’ere, sir,” said a gruff voice, whose owner was contemplating him curiously.

      “Yes, rather. I’ve been in a bit of a breeze yonder.”

      “So I should say, sir,” answered the policeman, significantly. “Thank’ee, sir. Much obliged.”

      “They were mobbing a stranger, and I and some others went to help him.”

      “Was it a Hindian gent, sir, with a high black sort of ’at? I seen him go by here not long since.”

      “Yes. That was the man. Well, I suppose he’s all right by now. Good-night, policeman.”

      “Good-night, sir, and thank’ee, sir.”

      An hour and a half later one corner of the supper-room in the Peculiar Club was in a state of unwonted liveliness, even for that by no means dull institution, where upwards of a dozen more or less damaged members were consuming devilled bones and champagne.

      Damaged, in that bunged up eyes and swelled noses – and here and there a cut lip – were in evidence; but all were in the last stage of cheerfulness.

      “Why isn’t Raynier here, I wonder?” was asked.

      “He? Oh, I expect he went on taking care of that Indian Johnny. He likes those chaps, you know, has to do with them out there. He’ll turn up all right – never fear.”

      “Don’t know. Don’t like losing sight of him,” said another.

      “Oh, he’ll turn up all right. He knows jolly well how to take care of himself.”

      But as the night became morning, and the frantic howling of patriotism gone mad rent the otherwise still hours, Raynier did not turn up. Then the revellers and quondam combatants became uneasy – such of them, that is, as were still capable of reflection in any form.

      Chapter Two

      The Day After

      Raynier awoke in his club chambers the next morning, feeling, as he put it to himself, exceedingly cheap.

      When we say awoke, rather are we expressing a recurring process which had continued throughout the few remaining night hours since, by force of circumstances and the swaying of the crowd, he had become separated from his companions, and had wisely found his way straight to bed instead of to the Peculiar Club. On this at any rate he congratulated himself; and yet hardly any sleep had come his way. The howling of patriotic roysterers had continued until morning light, and, moreover, his head was buzzing – not by reason of last night’s revelry, for in such he never got out of hand, but an ugly lump on one side of his forehead, and a swelled eye, reminded him that it is hard to rescue a maltreated stranger from the brutality of a London mob, and emerge unscathed oneself.

      “Well, I do look a beauty,” he soliloquised as he stood before his glass, surveying the damage. “I shall have a bump the size and colour of a croquet ball for the next fortnight, and an eye to match. How a man of my age and temperament could have cut in with those young asses last night, I can’t think. Might have known what the upshot would be. And now I’ve got to go down to Worthingham to-day. Wonder what nice remark Cynthia will have to make. Perhaps she’ll give me the chuck. The fact of my being mixed up in a street row may prove too much for her exceeding sense of propriety.” And a faintly satirical droop curled down the corners of the thinker’s mouth.

      Having fomented his bruises, and tubbed, and otherwise completed his toilet Raynier went down to breakfast, soon feeling immeasurably the better for the process. But in the middle a thought struck him; struck him indeed with some consternation. The malacca cane – the instrument with which he had almost certainly saved the life of the assailed Oriental, and which he had put into the hands of the latter as a weapon. It was gone, and – it was a gift from his fiancée.

      Apart from such association he was fond of the stick, which was a handsome one and beautifully mounted. How on earth was he to recover it? His initials were engraved on the head; that, however, would furnish but faint clue. How should he find the man whom he had befriended – and even if he did, it was quite possible that the other had lost possession of the stick during the scrimmage. It might or might not find its way to Scotland Yard, but to ascertain this would take time. He could make inquiries at the police stations adjacent to the scene of last night’s émeute, or advertise, but that too would take time and he was urgently due at the abode of his fiancée that very day, for his furlough was rapidly drawing to a close, and his return to India a matter of days rather than of weeks.

      Herbert Raynier served his country in the capacity of an Indian civilian, but most of his time of service had been passed in hot Plains stations, engendering an amount of constitutional wear and tear which caused him to look rather more than his actual age, such being in fact nearly through the thirties, but the sallowness of his naturally dark complexion had given way to a healthier bronze since he had come home on furlough five months back. By temperament he was a quiet man, and somewhat reserved, and this together with the fact that his countenance was not characterised by that square-jawed aggressiveness which is often associated in the popular estimation with parts, led people to suppose, on first acquaintance, that there was not much in him. Wherein they were wrong, although at the present moment there were chances of such latent abilities as he possessed being allowed to stagnate under sheer, easy-going routine: a potentiality which he himself recognised, and that with some concern. Physically he stood about five foot ten in his boots, and was well set up in proportion. He was fond of sport, though not aspiring to anything beyond the average in its achievement, and was not lacking in ideas nor in some originality in the expression of the same.

      As he sat finishing his after-breakfast cheroot in the club smoking-room there entered two of his brethren-in-arms of the night before.

      “There you are, Raynier, old chap. That’s all right. Why didn’t you roll up at the Peculiar after the fun? We were all there – Steele and Waring were doosid uneasy about you – thought you’d come to grief, that’s why we thought we’d look in early and make sure you hadn’t.”

      “Early?”

      “Why, yes. It’s only eleven. But I say, you jolly old cuckoo. You have got a damaged figurehead.”

      “Yes, it’s a bore,” pronounced Raynier, pushing the bell, to order “pegs.” “And the worst of it is I’ve got to go down to the country this afternoon – to an eminently respectable vicarage, too.”

      “Remedy’s easy. Don’t go.”

      “That’s no remedy at all. I must.”

      “Stick a patch over the eye, then.”

      “But he can’t stick a patch over his head as well,” said the other.

      “You two chaps have come off with hardly a scratch,” said Raynier – “and yet you were just as much in the thick of it as I was.”

      “So we were. But I say, Raynier, I believe it’s a judgment on a staid old buffer like you for ‘mafeking’ around with a lot of lively sparks like us. Ha – ha – that wasn’t bad, I say, don’t-cher-know. ‘Mafeking!’ See it? Ah – ha – ha!”

      “Oh, go away. It’s an outrage. At how many people’s hands have you courted