Part 6

The Lieutenant went back to the table.

“The suggestion of this way of putting it does you honour, Captain; only I have my doubts if any of us would have the courage to go to him with this manifest lie.”

The silence of the others appeared to confirm this doubt, when the decisive voice of the German guest interrupted with--

“Will you entrust me, gentlemen, with this mission? I know Captain Irwin only slightly, it is true, and should have no reason to interfere with his private concerns; but I hear that it is his wife’s property which has been at stake here, and as I consider Mrs. Irwin a very honourable lady I would gladly do my best to save her from such a heavy pecuniary loss.”

McGregor held out his hand.

“You would place me under a great obligation, Mr. Heideck, if you could succeed in this matter, but I warn you that there is no time to lose.”

Heideck quickly left the tent, but when he had come out into the delicious moonlight night the first thing that met his eye was Captain Irwin, some twenty yards distant, standing by his horse. The servant held the animal by the bridle, and Captain Irwin was about to mount. On coming nearer he saw the servant move off and perceived that Irwin held a revolver in his hand. With a quick motion he seized the officer’s wrist.

“One moment, Captain Irwin.”

Irwin started, turned round, and looked with fury at Heideck.

“I beg your pardon,” said the German, “but you are labouring under a mistake, Captain. The game was all a jest; they were playing a trick upon you. The cards were arranged beforehand.”

Irwin made no reply, but whistled to his servant and went back into the tent, revolver still in hand, without a single word to Heideck. Heideck followed. Both gentlemen stepped up to the card-table, and Irwin turned to McGregor.

“You tell me the game was all a got-up thing, do you?” he asked.

“As a lesson to you, Irwin--you who always plunge as a madman, and imagine yourself a good player, when you have not the necessary cold blood for gambling.”

“Well,” said Irwin, “that is a story that I will take care goes the round of all the garrisons in India, as an instance of kind comrade-like feeling, so that everyone may be warned against coming along here and being induced to take a hand. I never in my life came across a more despicable story; but it certainly is a lesson for me, that only honourable persons should be--”

“No, Captain Irwin,” said McGregor, standing bolt upright, levelling at his insulter a withering look from his great blue eyes, “you should rather think of your poor wife, whom you would have made a pauper if this game had not been all a hoax.”

Irwin reeled back; the revolver fell from his grasp.

“What,” he gasped--“what do you mean? It was, then, no joke, after all. I, then, really lost the money? Oh, you--you--But what do you take me for? Be quite certain that I will pay. But,” he cried, collecting himself, “I should like to know what the real truth is, after all. I ask this question of you all, and call you rogues and liars if you do not tell me the truth. Have I only really been played with, or has the game been a straightforward one?”

“Captain Irwin,” replied the Major, advancing towards him, “I, as the senior, tell you, in the name of our comrades, that your behaviour would have been unpardonable unless a sort of madness had seized you. The game was a straightforward one, and only the generosity of Captain McGregor--”

Irwin did not wait for the conclusion of the sentence, but, with a bound, was again outside the tent.

III

A RUSSIAN COMRADE

Hermann Heideck lived in a dak bungalow, one of those hotels kept going by the Government, which afford travellers shelter, but neither bed nor food. On returning home from the camp he found his servant, Morar Gopal, standing at the door ready to receive his master, and was informed that a newcomer had arrived with two attendants. As this dak bungalow was more roomy than most of the others, the new arrivals were able to find accommodation, and Heideck was not obliged, as is usual, to make way as the earlier guest for a later arrival.

“What countryman is the gentleman?” he inquired.

“An Englishman, sahib!”

Heideck entered his room and sat down at the table, upon which, besides the two dim candles, stood a bottle of whisky, a few bottles of soda-water and the inevitable box of cigarettes. He was moody and in a bad humour. The exciting scene in the officers’ mess had affected him greatly, not on account of Captain Irwin, who, from the first moment of their acquaintance, was quite unsympathetic to him, but solely on account of the beautiful young wife of the frivolous officer, of whom he had a lively recollection from their repeated meetings in social circles. None of the other officers’ wives--and there were many beautiful and amiable women among them--had made such a deep and abiding impression upon him as Edith Irwin, whose personal charms had fascinated him as much as her extraordinary intellectual powers had astonished him. The reflection that this graceful creature was fettered with indissoluble bonds to a brutal and dissolute fellow of Irwin’s stamp, and that her husband would perhaps one day drag her down with him into inevitable ruin, awoke in him most painful feelings. He would so gladly have done something for the unhappy wife. But he was obliged to admit that there was no possibility for him, a stranger, who was nothing to her but a superficial acquaintance, to achieve anything in the way he most desired. The Captain would be completely justified in rejecting every uncalled-for interference with his affairs as a piece of monstrous impudence; and then, too, in what way could he hope to be of any assistance?

A sudden noise in the next room aroused Heideck from his sad reverie. He heard loud scolding and a clapping sound, as if blows from a whip were falling upon a bare human body. A minute later and the door between the rooms flew open and an Indian, dressed only in cummerbund and turban, burst into the room, as if intending to seek here protection from his tormentor. A tall European, dressed entirely in white flannel, followed at the man’s heels and brought his riding-whip down mercilessly upon the naked back of the howling wretch. Heideck’s presence did not, evidently, disturb him in the least.

At the first glance the young German perceived that his neighbour could not be an Englishman, as his servant had told him he was. His strikingly thin, finely-cut features, and his peculiarly oval, black eyes and soft, dark beard betrayed much more the Sarmatic than the characteristic Anglo-Saxon type.

The man’s appearance did not make an unfavourable impression, but he could not possibly overlook his behaviour. Stepping between him and his victim he demanded, energetically, what this scene meant. The other, laughing, let drop the arm which had been again raised to strike.