The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell

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Hordes of tribesmen, gathered Heaven knew how or whence, had suddenly
burst upon him from the south, had cut off his advance by sheer
immensity of numbers, and, hemming him in, had forced him gradually
back into the mountain fastnesses through which he had just passed
unmolested.

It was a stroke so wholly new, so subtly executed, that it had won
success almost before the General had realised the weight of the
disaster that had come upon him. He had believed himself at first to
be involved in a mere fray with border thieves. But before he reached
the fort upon which he found himself obliged to fall back, he knew
that he had to cope with a general rising of the tribes, and that the
means at his disposal were as inadequate to stem the rising flood of
rebellion as a pebble thrown into a mountain stream to check its flow.

The men under his command, with the exception of a few officers, were
all native soldiers, and he soon began to have a strong suspicion that
among these he numbered traitors. Nevertheless, he established himself
at the fort, determined there to make his stand till relief should
arrive.

The telegraph wires were cut, and for a time it seemed that all
communication with the outside world was an impossibility. Several
runners were sent out, but failed to break through the besieging
forces. But at last after many desperate days there came a message
from without--a scrap of paper attached to a stone and flung over the
wall of the fort at night. News of the disaster had reached Peshawur,
and Sir Reginald Bassett, with a hastily collected force, was moving
to their assistance.

The news put heart into the garrison, and for a time it seemed that
the worst would be averted. But it became gradually evident to General
Roscoe that the relieving force could not reach them in time. The
water supply had run very low, and the men were already subsisting
upon rations that were scarcely sufficient for the maintenance of
life. There was sickness among them, and there were also many wounded.
The white men were reduced to four, including himself, the native
soldiers had begun to desert, and he had been forced at last to face
the fact that the end was very near.

All this had Muriel Roscoe come through, physically scathless,
mentally torn and battered, and she could not bring herself to realise
that the long-drawn-out misery of the siege could ever be over.

Lying there, tense and motionless, she listened to the shots and yells
in the distance with a shuddering sense that it was all a part of her
life, of her very being, even. The torture and the misery had so eaten
into her soul. Now and then she heard the quick thunder of one of the
small guns that armed the fort, and at the sound her pulses leaped
and quivered. She knew that the ammunition was running very low. These
guns did not often speak now.

Then, during a lull, there came to her the careless humming of a
British voice, the free, confident tread of British feet, approaching
her door.

She caught her breath as a hand rapped smartly upon the panel. She
knew who the visitor was, but she could not bring herself to bid him
enter. A sudden awful fear was upon her. She could neither speak nor
move. She lay, listening intently, hoping against hope that he would
believe her to be sleeping and go away.

The knock was not repeated. Dead silence reigned. And then quickly
and decidedly the door opened, and Nick Ratcliffe stood upon the
threshold. The light struck full upon his face as he halted--a clever,
whimsical face that might mask almost any quality good or bad.

"May I come in, Miss Roscoe?" he asked.

For she had not moved at his appearance. She lay as one dead. But as
he spoke she uncovered her face, and terror incarnate stared wildly at
him from her starting eyes. He entered without further ceremony,
and closed the door behind him. In the shaded lamplight his features
seemed to twitch as if he wanted to smile. So at least it seemed to
her wrought-up fancy.

He gazed greedily at the plate of rice on the table as he came
forward. "Great Jupiter!" he said. "What a sumptuous repast!"

The total freedom from all anxiety or restraint with which he made
this simple observation served to restore to some degree the girl's
tottering self-control. She sat up, sufficiently recovered to remember
that she did not like this man.

"Pray have some if you want it," she said coldly.

He turned his back on it abruptly. "No, don't tempt me," he said.
"It's a fast day for me. I'm acquiring virtue, being conspicuously
destitute of all other forms of comfort. Why don't you eat it
yourself? Are you acquiring virtue too?"

He stood looking down at her quizzically, under rapidly flickering
eyelids. She sat silent, wishing with all her heart that he would go
away.

Nothing, however, was apparently further from his thoughts. After a
moment he sat down in the chair that her father had occupied an hour
before. It was very close to her, and she drew herself slightly
away with a small, instinctive movement of repugnance. But Nick was
sublimely impervious to hints.

"I say, you know," he said abruptly, "you shouldn't take opium. Your
donkey of an _ayah_ ought to know better than to let you have it."

Muriel gave a great start. "I don't"--she faltered. "I--I--"

He shook his head at her, as though reproving a child. "Pussy's out,"
he observed. "It is no good giving chase. But really, you know, you
mustn't do it. You used to be a brave girl once, and now your nerves
are all to pieces."

There was a species of paternal reproach in his tone. Looking at him,
she marvelled that she had ever thought him young and headlong. Almost
in spite of herself she began to murmur excuses.

"I can't help it. I must have something. I don't sleep. I lie for
hours, listening to the fighting. It--it's more than I can bear."
Her voice quivered, and she turned her face aside, unable to hide her
emotion, but furious with herself for displaying it.

Nick said nothing at all to comfort her, and she bitterly resented
his silence. After a pause he spoke again, as if he had banished the
matter entirely from his mind.

"Look here," he said. "I want you to tell me something. I don't know
what sort of a fellow you think I am, though I fancy you don't like
me much. But you're not afraid of me, are you? You know I'm to be
trusted?"

It was her single chance of revenge, and she took it. "I have my
father's word for it," she said.

He nodded thoughtfully as if unaware of the thrust. "Yes, your father
knows me. And so"--he smiled at her suddenly--"you are ready to trust
me on his recommendation? You are ready to follow me blindfold through
danger if I give you my hand to hold?"

She felt a sharp chill strike her heart. What was it he was asking of
her? What did those words of his portend?

"I don't know," she said. "I don't see that it makes much difference
how I feel."

"Well, it does," he assured her. "And that is exactly what I have
come to talk about. Miss Roscoe, will you leave the fort with me,
and escape in disguise? I have thought it all out, and it can be done
without much difficulty. I do not need to tell you that the idea has
your father's full approval."

They were her father's own words, but at sound of them she shrank
and shivered, in sheer horror at the coolness with which they were
uttered. He might have been asking her to stroll with him in the leafy
quiet of some English lane.

Could it be, she asked herself incredulously, could it be that her
father had ever sanctioned and approved so ghastly a risk for her? She
put her hand to her temples. Her brain was reeling. How could she do
this thing? How could she have permitted it to be even suggested to
her? And then, swift through her tortured mind flashed his words:
"There will be an end. I have had to face it to-night." Was it this
that he had meant? Was it for this that he had been preparing her?

With a muffled exclamation she rose, trembling in every limb. "I
can't!" she cried piteously, "oh, I can't! Please go away!"

It might have been the frightened prayer of a child, so beseeching
was it, so full of weakness. But Nick Ratcliffe heard it unmoved. He
waited a few seconds till she came to a stand by the table, her back
towards him. Then with a sudden quiet movement he rose and followed
her.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "But you can't afford to shirk things
at this stage. I am offering you deliverance, though you don't realise
it."

He spoke with force, and if his aim had been to rouse her to a more
practical activity, he gained his end. She turned upon him in swift
and desperate indignation. Her voice rang almost harsh.

"How can you call it deliverance? It is at best a choice of two
horrible evils. You know perfectly well that we could never get
through. You must be mad to suggest such a thing. We should be made
prisoners and massacred under the very guns of the fort."

"I beg your pardon," he said again, and his eyelids quivered a little
as if under the pressure of some controlled emotion. "We shall not be
made prisoners. I know what I am saying. It is deliverance that I am
offering you. Of course you can refuse, and I shall still do my
utmost to save you. But the chances are not equal. I hope you will not
refuse."

The moderation of this speech calmed her somewhat. In her first wild
panic she had almost imagined that he could take her against her will.
She saw that she had been unreasonable, but she was too shaken to tell
him so. Moreover, there was still that about him, notwithstanding his
words, that made her afraid to yield a single inch of ground lest by
some hidden means he should sweep her altogether from her precarious
foothold. Even in the silence, she felt that he was doing battle with
her, and she did not dare to face him.

With a childish gesture of abandonment, she dropped into a chair and
laid her head upon her arms.

"Oh, please go away!" she besought him weakly. "I am so tired--so
tired."

But Ratcliffe did not move. He stood looking down at her, at the black
hair that clustered about her neck, at the bowed, despairing figure,
the piteous, clenched hands.

A little clock in the room began to strike in silvery tones, and he
glanced up. The next instant he bent and laid a bony hand upon her two
clasped ones.

"Can't you decide?" he said. "Will you let me decide for you? Don't
let yourself get scared. You have kept so strong till now." Firmly
as he spoke, there was somehow a note of soothing in his voice, and
almost insensibly the girl was moved by it. She remained silent and
motionless, but the strong grip of his fingers comforted her subtly
notwithstanding.

"Come," he said, "listen a moment and let me tell you my plan of
campaign. It is very simple, and for that reason it is going to
succeed. You are listening now?"

His tone was vigorous and insistent. Muriel sat slowly up in response
to it. She looked down at the thin hand that grasped hers, and
wondered at its strength; but she lacked the spirit at that moment to
resent its touch.

He leaned down upon the table, his face close to hers, and began to
unfold his plan.

"We shall leave the fort directly the moon is down. I have a disguise
for you that will conceal your face and hair. And I shall fake as a
tribesman, so that my dearest friend would never recognise me. They
will be collecting the wounded in the dark, and I will carry you
through on my shoulder as if I had got a dead relation. You won't
object to playing a dead relation of mine?"

He broke into a sudden laugh, but sobered instantly when he saw her
shrink at the sound.

"That's about all the plan," he resumed. "There is nothing very
alarming about it, for they will never spot us in the dark. I'm as
yellow as a Chinaman already. We shall be miles away by morning. And I
know how to find my way afterwards."

He paused, but Muriel made no comment. She was staring straight before
her.

"Can you suggest any amendments?" he asked.

She turned her head and looked at him with newly-roused aversion in
her eyes. She had summoned all her strength to the combat, realising
that now was the moment for resistance if she meant to resist.

"No, Mr. Ratcliffe," she said, with a species of desperate firmness
very different from his own. "I have nothing to suggest. If you wish
to escape, you must go alone. It is quite useless to try to persuade
me any further. Nothing--nothing will induce me to leave my father."

Whether or not he had expected this opposition was not apparent on
Nick's face. It betrayed neither impatience nor disappointment.

"There would be some reason in that," he gravely rejoined, "if you
could do any good to your father by remaining. Of course I see your
point, but it seems to me that it would be harder for him to see you
starve with the rest of the garrison than to know that you had escaped
with me. A woman in your position is bound to be a continual burden
and anxiety to those who protect her. The dearer she is to them, so
much the heavier is the burden. Miss Roscoe, you must see this. You
are not an utter child. You must realise that to leave your father
is about the greatest sacrifice you can make for him at the present
moment. He is worn out with anxiety on your behalf, literally bowed
down by it. For his sake, you are going to do this thing, it being the
only thing left that you can do for him."

There was more than persuasion in his voice. It held authority. But
Muriel heard it without awe. She had passed that stage. The matter
was too momentous to allow of weakness. She had strung herself to the
highest pitch of resistance as a hunted creature at bay. She threw
back her head, a look of obstinacy about her lips, her slight figure
straightened to the rigidity of defiance.

"I will not be forced," she said, in sharp, uneven tones. "Mr.
Ratcliffe, you may go on persuading and arguing till doomsday. I will
not leave my father."

Ratcliffe stood up abruptly. A curious glitter shone in his eyes, and
the light eyebrows twitched a little. She felt that he had suddenly
ceased to do battle with her, yet that the victory was not hers. And
for a second she was horribly frightened, as though an iron trap had
closed upon her and held her at his mercy.

He walked to the door without speaking and opened it. She expected
him to go, sat waiting breathlessly for his departure, but instead he
stood motionless, looking into the dark passage.

She wondered with nerves on edge what he was waiting for. Suddenly
she heard a step without, a few murmured words, and Nick stood on one
side. Her father's Sikh orderly passed him, carrying a tray on which
was a glass full of some dark liquid. He set it down on the table
before her with a deep salaam.

"The General Sahib wishes Missy Sahib to have a good night," he said.
"He cannot come to her himself, but he sends her this by his servant,
and he bids her drink it and sleep."

Muriel looked up at the man in surprise. Her father had never done
such a thing before, and the message astonished her not a little.
Then, remembering that he had shown some anxiety regarding her
appearance that evening, she fancied she began to understand. Yet
it was strange, it was utterly unlike him, to desire her to take an
opiate. She looked at the glass with hesitation.

"Give him my love, Purdu," she said finally to the waiting orderly.
"Tell him I will take it if I cannot sleep without."

The man bowed himself again and withdrew. To her disgust, however,
Nick remained. He was looking at her oddly.

"Miss Roscoe," he said abruptly, "I beg you, don't drink that
stuff. Your father must be mad to offer it to you. Let me take the
beastliness away."

She faced him indignantly. "My father knows what is good for me better
than you do," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't profess to be a sage. But any
one will tell you that it is madness to take opium in this reckless
fashion. For Heaven's sake, be reasonable. Don't take it."

He came back to the table, but at his approach she laid her hand upon
the glass. She was quivering with angry excitement.

"I will not endure your interference any longer," she declared, goaded
to headlong, nervous fury by his persistence. "My father's wishes are
enough for me. He desires me to take it, and so I will."

She took up the glass in a sudden frenzy of defiance. He had
frightened her--yes, he had frightened her--but he should see how
little he had gained by that. She took a taste of the liquid, then
paused, again assailed by a curious hesitancy. Had her father really
meant her to take it all?

Nick had stopped short at her first movement, but as she began to
lower the glass in response to that disquieting doubt, he swooped
suddenly forward like a man possessed.

For a fleeting instant she thought he was going to wrest it from her,
but in the next she understood--understood the man's deep treachery,
and with what devilish ingenuity he had worked upon her. Holding her
with an arm that felt like iron, he forced the glass back between her
teeth, and tilted the contents down her throat. She strove to resist
him, strove wildly, frantically, not to swallow the draught. But he
held her pitilessly. He compelled her, gripping her right hand with
the glass, and pinning the other to her side.

When it was over, when he had worked his will and the hateful draught
was swallowed, he set her free and turned himself sharply from her.

She sprang up trembling and hysterical. She could have slain him in
that instant had she possessed the means to her hand. But her strength
was more nearly exhausted than she knew. Her limbs doubled up under
her weight, and as she tottered, seeking for support, she realised
that she was vanquished utterly at last.

She saw him wheel quickly and start to support her, sought to evade
him, failed--and as she felt his arms lift her, she cried aloud in
anguished helplessness.

What followed dwelt ever after in her memory as a hideous dream, vivid
yet not wholly tangible. He laid her down upon the couch and bent over
her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every
nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort
of the powerless body to be free. She had a confused impression also
that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall.
In the end, her horror faded, and she saw him as through a mist
bending above her, grim and tense and silent, controlling her as it
were from an immense distance. And even while she yet dimly wondered,
he passed like a shadow from her sight, and wonder itself ceased.

Half an hour later Nicholas Ratcliffe, the wit and clown of his
regiment, regarded by many as harebrained or wantonly reckless,
carried away from the beleaguered fort among the hostile mountains the
slight, impassive figure of an English girl.

The night was dark, populated by terrors alive and ghastly. But he
went through it as one unaware of its many dangers. Light-footed and
fearless, he passed through the midst of his enemies, marching with
the sublime audacity of the dominant race, despising caution--yea,
grinning triumphant in the very face of Death.

CHAPTER IV

DESOLATION

Out of a deep abyss of darkness in which she seemed to have wandered
ceaselessly and comfortlessly for many days, Muriel Roscoe came
haltingly back to the surface of things. She was very weak, so weak
that to open her eyes was an exertion requiring all her resolution,
and to keep them open during those first hours of returning life a
physical impossibility. She knew that she was not alone, for gentle
hands ministered to her, and she was constantly aware of some one who
watched her tirelessly, with never-failing attention. But she felt
not the smallest interest regarding this faithful companion, being
too weary to care whether she lived or fell away for ever down those
unending steeps up which some unseen influence seemed magnetically to
draw her.

It was a stage of returning consciousness that seemed to last even
longer than the period of her wandering, but this also began to pass
at length. The light grew stronger all about her, the mists rolled
slowly away from her clogged brain, leaving only a drowsing languor
that was infinitely restful to her tired senses.

And then while she lay half-dreaming and wholly content, a remorseless
hand began to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water. She awoke
reluctantly, even resentfully.

"Don't!" she entreated like a child. "I am so tired. Let me sleep."

"My poor dear, I know all about it," a motherly voice made answer.
"But it's time for you to wake."

She did not grasp the words--only, very vaguely, their meaning; and
this she made a determined, but quite fruitless, effort to defy. In
the end, being roused in spite of herself, she opened her eyes and
gazed upwards.

And all his life long Nick Ratcliffe remembered the reproach that
those eyes held for him. It was as if he had laid violent hands upon a
spirit that yearned towards freedom, and had dragged it back into the
sordid captivity from which it had so nearly escaped.

But it was only for a moment that she looked at him so. The reproach
faded swiftly from the dark eyes and he saw a startled horror dawn
behind it.

Suddenly she raised herself with a faint cry. "Where am I?" she
gasped. "What--what have you done with me?"

She stared around her wildly, with unreasoning, nightmare terror. She
was lying on a bed of fern in a narrow, dark ravine. The place was
full of shadow, though far overhead she saw the light of day. At one
end, only a few yards from her, a stream rushed and gurgled among
great boulders, and its insistent murmur filled the air. Behind her
rose a great wall of grey rock, clothed here and there with some dark
growth. Its rugged face was dented with hollows that looked like the
homes of wild animals. There was a constant trickle of water on all
sides, an eerie whispering, remote but incessant. As she sat there in
growing panic, a great bat-like creature, immense and shadowy, swooped
soundlessly by her.

She shrank back with another cry, and found Nick Ratcliffe's arm
thrust protectingly about her.

"It's all right," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You're not
frightened at flying-foxes, are you?"

Recalled to the fact of his presence, she turned sharply, and flung
his arm away as though it had been a snake. "Don't touch me!" she
gasped, passionate loathing in voice and gesture.

"Sorry," said Nick imperturbably. "I meant well."

He began to busy himself with a small bundle that lay upon the ground,
whistling softly between his teeth, and for a few seconds Muriel sat
and watched him. He was dressed in a flowing native garment, that
covered him from head to foot. Out of the heavy enveloping folds his
smooth, yellow face looked forth, sinister and terrible to her fevered
vision. He looked like some evil bird, she thought to herself.

Glancing down, she saw that she was likewise attired, save that
her head was bare. The hair hung wet on her forehead, and the water
dripped down her face. She put up her hand half-mechanically to wipe
the drops away. Her fear was mounting rapidly higher.

She knew now what had happened. He had drugged her forcibly--she
shivered at the remembrance--and had borne her away to this dreadful
place during her unconsciousness. Her father was left behind in the
fort. He had sanctioned her removal. He had given her, a helpless
captive, into this man's keeping.

But no! Her whole soul rose up in sudden fierce denial of this. He
had never done this thing. He had never given his consent to an act so
cowardly and so brutal. He was incapable of parting with her thus. He
could never have permitted so base a trick, so cruel, so outrageous, a
deed of treachery.

Strength came suddenly to her--the strength of frenzy. She leaped to
her feet. She would escape. She would go back to him through all
the hordes of the enemy. She would face anything--anything in the
world--rather than remain at the mercy of this man.

But--he had not been looking at her, and he did not look at her,--his
arm shot out as she moved, and his hand fastened claw-like upon her
dress.

"Sorry," he said again, in the same practical tone. "But you'll have
something to eat before you go."

She stooped and strove wildly, frantically, to shake off the detaining
hand. But it held her like a vice, with awful skeleton fingers that
she could not, dared not, touch.

"Let me go!" she cried impotently. "How dare you? How dare you?"

Still he did not raise his head. He was on his knees, and he would not
even trouble himself to rise.

"I can't help myself," he told her coolly. "It's not my fault. It's
yours."

She made a final, violent effort to wrest herself free. And then--it
was as if all power were suddenly taken from her--her strained nerves
gave way completely, and she dropped down upon the ground again in a
quivering agony of helplessness.

Nick's hand fell away from her. "You shouldn't," he said gently. "It's
no good, you know."

He returned to his former occupation while she sat with her face
hidden, in a stupor of fear, afraid to move lest he should touch her
again.

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