ACROSS THE BORDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14231, 30 November 1909, Page 3

ACROSS THE BORDER.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY CALDWELL LIPSETT.

[COPYRIGHT.]

"Mask over, mark over," shouted Dolly Langton excitedly, in her clear young voice, as she raced up the slope and watched the covey of chikor skim on an even wing like partridges over the top of the rise, and settle among the sage bushes halfway down the other side of the hill.

Her husband hurried up the hill after her, and then sat down on a boulder and began to change the cartridges in his gun. "What are you putting in?" she inquired. Don't you think number six is email enough?" " Buck-shot," he replied briefly. "Buck-shot for chikor?"

"Not for the chikor. You sometimes see | a mountain goat in these parts, and it might J try to butt," lie replied grimly. "What are you talking about? Aren't you going after*the chikor?" she asked, disappointedly. No, because it is as much as my life is worth, or yours, either, to set a foot on yonder slope. Do you see this ridge that '' we are on, and that continues on either j side of the fort? Well, it is the boundary line between British India and the indepen- I dent Pathan tribes of the border. All the i country 'that you see in front of you from this point onwards belongs to the Afridis, and they are the most jealously exclusive ! people in the world. I brought you up here to-day to warn you that never under \ any circumstances must you cross this bor- i der. If you are injured or captured on British territory, the Government would ' avenge you with a punitive expedition, and the Pathan knows it; but if you cross into their territory, you are a trespasser, .and must accent the consequences of your own action. Therefore, you understand, you I must never cross this line; it is my order." j Captain Langton spoke slowly and impree- ! sively and with a note of authority in his voice, as a man used to military command. He knew that his wife was young and flighty, but being only three months mar- \ ried he thought he could manage her as he would a squad of soldiers. If he had known feminine nature better, he would have expressed as a wish what he now gave j as an order. -

"I don't want to cross your old border," J said Dolly pettishly. This was almost the l first direct command she had received in the whole of her spoilt young life, and she resented it even from the stern and handsome husband, whom she adored.. For the last month, she reflected bitterly, she had been mewed up in his beastly old fort, and j had done everything she could to please him 1 and to identify herself with his life. She j had gone out with the beliographing squad j and learnt to send and receive flash mes- 1 sages in the Morse code; and she had even given an hour a day each to learning Hindu- j stani and -Pushtu, in order to speak to the Sikhs and Pathans of the frontier regiment in their own languages; and this was her reward, to be ordered about like a child of ten.

Captain Langton was the Political Officer in charge of Fort Yaghistan and the surrounding portion of the Pat ban border, and though not yet thirty, had one of the most difficult and" responsible posts on the frontier. He knew all there was to know about Pathan human nature, but he was comparatively unskilled in the ways of women, and thought he had said enough to secure Dolly's obedience, though she was distinctly sulky all the way back to. the fort. A few mornings afterwards Dolly was awakened early by a raging toothache, and got up for some laudanum to soothe the pain. Pulling aside the verandah chick she looked out on a sunlit world, where the chill of the dawn still lingered before the stifling heat of an April # day in Upper India. It was a pitv to miss this one cool hour, and hastily slipping on her cycling clothes she took out her brand new bicycle for a run round the fort walls.- A*, she left her bedroom, the laudanum bottle on the table caught her eye, and she put it in her pocket to guard against a return of the toothache. The Sikh sentry at the pates saluted and looked uneasy, but he had no orders to prevent her going out alone, and ; merely said in Hindustani: — « "Good morning, memsahib, take care; there are bad characters about."

Dolly only caught the purport of the first part of the speech, and thought to herself, " everyone tells me to take, care you .might thinkl was some kind of sugar-plum that would melt if you looked at it." ; When she came to the top of the rise near the fort, where the road plunged into the forbidden No Man's Land, she dismounted, and leaning on her bicycle, stood gazing over the parched and barren valley beneath. The road dipped steeply down below her, and rose sharply again to a ridqe beyond, higher than that on which she stood, shutting out the view. In the distance only rose the might v enow-white range of the Safed Koh. Where did the road go 1 What lay beyond that other ridge? Suddenly an overpowering curiosity surged over her. She mounted her bicycle, free-wheeled down the slope, pedalled swiftly up the opposite hill, and stood on the spot of her desire. There, as ever, lay disappointment. Only a wild tangle of country, rocky ridge, deep ravine, and sage bush, amidet which even the caravan road was soon lost to view. With the sight came immediate realisation of the fact that she had disobeyed her husband's wishes, and something sinister about the scene sent a dull of fear down her spine. Again she mounted her bicycle and sped swiftly on her homeward way. But the brilliant ■ nickel fittings of her bicycle had long since betrayed her.- As she stood on the hill by the fort, the flash of the shining metal had advertised her presence to every hawk-eyed Pathan in the surrounding hills, and many an unseen witness had watched her swoop from hill to hill. Halfway down the hill on her way back a Patha'n started from behind a rock by the roadside. With a dexterous swerve she evaded him, but the machine ran off the road and plunged headlong down the grassy slope. Gathering speed as it went, it dashed into a boulder, and flung her head first over the handle bare. When she came back to consciousness, a group of some twenty Pathane stood round her, clothed in dark blue cotton, and leaning on-modern rifle or antique jezail. The blood was streaming from a cut on her forehead, her bicycle lay in pieces round her, and just beside her was a glittering object in the grass. It was the reflector from her broken lamp, and mournfully she picked it up and put it in her pocket as a memento of the machine that was her husband's wedding gift. Then she realised that she was a. prisoner in the hands of a bloodthirsty and relentless foe.

One of the Pathans jerked her roughly to her feet, and pointed down the hill, and the whole party set off in that direction. At the bottom a body of six turned off with her into a ravine in the direction away from the fort, while the rest melted away in twos and threes, and were quickly hidden in the. surrounding rocks and scrub. Dolly knew just enough of Pushtu to gather from the conversation of her custodians that her life was in no immediate danger, but that they intended to hold her to ransom. The phrases "The Political Sahib's wife" and "twenty thousand rupees" were constantly recurring. ; But where was her husband to get twenty thousand rupees, thirteen hundred pounds? He would have to apply to Government either for the ransom or for an armed expedition to rescue her, and the Government were not likely to be pleased with a political officer who'had such an indiscreet wife.

As she was pondering' these bitter thoughts, -her Captors emerged from the ravine on to a bare stretch of hillside, from which she caught "a distant glimpse of the fort. Though she could see it, she was too far off for her figure to be descried from it unless someone was specially looking for" her with field glasses, and she did hot suppose that the alarm of her absence had yet been given. A point of light sparkled for a moment on the walls, showing that the beliographing squad were at their morning practice. Instantly an idea struck her, and she pretended to stumble, twisting her ankle.and falling to the ground. She began to rub her ankle, and looking up at the Tathans said in Pushtu " a few . minutes, please." They also looked at the fort, and coming to the conclusion that they were far enough off for safety dragged her behind a sheltering boulder, and each of them effaced himself with the skill of a born skirmisher. As soon as eho was unobserved, Dolly took the bicycle reflector from her pocket, and focussing the sun's rays with some difficulty on its small surface," flashed round the corner of her rock the message, " Help, I am captured by Afridis." Scarcely had she done so, when she found an Afridi' bending over her, and with great presence of mind pretended to be ■arranging her hair, showing him his own features distorted in the convex mirror. The Afridi, a great bearded ruffian with black oily ringlets, evidently took this as a coquettish advance, and thenceforward constituted himself her special bodyguard. Pointing to his breast he said, " Bairam Khan," to inform her of his name. ■:.-"■

. Once more the Afridis gathered round and hurried her across the open space behind a projecting shoulder of the hill; but on the way she turned her head and saw the point of light on the fort walls wink and blink the comforting response: "Help coming immediately." For mile after mile her custodians hurried on with the long untiring stride of the mountaineer, until her light shoes were cut to ribbons by the jagged rocks, to which the grass sandals of the Afridis were specially adapted. They took it in turns to help her, two at a time, and half dragged half carried her over every obstacle, until she was ready to faint from weariness and the intolerable heat of the vertical sun. At bust as the full glare of noonday approached, they came within sight of a cave mouth gaping darkly in the hillside, and Bairam Khan pointed reassuringly to it as the end of the first stage in their journey. Here the Afridis, unconscious of pursuit, evidently intended to take their mid-day meal, and Dolly collected all her energies, as she realised that the crucial moment in her fortunes was at hand.

The cool and silent gloom of the cave was such a change from the scorching glare outside, that the whole party were obliged to pause on the threshold, to" let their eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Dolly soon perceived that it was a large and vaulted rock-chamber; used as a kind of caravanserai; for it had the ashes of many fires in one corner, and close by stood a large earthen ehurra of water. Cautiously feeling in her pocket she drew from it the bottle of laudanum that she had brought for her long since forgotten toothache. Keeping it concealed in the palm of her hand, with outstretched arms, as though still unaccustomed to the darkness, she felt her way along the wall, and dropped the contents of the bottle into the waterIt was a two-ounce bottle of laudanum, and even mixed with the water was sufficient to send all the party to sleep. Tho six Afridis now set themselves to the task of preparing their meal, lighting the fire, mixing flour from their skin bags with water from the drugged pipkin to make chupatties, while each took his brass lotah full of the water to drink. They offered food and drink to their captive but she refused the chupatty, and fearful of rousing suspicion by refusing the water also after such a scorching march, she turned her back to them and poured the water from the lotah down her neck between her blouse and her body. Presently she had the satisfaction of seeing them sink to sleep, one by one, overcome by the drug. As soon as all were safely asleep; she took off her bicycling skirt, lest its rustle should, betray her, and clad in her blufe eerge knickerbockers, slid, a slim boyish shape, past their recumbent forms out of the cavern, on to the open hillside. . Then began a slow and painful return journey for she started at every sound that broke the mid-day stillness, and crouched behind every rock she reached, while she scrutinised the surrounding country. j When she had covered about a mile, she rounded a rock and came face to face with a Sikh of her husband's regiment, who had been skirmishing as carefully as she, and who presented his bayonet at her chest in his astonishment. Slowly his eyes travelled from her legs up to her face, and then he dropped his rifle and gasped " it is the memsahib." "I am the memsahib," she replied with dignity, " give me your tunic, and take me to the sahib."

The huge Sikh's uniform tunic covered her to the knees, and hung in grotesque festoons from her slim shoulders; and disguised in this fashion she found her husband behind another rock. For a moment lie stared in astonishment at her, and then clasped her in his arms and covered her with kisses, without any regard to the presence of his men.

Her heliographic message had given the first alarm of her disappearance. With forty picked men, half mounted and .half dismounted, he had followed hard on the trail of the Afridis, and so was close behind when they made their mid-day halt. On hearing that her six cantors were in a cave only a mile ahead he divided his men into two sections, leaving the dismounted men behind, and galloping back with the rest for an escort to the fort.

On the way, mounted on her own pony, Dolly told her husband the story of her adventures, and ended by asking, "Are you very angry with me? Are you going to send me away to Simla for it?" Her husband smiled tenderly at her, and replied, " You got into a pretty bad scrape, but as you got out of it again by your own wits, I think well have to forgive you this time. You seem to have been one too many for Jack Afridi, and he ought to have a healthy, respect, for his political officer'e wife in future."

As he spoke, a sudden volley rang out behind them. Dolly guessed what it meant, and pressed her hands to her ears, as she rode on. A little later looking back she saw a column of smoke. rising in the glaring sunshine. ■ ' "'. • "What is that?" she asked.

"A signal fire, I suppose," said "her hue"band indifferently; but the Subadar, who was riding at his elbow, interposed, "No, sahib, it is only the Sikhs, burning the corpses of their enemies." " Shut up, you fool," said the officer, but his- wife had heard enough to know that her escapade had resulted in the summary execution and cremation of those six Afxidie. Ever afterwards, when'she felt inclined to dispute her husband's wishes, the memory came back to her of a sudden volley of rifleshots and a column of smoke rising sullenly on the still and sunlit air.