Chapter III: Gilding Rubs Off

An interruption now occurred in the arrival of two large heavily-laden mules with their drivers.

"Ah, there comes my luggage at last!" exclaimed Denis, jumping up from his seat, and going forth to meet them. "I hope, Walter, that your goods and chattels will pack into the very smallest dimensions, for as my beasts have as much as they can bear, they can't well carry very much more."

"A case of 'The last feather breaks the camel's back,'" observed Walter.

"I never could make out the sense of that proverb," said the Irishman. "I'd put the last feather first, and the camel would not so much as feel it."

Walter glanced at the speaker to see if he were in jest or earnest; but Denis's handsome face betrayed no consciousness that he had been talking nonsense.

"My pony," said young Gurney, "can carry the few things which I shall require; I shall walk, and lead it."

Dermot Denis was busy with one of his trunks which had been removed from the mule and placed on the ground. He extracted from it a corkscrew and a bottle of brandy, and with these returned to the house, followed by Walter.

"I'm glad that the rascals brought the mules in time," said the Irishman, seating himself, and applying the screw to the cork. "You and I must finish our dinner with a 'dhrop of the cratur,' as my countrymen say."

"Thanks; but I never taste wine or spirits."

"Oh, nonsense; if you've never done it yet, you must do it now, if only for good fellowship. You've not been ass enough to take the pledge, I suppose?" Denis had the bottle between his knees, and out came the cork.

"Excuse me for two minutes," said Walter, and he went hastily into the inner apartment. There on a table lay his Bible, his desk, and a few scattered papers and books.

"Here is a new danger," said Walter to himself. "I had better do at once what I have often thought of doing." He opened his Bible, dipped his pen, and in a firm bold hand wrote on the fly-leaf, "I declare that I will never, except by medical advice or at communion, let a drop of alcohol pass my lips." Walter signed the declaration, added the date, and returned to the room where Denis was mixing his brandy and water. The Irishman pushed the bottle towards him. "I have taken a pledge," said Walter.

"When did you take it?"

"I took it just now."

Denis gave a little whistle of surprise. Walter had made up his mind that his friend would be angry at opposition from one so much his inferior in age and position; but the frank face of Denis did not look angry, it had only an expression of half-contemptuous pity, which was to Walter harder to bear. No man, especially a very young one, likes to be thought weak-minded by the companion to whom he looks up. It was the doubt how he himself could bear perpetually to oppose himself to the wishes of his benefactor that had made Walter take the decided step of signing the pledge. "Well, you're the loser, I'm the gainer, for my liquor will last the longer," said Denis, raising his glass to his lips. "But," he observed, as he set it down empty, "if you fancy that you will curry favour with the Mohammedans by giving way to their nonsensical prejudices regarding wines, you'll find that you are greatly mistaken. They don't follow their Vedas* at all." (Denis, it appears, did not know any difference between the Vedas and the Koran.) "The Mohammedan drinks on the sly. He sits on his carpet spread on the floor, with his brandy-bottle in one hand and his hookah in the other, and drinks till he rolls under the table." Denis spoke authoritatively, as one who knows a great deal more about Eastern habits than a youth who had spent all his years in India. Walter did not care to contradict him. Half-an-hour before Denis had been a hero in his eyes; the gilded image of a chivalrous knight was already losing a little of its brightness.

* Hindu Scriptures.

"Now, take me to your Kandahar man; I'll strike my bargain at once. He shall guide us through the Afghan passes."

Walter led the way into the native village, which was not many steps distant from what had been the home of the pastor. It was much like other villages in India--a congregation of mud-huts, with not a pane of glass to be seen, but was somewhat cleaner than those of the heathen. One small, neat building of brick, with a bell hung aloft, showed that it possessed a place for Christian worship. Swarthy natives came out of what Denis called their ant-hill; women stood in the doorways, to stare at the unwonted sight of a European stranger. There were swarms of children of both sexes and all ages, who received many a kind word from Walter as they stood smiling and salaming.

"Fancy passing all one's life among such as these!" exclaimed Denis, shrugging his shoulders. "Do you dignify these bare-footed blackies by the name of Christians?"

"My father has baptised more than forty," replied Walter, "but the majority----"

"Where's the Kandahar fellow?" asked Denis, who had no taste for anything like a missionary report.

Walter led the way into a mud-built dwelling. The Irishman did not stoop his tall form sufficiently to avoid knocking his head as he entered, and in the semi-darkness stumbled over a recumbent calf which shared the dwelling. Hanif, the Afghan, wrapped in a blanket, was lying on his _charpai_.*

* Native bedstead.

Conversation was at once entered upon by Denis, Walter acting as his interpreter. The Afghan looked astonished at the opening sentences, and burst forth into rapid, excited utterances.

"What on earth is the fellow saying?" asked Denis with impatience.

"He is vowing by his Prophet's beard that he will not undertake to guide you; that the Feringhee* must be mad to think of crossing the frontier. Hanif declares that if you did reach Kandahar by his means, he would be bastinadoed, or lose his hand or his head; and that if you were murdered on the way, the Feringhees would insist on his being hanged, however innocent he might be. Really," said Walter, in a tone of expostulation, "I think that there is some reason in what the man says. I wish that you would turn your thoughts in some other direction."

* Natives call Europeans Feringhees.

"Give your advice when it's asked for," said Denis, pettishly. "If you're afraid to accompany me, I let you off your agreement. You may stay and vegetate here amongst your niggers."

"I am not afraid," commenced Walter, who was a good deal nettled; "but----"

His new friend cut him short: "Tell the fellow I'll pay him treble what he could fairly demand. Afghans would do anything for gold."

And so it proved. Hanif's eyes glistened at the thought of the large payment offered; and as the _bard sahib_ (great gentleman) was evidently so rich, perhaps an idea of helping to relieve him of some of his goods by the way made the Pathan less reluctant to run some risk. Was he not accustomed to hazard his life for _loot_ (plunder)? So the bargain was struck; the party were to start early on the following morning.

Denis returned to the house. Walter remained to make arrangements with a respectable Christian native employed as a catechist as to the care of his own trifling property during his absence. He gave him the keys of the dwelling, to which some missionary might perhaps be sent before long.

The little church-bell was rung--such was the custom at Santgunge--to gather the native Christians for devotions before they retired to rest. As, surrounded by simple worshippers, Walter joined in the praise and the prayer, again he solemnly devoted himself to his God, before proceeding on what might prove to be a dangerous journey. Then, after exchanging kind words and good wishes with those who loved him for his father's sake as well as his own, the missionary's son returned to his dwelling.

Denis, having had his own way, had quite recovered his temper, and was in exuberant spirits when Walter joined him.

"I wondered how long you were going to leave me to my own meditations, with no light but that of my cigar, while you enjoyed the intellectual conversation of your niggers, so soon to be exchanged for company so insipid as mine!" he said, laughing, as Walter entered the room.

Young Gurney, by lighting a lamp, soon dispelled the darkness. In the gaiety of his heart Denis drew his chair closer to Walter's, and was inclined to be quite confidential.

"I don't mind telling you, old boy--for I know you'll be silent as the grave--what is my great object in pushing on beyond the border. You'll not breathe a word to a soul alive."

"Mr. Denis," said Walter, "we are going amongst Afghans, one of whose characteristics is intense curiosity. We shall be questioned and cross-questioned on every point, and often silence is in itself a reply."

"Oh, I'm a match for Afghans!" cried Denis lightly; "I can lie like a Persian--only, unluckily, I don't know the language they lie in!"

"I do know the language, and I cannot lie," observed Walter; "therefore I had better be in ignorance of anything that you wish to remain concealed."

"You mean that ignorance would be bliss to you, and safety to me!" cried Denis. "You would not wilfully let the cat out of the bag, but you could not help her mewing in it. Well, be it as you wish; I will not reveal to you my great object. But--oh here's just what I want, a supply of paper; I've a bottle of ink, and pens, but I quite forgot the paper!" Denis's hand was upon about a quire of letter-sized paper, on the first six or seven pages of which something had been written, which he was about to tear off in order to throw them away.

"Hold!" exclaimed Walter hastily, laying his hand on the Irishman's arm. "That's valuable; that's my father's writing,--a translation of the Gospel into Pushtoo which he began but never lived to finish. You shall have other paper. I mean to take this with me," and he put the manuscript into his bosom.

"Now there's one thing I want to say to you, Walter Gurney," began Dermot Denis, looking his companion full in the face; "you've been brought up in the midst of a great deal of religious talk with all sort of puritanical notions, till I daresay you think it a deadly sin to look at a bottle, or dance a polka, or shuffle a pack of cards. You're welcome to your thoughts if you keep them to yourself. But we're going amongst a pack of rabid Moslems, and if they come on the subject of religion, the least contradiction on your part will make them fly at our throats. I'm not going to wave a red flag in the face of a bull. If the bigots question me I'll say I'm a philosopher, with no particular notions; that will save me from all the troublesome arguments on ticklish subjects that I don't understand. And I desire you'll do just the same."

Walter coloured to the roots of his hair, but he returned with steady firmness the gaze of his comrade. "I'll never deny my faith," he said, laying his clenched hand on the table; "in religious matters I will be in bondage to no man, and if God gives me an opportunity of speaking a word for Him, I can never engage to be silent. If you do not accept this condition, sir, it will be impossible for me to remain your companion."

Denis tried to laugh off his annoyance, but there was more of irony than of mirth in his laugh. "Hear how the young cock crows!" he cried, "when hardly out of the shell. He'll sing a different note when his feathers are grown. Good-night, my puritanical friend, I'm going to bed; as we start to-morrow, I hope that you'll awake in the morning a wiser and a merrier man." And taking up the solitary lamp, Denis retreated into the inner room, leaving Walter Gurney to darkness and his own reflections.

These reflections were by no means agreeable. If the gilded image of a knightly man had before appeared dimmed to Walter, it was now as if fragments dropping off from what had seemed like armour had betrayed the plaster of Paris beneath. When Walter had grasped the hand of Denis as a pledge that he would, if needful, follow him to the death, the Irishman had appeared to him in the light of a hero, generous, gallant, and noble--a Cœur de Lion, Bayard, Sir Philip Sidney in one. Walter, with boyish enthusiasm,--for he was little more than a boy,--had imagined his handsome young benefactor, protector, and friend, all that he desired him to be. They had now been but a few hours together, and the youth had already seen folly, vanity, selfishness, and a want of principle in his companion. Walter would fain have recalled the feelings with which he had welcomed his friend, and accused himself of ingratitude, fickleness, and presumption for so quickly altering his opinion of one whom he still desired to honour, for he still felt strongly disposed to love him.

But Walter's judgment was not now in fault. He was simply beginning to see Denis as he actually was. Not that the bold, dashing traveller was what the world would regard as a bad man; on the contrary, he was made to be its favourite. Brought up in the atmosphere of a pleasant home, Denis was addicted to no particular vice. He was said to bear a high character, and to be liberal almost to a fault. Yes, Denis was liberal when to be so cost him no sacrifice of self-love. He could throw a sovereign to a beggar, but he would not have parted with his last cigar even to his dearest friend. But Denis had no very dear friend. As his judgment was shallow, so his affections were weak. He was almost an exemplification of the witty description of a man whose heart is the exact size of his coffin--it can hold nothing but himself. Denis's ruling passions were vanity, selfishness, and an intense thirst for admiration. He had had too much of the last-mentioned sweet poison already, and to imbibe it seemed a necessity of his nature. It was this, and love of excitement which made the young Irishman undertake dashing adventures. He would rather have been talked about for his faults and follies than not be talked about at all.