THE OUTRAGE
When Heideck stepped into the garden he was scarcely able to find his way, but having taken a few steps his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and the pale light of the stars showed him his path.
The garden was surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of cactus plants, low enough to allow a tall man to look over. On having closed the wooden gate behind him, Heideck stood and gazed back at the brightly illuminated windows of the house. In the presence of the charming woman he had manfully suppressed his feelings. No rash word, betraying the tempest that this nocturnal conversation had left surging in his bosom, had escaped his lips. He had not for a moment forgotten that she was the wife of another, and it would be an infamy to covet her for his wife so long as she was tied to that other. But he could not disguise from himself the fact that he yearned towards her with a passionate love. He was to-day, for the first time, conscious that he loved this woman with a passion that he had never before felt for another; but there was nothing intoxicating or pleasurable in this self-confession. It was rather a feeling of apprehension of coming difficulties and struggles that would beset him in his passion for this charming creature. Had she not needed his protection, and had he not promised to remain on the spot to assist her, he would have escaped in rapid flight from this struggle within him. Yet, under the existing circumstances, there could be no question of his doing this. He had only himself to blame for having given her the right to count upon his friendship; and it was a behest of chivalry to deserve her confidence. Incapable of tearing himself from the place, where he knew his loved one remained, Heideck must have stayed a quarter of an hour rooted to the spot, and just when he had resolved—on becoming conscious of the folly of his behaviour—on turning homewards, he perceived something unusual enough to cause him to stay his steps.
He saw the house-door, which the Indian maid had a short time before closed behind him, open, and in the flood of light which streamed out into the darkness, perceived that several men dressed in white garments hurried, closely following each other, up the steps.
Remembering Mrs. Irwin’s enigmatical references to a danger which possibly threatened her, and seized by a horrible dread of something about to happen, he pushed open the garden gate and rushed towards the house.
He had not yet reached it, when the shrill cry of a woman in distress fell upon his ear. Heideck drew the revolver he always carried from his pocket and sprang up the steps at a bound. The door of the drawing-room, where he had shortly before been in conversation with the Captain’s wife, was wide open, and from it rang the cries for help, whose desperate tones brought home to the Captain the certainty that Edith Irwin was in the gravest peril. Only a few steps, and he saw the young English lady defending herself heroically against three white-dressed natives, who were evidently about to carry her off. Her light silk dress was torn to shreds in this unequal struggle, and so great was Heideck’s indignation at the monstrous brutality of the assailants that he did not for a moment hesitate to turn his weapon upon the tall, wild-looking fellow, whose brown hands were roughly clutching the bare arms of the young lady.
He fired, and with a short, dull cry of pain the fellow reeled to the ground. The other two, horror-stricken, let go their victim. One of them drew his sabre from the sheath and rushed upon the German. Heideck could not fire a second time, being afraid of harming Edith, and so he threw the revolver down, and with a rapid motion, for which his adversary was fully unprepared, caught the arm of the Indian which was raised to strike. Being much more than his match in physical strength, he wrested the sabre with a quick jerk from his grasp. The man, now defenceless, gave up the struggle and like his companion, who had already in silent, cat-like bounds made his escape, hurried off as fast as his legs would carry him.
Heideck did not pursue him. His only thoughts were for Edith, and his fears were that she had perhaps received some hurt at the hands of these bandits. In the same moment that the violent hands of the Indians had let her loose, she had fallen down on the carpet, and her marble-pale face looked to Heideck as that of a dead person. Whilst, curiously enough, neither Edith’s screams for help nor the crack of the shot had had the effect of summoning any one of her servants to her aid, now, when the danger was over, all of a sudden a few scared brown faces peered in through the open door; and the peremptory order that Heideck addressed in English to the terrified maid brought her back to her sense of duty to her mistress.
With her assistance, Heideck carried the fainting woman to a couch, and perceiving one of the little green flasks of lavender water, which are never wanting in an English house, on the table, he employed the strong perfume as well as he was able, whilst the Indian maid rubbed the soles of her young mistress’ feet, and adopted divers other methods, well known among the natives, of resuscitating her.
Under their joint attentions, Edith soon opened her eyes, and gazed with bewildered looks around her. But on seeing lying on the floor the corpse of the Indian whom Heideck had shot, her consciousness returned with perfect clearness.
Shaking off the last traces of faintness with a firm will, she got up.
“It was you who saved me, Mr. Heideck! You risked your life for me! How can I thank you enough?”
“Solely, madam, by allowing me to conduct you at once to the Colonel’s house, whose protection you must necessarily claim until your husband’s return. Whoever may have been the instigator of this hellish plot—whether these rogues were common thieves or whether they acted on orders, I do not feel myself strong enough, single-handed, to accept the responsibility for your security.”
“You are right,” Edith replied gently. “I will get ready at once and go with you—but this man here,” she added, shivering, “is he dead, or can something be done for him?”
Heideck stooped down and regarded the motionless figure. A single look into the sallow, drawn face, with the dilated, glassy eyes, sufficed to assure him that any further examination was useless.
“He has got his reward,” he said, “and he has no further claim upon your generous compassion; but is there no one to help me get the body away?”
“They are all out,” said the maid; “the butler invited them to spend a jolly evening with him in the town.”
Edith and Heideck exchanged a significant look; neither of them now doubted in the least that the audacious attack had been the result of a plot to which the Indian servants were parties, and each guessed that the other entertained the same suspicion as to who was the instigator of the shameful outrage.
But they did not utter a syllable about it. It was just because they had been brought as near to each other by the events of this night as fate can possibly bring two young beings of different sex, that each felt almost instinctively the fear of that first word which probably would have broken down the last barrier between them. And Captain Irwin’s name was not mentioned by either.