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Updated: May 2, 2025
On the evening before the day fixed for the execution at Khanmulla, they were engaged in this fashion when the khitmutgar entered with the news that a sahib desired to speak to him. "Oh, bother!" said Ralston crossly. "Who is it? Don't you know?" The man hesitated, and it occurred to Tommy instantly that there was a hint of mystery in his manner.
She sat staring about her, doubting the evidence of her senses, marvelling if it could all be a dream. For she recognized the place. It was the ruined temple of Khanmulla in which she sat. There were the crumbling steps on which she had stood with Everard on the night that he had mercilessly claimed her love, had taken her in his arms and said that it was Kismet.
Here Tommy uttered a brief, wholly involuntary guffaw. "What's the matter with you?" said Ralston. "Nothing." His gloom dropped upon him again like a mantle. "Have you been at Khanmulla all day?" "Yes; a confounded waste of time it's been too." Ralston took a deep drink and set down his glass. "You always think it's a waste of time if you can't be doctoring somebody," muttered Tommy.
It was an all-night journey, and only a part of it could be accomplished by train, the line ending at Khanmulla which was reached in the early hours of the morning. But for Peter's ministrations Stella would probably have fared ill, but he was an experienced traveller and surrounded her with every comfort that he could devise. The night was close and dank. They travelled through pitch darkness.
Were his cherished career, his ambition, of small account beside it? Was he willing to do sacrifice to it? And if so, how great a sacrifice was he prepared to offer? She yearned to ask him as he sped her in silence through the chequered moonlight of the Khanmulla jungle. But some inner force restrained her. She feared to break the spell.
"It's ridiculous to be so stand-offish," he maintained. "Don't let 'em think you're afraid of 'em! Come anyway to the moonlight picnic at Khanmulla on Christmas Eve! It's going to be no end of a game." Stella smiled a little. "Do you know, Tommy, I think I'd rather go to bed?" "Absurd!" declared Tommy. "You used to be much more sporting." "I wasn't a widow in those days," Stella said. "What rot!
I wouldn't condemn him unheard until well until he refused flatly to speak on his own behalf. I went over to Khanmulla and talked to him talked half the night. I couldn't move him. And if a man won't take the trouble to defend his own honour, it isn't worth that!" He snapped his fingers with a bitter gesture; then abruptly wheeled and came back to her.
But a time will come when we shall have to separate. We've got to face that." "Wait till it comes!" she whispered. "It isn't yet." He kissed her on the lips. "No, not yet, thank heaven. You want to know what has happened. I will tell you. Ermsted you know Ermsted was shot in the jungle near Khanmulla this afternoon, about half an hour ago." "Oh, Everard!"
Monck turned to meet him. "I can't think what has happened to him." "Can't you though? I can!" Tommy seized him impetuously by the shouders; he was rocking with laughter. "Oh, Everard, old boy, this beats everything! That brother of yours is coming along the road now. And he's travelled all the way from Khanmulla in a in a bullock-cart!" "What?" Monck stared in amazement.
She had never felt more thankful for this trusty servant of hers than now with the loneliness and darkness of this unfamiliar world hedging her round. She felt almost as one in a hostile country, and even the thought of Tommy and his need could not dispel the impression. The train rattled into the little iron-built station of Khanmulla. The rainfall seemed to increase as they stopped.
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