The Outrage
:
The Coming Conquest Of England
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
il
uminated 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.