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CHAPTER VI.
GENIUS OF CHARACTER

 
"For still the Lord is Lord of Might,
In deeds, in deeds, He takes delight."
 

– R. L. S.

Evelyn Desmond's picnic was an accomplished fact. At four o'clock, in the full glare of a late March sun, a business-like detachment of twenty horses, and one disdainful camel, proceeded at a brisk trot along the lifeless desolation of the Bunnoo Road. The party kept in close formation, straggling of any sort being inadmissible when the bounds of the station have been left behind. Ten of the riders were English, and an armed escort guarded them in front and rear; the camel, in gala trappings of red and blue, being responsible for provisions, enamelled iron tea-things, and the men's guns.

Notwithstanding the absence of the Kresneys, Evelyn Desmond was in a mood of unusual effervescence. Harry Denvil rode at her side, and the two kept up a perpetual flow of such aimless, happy nonsense as is apt to engender vague regret in the hearts of those who have arrived at greater wisdom.

Three miles of riding brought them to the welcome refreshment of a river running crystal clear over a bed of pebbles. Beside the river rose an isolated plateau – abrupt, inconsequent, and, like all things else in the tawny landscape, unsoftened by a blade of living green.

The face of the rock was riddled with rough, irregular holes, as though Titans had been using it for a target. Around and above it a bevy of blue rock-pigeons – circling, dipping, and darting with a strong rush of wings – shone like iridescent jewels, green and blue and grey, against the unstained turquoise of the sky, whose intensity of colour made generous atonement for the lack of it on earth. At the foot of the cliff a deep pool mirrored the calm wonder of the sky.

Here the camel was brought to his knees, and the escort, dismounting, formed a wide circle of sentries round the little party, the undernote of danger suggested by their presence giving a distinct flavour to the childishly simple affair. The white man's craze for carrying his food many miles from home, in order to eat it on the ground, remains a perpetual bewilderment to the natives, who express their opinion on the matter in all frankness and simplicity by christening it the "dinner of fools."

Pigeon-shooting was the established amusement of afternoons spent under the cliff; and, the meal being over, sport was soon in full progress, Frank Olliver and Mrs Jim Conolly handling their guns as skilfully as any man present.

While Honor stood watching them, Wyndham drew near and remained by her for a few seconds without a word. Then: "Shall we go and sit over by the river, Miss Meredith, and leave them to their sport?" he asked suddenly, his eyes and voice more urgent than he knew.

"Yes; I'd far rather watch the birds than shoot them. They are too beautiful to be killed for the sake of passing the time. But you probably don't see it that way – men seldom do."

"I must be the eternal exception, then!" he answered, as they turned away. "It's not a creditable confession for a right-minded man: but I shrink from taking life, even in the exigencies of my profession."

At that she turned upon him with a spontaneous frankness of interest, which had lured many men to their undoing.

"Will you think me very ill-mannered if I ask how you ever came to choose such a profession at all? I wondered about it the first time I saw you."

"Do I look as hopelessly unsoldier-like as all that?"

"No – a thousand times, no!" And the quick colour flamed in her cheeks.

"Well, then?"

"I only meant – I see a good deal in faces, and – yours gave me a strong impression that you would prefer reading and thinking to acting and striving."

His smile had in it both surprise and satisfaction.

"You were not far out there. Let us sit down on this rock for a bit. I would like to answer your question. May I light a cigarette?"

"Do."

He took his time over the simple operation. His impulse towards unreserve puzzled him, and several seconds of silence passed before he spoke again; silence, emphasised by broken snatches of talk and laughter; by the sharp crack of guns; and the whirring of a hundred wings, like the restless murmuring in the heart of a shell.

"It may sound strange to you," he began, not without an effort, "but the truth is that my choice of a profession was simply the result of my friendship with Desmond. I think I told you we were at school together. His future was a foregone conclusion, and when it came to the point – I chose just to throw in my lot with his. I am quite aware that many people thought me a fool. But we have had twelve years of it together here, he and I; and it has certainly been good enough for me."

He spoke in a tone of great quietness, his eyes set upon the shining reaches of the river which, by now, ran molten gold in the westering sunlight.

"Thank you for telling me," she said; and the simple words set his pulses travelling at an unreasonable rate of speed. "I had no idea friendship could ever mean quite so much."

"It doesn't in nine cases out of ten. But I think that's enough about myself. It isn't my habit to entertain ladies with egotistical monologues!"

"But then, properly behaved ladies don't ask you direct personal questions, do they?"

"Well – no – not often."

And they exchanged one of those smiles that ripen intimacy more speedily than a month of talk.

"I'm quite unrepentant, all the same!" she said. "And I'm rather wanting to ask you another. It's about Captain Desmond this time. May I?"

"Ask away!"

"Well, I want to know more of how he won his V.C. Evelyn could give me no details when I asked her; and it struck me just now that you were probably there at the time."

"Yes, indeed, I was," he said, with a new ring in his voice. "There were a few bad minutes when we in the valley felt morally certain we had seen the last of him."

She turned on him with kindling eyes.

"Oh, tell me – please! Tell me everything. I am soldier enough to understand."

"I verily believe you are! And, since you wish it, you shall have it in full. It happened during a rising of the Ghilzais six years ago. They had given us rather a stiff time of it for some weeks, and on this occasion a strong body of them had to be dislodged from a height where they were safely entrenched behind one of their stone sangars, ready to pick off any of us who should attempt the ascent. But the thing had to be done, like many other hopeless-looking things, and a party of infantry and cavalry were detailed for the duty, – a company of Sikhs, and twenty-five dismounted men of Desmond's squadron, led by himself. Our main force was stationed in the valley, you understand, and the advance was covered by three mountain guns. The men were deployed in an extended line at the foot of the hill, and began a careful ascent, taking advantage of every scrap of cover available, the Ghilzais picking them off with deadly certainty whenever they got the smallest chance. About two-thirds of the way up Alla Dad Khan was bowled over and lay out in the open dangerously wounded, under the full brunt of the enemy's fire. In a flash Desmond was out from under the rock he had just reached. He crossed that open space under a rain of bullets it made one sick to see, and got the poor fellow up in his arms. It seemed a sheer impossibility for him to get back under cover alive, hampered as he was by the wounded man, who – as you know – is a much bigger fellow than himself. I gave up every shred of hope as I watched, and one or two of the sowars near me broke down and cried like children. But if ever I beheld a miracle it was during those few astounding minutes – the worst I've ever known. His clothes were riddled with bullets; two of them passed clean through his helmet; yet except for a flesh wound in the left arm, he was untouched."

Wyndham paused, and the girl drew in a long breath.

"Oh, I can see it all!" she said softly. "But isn't there more?"

"A little more, if you want it."

"Please."

"Well, the hill was successfully cleared, and you may imagine the welcome we gave Theo, when at last he got back to camp, with his uniform in ribbons and his helmet gone. I don't know when I've heard such cheering from natives. Besides saving the Jemadar, the success of the whole affair had been due to his leadership and example. He wouldn't hear of it, of course; but when the account came out in the 'Gazette,' he found himself belauded from start to finish, with a V.C. conferred on him to crown all. One couldn't say much to him even then. He's not the sort."

Honor's cheeks were on fire, her eyes like stars; and it is characteristic of Paul Wyndham that he noted these facts without a shadow of envy.

"The genuine modesty of genius," she said; and Paul bent his head in acquiescence.

"Theo's genius is of the best kind," he added; "it is genius of character, of a wide sympathetic understanding of men and things. And on the Frontier, Miss Meredith, that sort of understanding counts for more than anywhere else in the country. We control our fellows here as much by love and respect as by mere discipline. Get a native to love you, and believe in you, and you are sure of him for good. That is why officers like Theo and your brother, who hold their men's hearts in their hands, are, without exaggeration, the pillars on which the safety of India rests. It is when the cry of 'Jehad' runs like fire along the Border, and the fidelity of our troops is being tampered with, that we get the clearest proof of this. At such times pay, pension, and Orders of Merit have no more power to restrain a Pathan than a thread of cotton round his ankle. But there's just one thing he will not do – he will not desert, in his hour of need, an officer whom he has found to be just, upright, and fearless, and whom he has praised as a hero to his own people."

Wyndham's unwonted eloquence, and the glow of feeling underlying it, lifted the girl to fresh heights of enthusiasm.

"Oh, how glad I am to have come here!" she said with sudden fervour. "Captain Desmond was talking in much the same strain just before we started; and one cannot listen to him without catching the fire of his enthusiasm, which is surely the best kind of fire that ever came down from heaven!"

Just as she finished speaking, Desmond himself strode up to them.

"I say, Paul, old man," he remonstrated, "isn't it some one else's turn for an innings by this time? Mrs Conolly is keen to have a talk with Miss Meredith before we start. You both looked so absorbed that she begged me not to interrupt! I ought to have introduced her to you before starting, Miss Meredith. She's the wife of our acting Civil Surgeon and quite an old friend of yours, it seems. Will you come?"

The girl rose and turned to Wyndham with a friendly smile. "You and I can have our talk out another time, can't we?"

"By all means."

He sat watching her as she left him, with a tender concentration of gaze, his brain stunned by a glimpse into undreamed-of possibilities; into a region of life whereof he knew nothing, and had believed himself content to know nothing all his days.

Mrs Jim Conolly was a large woman, nearer forty than thirty. Twenty years of India, of hot weathers resolutely endured, of stretching small means to the utmost limit and beyond it, had left their mark, in sallowness of skin, in broken lines of thought between her brows, and of restrained endurance about her firmly-closed lips. She had the air of a woman who has never allowed herself to be worsted by the minor miseries of life; and in India the minor miseries multiply exceedingly. Unthinking observers stigmatised her face as harsh and unprepossessing; but it was softened and illumined by a glow of genuine welcome as she greeted Honor Meredith.

"I wonder if you have the smallest recollection of me?" she said. "My last glimpse of you was in a dak gharri at Pindi, when you were first starting for home nineteen years ago, and the sight of what you have grown into makes me feel a very old woman indeed! Do you remember those Pindi days at all?"

"Bits, here and there, quite vividly. I had been wondering already why I seemed to know your face. It was you who had the two nice babies I loved so dearly. Haven't you any for me to play with now?"

"Yes, my two youngest are still with me. But they are rather big babies by this time. You must come over and see them soon, and we will pick up the threads of our dropped friendship, Honor. Your father and mother were very good to me in the old days, but you were my chief friend from the start. You have grown into a very beautiful woman, dear," she added, in a lower tone; "and if you ever want help or advice while you are here alone, I hope you will turn to me for it as readily as you would to your own mother. I haven't seen Lady Meredith for years. Sit down under the cliff with me, and give me some news of them all."

By the time dusk had set in the little party was back again in Desmond's compound, the escort deserting them at the gate; and as Honor Meredith prepared to dismount, Paul Wyndham came forward, a certain restrained eagerness in his eyes.

"May I?" he asked, with the diffidence of a man unused to making such requests.

"I generally manage all right, thanks."

"You might make an exception, though – just this once."

For an instant of time his hands supported her – an instant of such keen sensation that, when it was passed, he pulled himself up sharply – called himself a fool, and in the same breath wished that she had been a few degrees less skilful in springing lightly to the ground.

Ready-made talk was, for the moment, beyond him; and he departed something hastily, leaving Honor and his friend alone together in the darkening verandah.

Voices and laughter came out to them from the drawing-room, where Evelyn and Denvil were carrying on their young foolishness with undiminished zeal; and Desmond turned upon the girl the irresistible friendliness of his eyes.

"You enjoyed yourself, I hope, – Miss Meredith?"

"Immensely, thank you, – Captain Desmond."

Her tone was a deliberate echo of his; and their eyes met in mutual laughter.

"Aren't we good friends enough now to drop the formality?" he asked. And at the question a lightning vision came to her of the scene on the hillside, so vividly described by his friend.

"Yes – I think – we are," she said slowly.

"That's right. I think so too."

"I seem to have made quite an advance in that direction this afternoon," she added, in no little surprise at her own boldness.

"How's that? Paul?"

"Yes."

"Oh! so that was the engrossing subject. I might have known Paul wasn't likely to be expatiating on himself."

"He gave me a stirring account of a certain day in October, six years ago," she went on, with an unconscious softening of her voice.

Desmond's short laugh had in it a genuine touch of embarrassment.

"Did he? That was superfluous of him. The good fellow would have done no less himself in the circumstances. Listen to those two children in there! How finely they're enjoying themselves! I say, Harry!" he shouted to the invisible Denvil, who came forth straightway; – a squarely built, chestnut-haired boy, his sea-blue eyes still full of laughter; "have you quite decided to invite yourself to dinner?"

"Rather– if you'll have me?"

"Of course I'll have you. Cut away and make yourself respectable."

And as the boy vanished in the darkness Desmond turned to find his wife's figure in the open doorway, its purity of outline thrown into strong relief by the light within.

She stood on the threshold balancing herself on the tips of her toes in a light-hearted ecstasy of unrest, and flung out both hands towards her husband.

"Oh, Theo, it was delicious! I had lovely fun!"

She came and nestled close to him with the confiding simplicity of a child; and Honor, under cover of the dusk, slipped round by the back of the house to her own room.

CHAPTER VII.
BRIGHT EYES OF DANGER

 
"My mistress still, the open road;
And the bright eyes of danger."
 

– R. L. S.

By mid-April, life in the blue bungalow had undergone an unmistakable change for the better; and Theo Desmond, sitting alone in the congenial quietness of his study, an after-dinner pipe between his teeth, a volume of Persian open before him, and Rob's slumbering body pressed close against his ankles, told himself that he and his wife, in befriending Honor Meredith at a moment of difficulty, had without question entertained an angel unawares. Evelyn had blossomed visibly in the pleasure of her companionship; while he himself found her good to talk with, and undeniably good to look at.

There was also a third point in her favour, and that by no means the least. Her sympathetic rendering of the great masters of music had renewed a pleasure linked with memories sacred beyond all others. Althea Desmond bid fair to retain undivided supremacy over the strong son, who had been the crown and glory of her life. Death itself seemed powerless to affect their essential unity. Her spirit – vivid and vigorous as his own – still shared and dominated his every thought; and her photograph, set in a silver frame of massive simplicity, stood close at his elbow, while he reviewed the changes wrought in the past few weeks by the unobtrusive influence of John Meredith's sister.

The mere lessening of strain and friction in regard to the countless details of an Indian household was, in itself, an unspeakable relief. During the first few months of his marriage he had persevered steadily in the thankless task of instructing his cheerfully incompetent bride in the language and household mysteries of her adopted country. But the more patiently he helped her the more she leaned upon his help; till the futility of his task had threatened to wear his temper threadbare, and to put a severe strain on a relationship more complex than he had imagined possible.

Now, however, the tyranny of trifles was overpast. The man's elastic nature righted itself, with the spring of a finely-tempered blade released from pressure, and as the passing weeks revealed his wife's progress under Honor's tuition, he readily attributed her earlier failures to his own lack of skill.

As a matter of fact, her power to cope with Amar Singh – Desmond's devoted Hindu bearer – and the eternal enigmas of charcoal, jharrons,¹³ and the dhobie,¹⁴ had not increased one whit: and she knew it. But the welcome sound of praise from her husband's lips convinced her that she must have done something to deserve it. She accepted it, therefore, in all complacency, without any acknowledgment of the guiding hand upon the reins.

Great peace dwelt also in the compound, where a colony of servants and their families lived their unknown lives apart; and great pride in the heart of Parbutti, since Amar Singh had so far unbent as to prophesy that the Miss Sahib would without doubt become a Burra Mem before the end of her days.

While Desmond sat alone in this warm April evening, studying the fantastic Persian characters with something less than his wonted concentration, the sound of the piano came to him through the half-open door.

For a few moments he listened, motionless, to the first weird whispering bars of Grieg's Folkscene, "Auf den Bergen," then the book was pushed hastily aside and the lamp blown out. Rob – rudely awakened from a delectable dream of cats and the naked calves of unsuspecting coolies – found himself plunged in darkness, and his master vanishing through the curtains into the detested drawing-room.

Evelyn was installed on the fender-stool of dull red velvet, her hands clasped about her knees, her head raised in expectation. A dress of softly flowing white silk, and a single row of pearls at her throat, intensified her fragile freshness, as of a lily of the field, a creature out of touch with the sterner elements of life. It was at such moments that her husband was apt to suffer a contraction of heart, lest, in an impulse of infatuation, he had undertaken more than he would be able to perform.

She patted his favourite chair; then, impulsively deserting her seat, crouched on the hearth-rug beside him and nestled her head against his knee.

"I told her to play it! I knew it would bring you at once," she whispered, caressing him lightly with a long slim hand.

"You shall sing to me afterwards yourself," he said, "a song in keeping with your appearance to-night. You look like some sort of elf-maiden in that simple gown and my pearls. Only one touch wanted to complete the effect!"

With smiling deliberation he drew out four tortoise-shell pins that upheld the silken lightness of her hair, so that it fell in a fair soft cloud about her neck and shoulders.

"Theo! How dare you!"

And as she turned her face up to him, in laughing remonstrance, he was struck anew by the childishness of its contour, in spite of the pallor, which had become almost habitual of late. Taking it between his hands he looked steadfastly into the limpid shallows of her eyes, as though searching for a hidden something which he had little hope to find.

"Ladybird, what a baby you are still!" he murmured, "I wonder when you mean to grow into a woman?"

Then with a start he became aware that Amar Singh, having entered noiselessly through the door behind him, stood at his side in a pose of imperturbable reverence and dignity.

"Olliver Memsahib ghora per argya,"¹⁵ he announced with discreetly lowered lids; while Evelyn, springing up with rose-petal cheeks and a small sound of dismay, must needs try and look as if ladies in evening dress habitually wore their hair hanging loose about their shoulders.

Honor swung round upon the music-stool as Frank Olliver, in evening skirt and light drill jacket strode into the room.

Before she could bring out her news, a blare of trumpets, sounding the alarm, startled the quiet of the night, and Desmond leapt to his feet.

"There you are, Theo, man," she said. "You can hear for yourself. It's a fire in the Lines. Geoff and I caught sight of the flare just now from our back verandah. He's gone on ahead; but I said I'd look in here for you."

"Thanks. Tell 'em to saddle the Demon, will you? I'll be ready in two minutes."

And Mrs Olliver vanished from the room.

As Desmond prepared to follow her, his wife's fingers closed firmly on the edge of his dinner-jacket.

She was sitting now in the chair he had left; and turned up to him a face half beseeching, half resentful in its frame of soft hair.

"Why must you go, Theo? There are heaps of others who – aren't married."

"Don't be a little fool, child!" he broke out in spite of himself. Then gently, decisively, he disengaged her fingers from his coat; but their clinging grasp checked his impatience to be gone.

He bent down, and spoke in a softened tone. "I've no time for arguments, Evelyn. I am simply doing my duty."

He was gone – and she remained as he had left her, with hands lying listlessly in her lap, and a frown between her finely pencilled brows, – mollified, but by no means convinced.

Honor had hurried into the hall, where Frank Olliver greeted her with impulsive invitation.

"Why don't you 'boot and saddle' too, Honor, an' ride along with us?"

"I only wish I could! I'd love to go! But I must stay with Evelyn. She is upset and nervous about Theo as it is."

"Saints alive! How can you put up with her at all – at all!" muttered irrepressible Frank. "But hush, now, here's the blessed fellow himself!"

Theo Desmond strode rapidly down the square hall, hung with trophies of the chase and implements of war – an incongruous figure enough, in forage cap and long brown boots with gleaming spurs, his sword buckled on over his evening clothes. He snatched a long clasp-knife from the wall in passing, and the Irishwoman, with an nod of approval, hurried out into the verandah, where the impatient horses could be heard champing their bits.

Desmond had a friendly smile for Honor in passing.

"Pity you can't come too. Be good to Ladybird. Don't let her work herself into a fever about nothing."

For eight breathless minutes the grey and the dun sped through the warm night air, under a rising moon, their shadows fleeing before them, long and black, – two perspiring saïses following zealously in their wake; – till their riders drew rein before a pandemonium of scurrying men and horses, silhouetted against a background of fire.

The great pile of sun-dried bedding burnt merrily: sending up fierce tongues of flame, that shamed the moonlight, as dawn shames the lamp. A brisk wind from the hills caught up shreds and flakes from the burning mass, driving them hither and thither, to the sore distraction of man and beast.

Lithe forms of grass-cutters and water-carriers, in the scantiest remnants of clothing, leaped and pranced on the outskirts of the fire, like demons in a realistic hell.

In valiant spurts and jerks, alternating with ignominious flight, they were combating that column of flame and smoke with thimblefuls of water, flung out of stable buckets, or squirted from mussacks. They were beating it also with stript branches, making night radiant with a thousand sparks.

But the soaring flames jeered at their pigmy efforts; twinkled derisively on their glistening bodies; and assailed the vast composure of the skies with leaping blades of light.

To the bewildering confusion of movement was added a no less bewildering tumult of sound, whose most heart-piercing note was the maddened scream of horses; and whose lesser elements included shouts of officers and sowars; high-pitched lamentations from the audience of natives; the barking of dogs; and the drumming of a hundred hoofs upon the iron-hard ground.

During the first alarm of the fire, which had broken out perilously close to the quarters occupied by Desmond's squadron, the terrified animals in their frenzied efforts to break away from the ropes, had reduced the Lines to a state of chaos. Those of them, and they were many, who succeeded in wrenching out their pegs, had instinctively headed for the parade-ground beyond the huts; their flight complicated by wandering lengths of rope that trailed behind them, whirled in mid-air, or imprisoned their legs in treacherous coils; while sowars and officers risked life and limb in attempting to free them from their dilemma.

The restless brilliance gave to all things a strange nightmare grotesqueness: and a blinding, stifling shroud of smoke whirled and billowed over all.

As the riders drew up, there was a momentary lull, and before dismounting Desmond flung a ringing shout across the stillness.

"Shahbash,¹⁶ men, shahbash! Have no fear! Give more water – water without ceasing!"

He was answered by an acclamation of welcome from all ranks.

"Wah! Wah! Desmin Sahib argya!"¹⁷ the sowars of his squadron called to one another through the curling smoke; and the new arrivals were speedily surrounded by a little crowd of officers and men: Wyndham, Denvil, Alla Dad Khan, and Ressaldar Rajinder Singh, in the spotless tunic and vast silken turban of private life.

The Jemadar took possession of the Demon's bridle, and Desmond, leaping lightly to the ground, hurried straightway to the relief of a distressed grass-cut. The man had been rash enough to attempt the capture of two horses at once, and now stood in imminent danger of being kicked to death by his ungrateful charges.

Desmond took both horses in hand, holding them at arm's length, and soothing them with his voice alone.

"Here you are, Harry!" he said, as Denvil came to his assistance. "This poor fellow will go with you now, quietly enough."

Handing over his second horse to the grass-cut, he vanished into the darkness; where, betwixt stampeding horses and the incredible swiftness of fire, he found more than sufficient scope for action.

He came to a standstill, at length, for a second's breathing space; – and lo, Rajinder Singh emerging suddenly from the heart of pandemonium, breathless with haste, a great distress in his eyes.

"Hullo, Ressaldar!" Desmond exclaimed. "What's up now?"

The tall Sikh saluted.

"The knife, Sahib! Give me your knife! It is Sher Dil,¹⁸ fallen amongst his ropes. He is like to strangle – "

"Great Scott! I'll see to it myself."

And he set out, full speed, Rajinder Singh after him, protesting at every step.

The great black charger, the glory of the squadron and of his owner's heart, was in a perilous case. So securely had he entangled himself in the head-rope that, despite the freedom of his heels, and spasmodic efforts to regain his feet, he remained pinned to earth, not many yards from where the fire was raging, – his fear and misery increased by wind-blown fragments of lighted straw, by the roar and crackle of the burning pile.

Desmond saw at a glance that his rescue might prove a dangerous business, but Rajinder Singh was beside him now, still hopeful of turning him from his purpose.

"Hazúr – consider – the horse is mine – "

"No more words!" Desmond broke in sharply. "Stay where you are!"

He plunged forthwith into the stinging, blinding smoke; dexterously avoiding the hoofs of Sher Dil, subduing his terror with hand and voice, though himself half choked, and constantly forced to close his eyes at the most critical moments; while the task of avoiding the burning fragments that fell about him seemed in itself to demand undivided attention.

Rajinder Singh, stationed at the nearest possible point, anxiously watched his Captain's progress; and here Paul Wyndham joined him hurriedly.

"Who is that?" he asked. "The Captain Sahib?"

"To my shame, your honour speaks truth," the old man made answer humbly. "His heart was set to do this thing himself – "

"Have no fear," Wyndham reassured him kindly; and, with a sharp contraction of heart, ran to his friend's assistance.

Desmond had already stooped to slit the rope that pressed so cruelly against the charger's throat; and, as Wyndham reached him, the animal gave a last convulsive plunge; threw out his forelegs in an ecstasy of freedom; and struck his deliverer full on the shoulder.

"Damnation!" Desmond muttered, as he fell to the ground, and Sher Dil staggered, panting, to his feet.