'Ho-ho-ho, hear him!' says he, scornfully. 'You should set up a stall, soldier, and see how fat you get. When did the Rani ever pay — or any other prince? What are we for but to pay, while the great ones make war?'
Just what they'd be saying in the Reform Club or the Star and Garter, thinks I. Aloud I said:
'They say she holds a great council in the fort tonight. Is it true?'
'She did not invite me,' says he, sarcastically. 'Nor, strangely enough, did she offer me the use of the palace when she left it. That will be three pice, soldier.'
I paid him, having learned what I wanted to know, and took the streets that led up to the fort, with my knees getting shakier at every step. By God, this was a chancy business; I had to nerve myself with the thought that, whatever her feelings towards my country and army, she'd never shown anything but friendliness to me — and she'd hardly show violence to an envoy from the British general. Even so, when I found myself gazing across the little square towards that squat, frowning gateway, with the torches blazing over it, and the red jacketed Pathan sentries of her personal guard standing either side, I had to fight down the temptation to scuttle back into the lanes and try to hide until it was all over. Only the certainty that those lanes would shortly be a bloody battleground sent me reluctantly on. I wound my puggaree tightly round head and chin, hiding half my face, slipped from my pocket the note which Rose and I had carefully prepared, walked firmly across to the sentry, and demanded to see the guard commander.
He came out, yawning and expectorating, and who should it be but my old acquaintance who spat on shadows. I gave him the note and said: 'This is for the Rani's hand, and no other. Take it to her, and quickly.'
He glowered from me to it and back. 'What is this, and who may you be?'
'If she wishes you to know, belike she'll tell you,' I growled, and squatted down in the archway. 'But be sure, if you delay, she'll have that empty head off your shoulders.'
He stood glaring, turning the note in his hands. Evidently it impressed him — with a red seal carrying young Lyster's family crest, it should have done — for after an obscene inquiry about my parentage, which I ignored, he scratched himself and then loafed off, bidding the sentries keep an eye on me.
I waited, with my heart hammering, for this was the moment when things might go badly astray. Rose and I had cudgelled our brains for wording that would mean nothing to anyone but her, in case the note fell into the wrong hands. As an added precaution, we'd written it in schoolboy French, which I knew she understood. It said, simply:
One who brought perfume and a picture is here. See him alone. Trust him.
Rose had been delighted with this — he was plainly one who enjoyed intrigue for its own sake, and I've no doubt would have liked to sign it with a skull and crossbones. Squatting in the doorway, I couldn't take such a light-hearted view. Assuming that Pathan blockhead took it straight to her, she'd guess who it was from fast enough — but suppose she didn't want to see me? Suppose she thought the best way of answering the message would be to send me back iii bits to Rose's headquarters? Suppose she showed it to someone else, or it miscarried, or …
The sound of marching feet came from the gloom beyond the archway, and I got to my feet, quivering. The havildar came out of the dark, with two troopers behind him. He stopped, gave me a long, glowering look, and then jerked his head. I went forward, and he motioned me on into the courtyard beyond, falling in beside me with the two troopers behind. I wanted to ask him if he'd given the note to the Rani personally, but my tongue seemed to have shrivelled up; I'd know soon enough. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom after the glare of the torches by the gate, I saw that we were heading across the yard, with high black walls on either side, and another torch at the far end over a doorway, guarded by two more Pathans.
'In,' growls the havildar, and I found myself in a small vaulted guard-room; I blinked in the sudden glare of oil lamps, and then my heart lurched down into my boots, for the figure peering intently towards me from the centre of the room was the little fat chamberlain whom I knew so well from Lakshmibai's durbar.
The stupid bitch had told him who I was! There was no hope of a secret offer now — Rose's fat-headed scheme had sprung a leak, and -
'You are the officer who brought gifts from the British Queen?' he squeaked. 'The Sirkar's envoy — Colonel Flashman?' He was squinting at me in consternation, as well he might, for I didn't look much like the dandy staff officer he'd known. Sick and fearful, I peeled off my puggaree and pushed my hair back.
'Yes,' said I. 'I'm Colonel Flashman. You must take me to the Rani, at once!'
He goggled at me, his little eyes wide in that fat face, twisting his hands nervously. And then something fluttered in the air between us — for an instant I thought it was a moth — and fell to the floor with a tiny puff of sparks. It was a cigarette, smoking on the flags; a long yellow tube with a mouthpiece.
'All in good time,' said Ignatieff's voice, and I believe I actually cried out with shock, as I spun round to stare in horrified disbelief at the doorway. He was standing there, his hand still frozen in the act of flicking away the cigarette — Ignatieff, whom I'd supposed a thousand miles away by now, looking at me with his dreadful cold smile, and then inclining his tawny head.
'All in good time,' he repeated in English, as he came forward. He ground his heel on the fallen cigarette. 'After we have resumed the … discussion? . . which was so unfortunately interrupted at Balmoral.'
• • •
How I've survived four-score years without heart seizure I do not know. Perhaps I'm inured to the kind of shock I experienced then, with my innards surging up into my throat; I couldn't move, but stood there with my skin crawling as he came to stand in front of me — a new Ignatieff, this, in flowered shirt and pyjamy trousers and Persian boots, and with a little gingery beard adorning his chin. But the rat-trap mouth was still the same, and that unwinking half-blue half-brown eye boring into me.
'I have been anticipating this meeting,' says he, 'ever since I learned of your mission to India — did you know, I heard about it before you did yourself?' He gave a chilly little smile — he could never resist bragging, this one. 'The secret deliberations of the astute Lord Palmerston are not as secret as he supposes. And it has been a fool's errand, has it not? But never so foolish as now. You should have been thankful to escape me … twice? … but you come blundering back a third time. Very well.' The gotch eye seemed to harden with a brilliant light. 'You will not have long to regret it.'
With an effort I got my voice back, damned shaky though it was.
'I've nothing to say to you!' cries I, as truculently as I could, and turned on the little chamberlain. 'My business is with the Rani Lakshmibai — not with this … this renegade! I demand to see her at once! Tell her —'
Ignatieff's hand smashed across my mouth, sending me staggering, but his voice didn't rise by a fraction. 'That will not be necessary,' says he, and the little chamberlain dithered submissively. 'Her highness is not to be troubled for a mere spy. I shall deal with this jackal myself.'
'In a pig's eye you will!' I blustered. 'I'm an envoy from Sir Hugh Rose, to the Rani — not to any hole-and- corner Russian bully! You'll hinder me at your peril! Damn you, let me loose!' I roared as the two troopers suddenly grabbed my elbows. 'I'm a staff officer! You can't touch me — I'm —'
'Staff officer! Envoy!' IgnatiefFs words came out in that raging icy whisper that took me back to the nightmare of that verminous dungeon beneath Fort Arabat. 'You crawl here in your filthy disguise, like the spy you are, and claim to be treated as an emissary? If that is what you are, why did you not come in uniform, under a flag, in open day?' His face was frozen in fury, and then the brute hit me again. 'I shall tell you — because you are a dishonoured liar, whose word no one would trust! Treachery and deceit are your trade — or is it assassination this time?' His hand shot out and whipped the revolver from my waist.
'It's a lie!' I shouted. 'Send to Sir Hugh Rose — he'll tell you!' I was appealing to the chamberlain. 'You know me, man — tell the Rani! I demand it!'
But he just stood gaping, waiting for Ignatieff, whose sudden anger had died as quickly as it came.
'Since Sir Hugh Rose has not honoured us with a parley, there is no reason why we should address him,' says he softly. 'We have to deal only with a night prowler.' He gestured to the troopers. 'Take him down.'
'You've no authority!' I roared. 'I'm not answerable to you, you Russian swine! Let me go!' They were dragging me forward by main strength, while I bawled to the chamberlain, pleading with him to tell the Rani. They ran me through a doorway, and down a flight of stone steps, with Ignatieff following, the chamberlain twittering in front of him. I struggled in panic, for it was plain that the brute was going to prevent the Rani hearing of my arrival until after he'd done… . I nearly threw up in terror, for the troopers were hauling me across the floor to an enormous wheel like a cable drum, set perpendicular above ground level. There were manacles dangling from it,
