CHAPTER XIII.

IN THE GULF OF PERSIA.

The secret of his past life, or of the position he had lost, Gillian entrusted to none--not even to Colin, who, suspecting that he had some such secret, advised him to keep it from all non-commissioned officers especially, lest the jealousy of some might be roused, if he were noticed by their superiors or promoted before his time; but Gillian was never thrown off his guard, or nearly so, save once, by a lady-passenger, the wife of a staff-officer.

The evening was a lovely one; the _Indus_ under easy steam was some miles distant from the isle of Socotora; the Highlanders on the main-deck had been dancing reels to the sound of the pipes, the player of which had perched himself on the after-capstan, and several officers, with one or two ladies, were clustered at the back of the poop to see them enjoying themselves, and looked on approvingly and applaudingly, as all Highlanders dance, and moreover dance well.

But from this amusement Gillian withdrew, as he became conscious that a young lady was closely observing him, and more than once drew the attention of others upon him especially. Apart from his handsome figure and attractive face, doubtless in his air and bearing she detected something that marked him out from the rest, and this was a distinction from which he then shrunk.

About an hour after this, while the pile of mountains which forms the isle of Socotora had risen higher from the sea, and the sun that was setting far away beyond the Arabian shore, was tipping as if with red fire the mighty granite peaks that are high as Ben Nevis or Ben More, the same young lady had betaken her to her sketch-book, and under the shelter of the break of the poop was busy with her pencil in transferring to paper the bold and striking outline of the hills, which, at the distance they were then, seemed to start abruptly from the sea, while an officer of the 64th lounged close by, and laughingly criticised her progress.

"Oh, I shall never get my sketch made in time--we shall be past it," she exclaimed, with a pretty air of impatience, "and I make all my sketches for the journal which I promised to send home to mamma."

"And the captain won't stop the engines even for you, I fear," said the officer who hovered near her, in his mess jacket and forage cap.

"Do put your cigar away, or don't stand on that side of me."

The officer threw his cigar overboard.

"I should so wish to achieve this drawing--the outlines are changing fast," she added, for already the flat plain from which the mountains start had risen from the sea, and her pretty white hand had to add it to the foreground; "could you assist me, Captain Jones?"

"Can't draw a line," replied the officer; "have drawn a bill, though--a deuced sight too often."

"A few corks too, I suppose?"

Here her eye fell on Gillian, who was loitering near the stair that led to the poop, and who, in truth, had been watching her with an interest that made her colour slightly. She belonged to that "set" in which he could move no more. The hoop on her finger showed that she was married--indeed Gillian knew that she was the wife of Captain Hartley, a staff-officer, though but a young girl, and she was more than merely beautiful.

"Do you draw?" she asked, suddenly.

"A little," said Gillian, colouring in turn, as he raised his hand in salute, "and if you will do me the honour of permitting me"----

"To finish the sketch?"

"If you please?"

"Oh, thanks very much!" she exclaimed, tendering her book and pencils with a bright smile.

"By Jove!" muttered Captain Jones, as by force of habit he proceeded to manipulate another cigar, while Gillian placing the book upon the gunnel rapidly filled in and shaded the drawing, boldly and freely.

"I saw you dancing with your comrades some time ago," said Mrs. Hartley; "it was very picturesque, and awfully jolly!--but those terrible pipes do pierce one's ears so!"

(But a few months after this the same fair girl at Lucknow was fated to hear that piercing sound ascending amid the musketry of the Secunderbagh, as the voice of a delivering angel!)

Gillian laughed at her remark, handed her the finished sketch, for the execution of which she thanked him very sweetly, and he was about to retire, for he felt conscious that the officer was eying him with cool scrutiny, when Mrs. Hartley said, with something of soft interest in her girlish face:

"How long have you been in the Highlanders?"

"Four months."

His voice trembled, for now as the sunshine fell on her hair, it was the identical hue of Dove's, and she was about the stature and age, too, of Dove, and--it might be fancy--with the same sweet and tender form of mouth.

"A mere recruit," said Captain Jones, curtly, as he thought the time had come for the private to withdraw.

"What is this you have written in the corner of my sketch?" she asked.

"_Dioscorades._"

"Is that your name?" she asked, with surprise.

"No," replied Gillian, laughing quite merrily, "it is the classic name of the island, and was so called by Ptolemy, when it belonged to the Kings of the Incense Country."

"How did you learn all this?"

"By reading, madam."

"I know that even the humblest of your countrymen are usually well educated; but you must have studied--where?"

It was impossible to equivocate with such lovely eyes as hers bent upon him, so Gillian said, reluctantly--

"At the University of Edinburgh."

"Indeed!" and as she spoke her eyes wandered to the coarse white Highland jacket he wore.

"You are a musician, perhaps, as well as an artist," said Captain Jones, with something of a sneer.

"I have a taste, at least, for music, sir, and greatly was I gratified, when last night I heard Mrs. Hartley sing that song of Leonora's from Il Trovatore to your own accompaniment on the piano--she did it, indeed, divinely!"

He was forgetting the gulf between them.

"And you," she asked, "where were you?"

"On sentry at the poop door," replied Gillian, at once remembering himself, and with a salute, he was about to retire, when she said,--

"I beg your pardon, soldier--but you will lose that ring, and it seems a valuable one."

"What ring?"

"The one now dangling at the end of blue ribbon from the breast of your jacket."

It was Dove's engagement-ring, which he hastened to replace or conceal, and hurried forward to mingle with the crowd of soldiers, while the young girl looked after him with sympathy and interest.

"That is a lady's ring," said she, "and thereby hangs a tale! That poor lad has a history, which he keeps locked in his own breast."

"Very likely--most men have until they are under the influence of tobacco and brandy-pawnee, then out it comes hand-over-hand, as the sailors say; but as a rule, Scotsmen are always devilish close about their own affairs."

"Poor--poor fellow!"

"My dear Mrs. Hartley, he is no doubt some fast sprig of anatomy who has come to grief, so your sympathy is quite thrown away--but there goes the drum for mess."

Whether the Captain's remarks affected her, it is impossible to say; but the next time she saw Gillian, she affected to stare intently seaward; so he ventured in the vicinity of the poop no more.

"If not happy, I thought I had at least become content or reconciled to my lot, as poor La Vallière said in her convent," thought he; but despite this, the petty episode made him sigh as he thought of the past, and all that had vanished with it.

As the _Indus_, hugging the Arabian coast, bore on her way, it was impossible for those who had been a reader like Gillian, not to view with deep and growing interest the shore on which they were now looking for the first time, every foot of which was rendered famous by the records of religious and classical antiquity; and, as the headlands and islands came in sight, it seemed strange to him that he should actually be looking on Arabia; that yonder promontory should be Has al Hhad, where terminates the mighty desert that lies between Mecca and Oman; that these rocks should be the Sohar Isles, and that the coast which anon began to rise on the starboard bow was Beloochistan, and that those mighty peaks which are visible for more than a hundred miles at sea were western Kohistan, the home of the Kurds; that ere long the waters cleft by the steamer were those of the Gulf of Ormus, as her course was altered again, and she headed more directly north-westward for the Gulf of Persia, and left the high basaltic isles of Cape Mussunndom astern.

Some of these natural features were of great grandeur, vastness, and solemnity, but Gillian found, to his own great amusement, that his comrade, MacKenzie, always drew comparisons that were somewhat invidious, between the land of the Great Cyrus, of Darius, even of Ishmael, and Kintail-of-the-Cows; and declared the Gulf of Ormus was no more to be compared to Loch Alsh or Loch Duich, than sherbet was to a good dram of Farintosh.

But, anon, they began to fall in with other ships and transports forming part of the great expedition, and all bearing on to one point of rendezvous; and now it may not be unnecessary to inform the reader of the cause that brought a British army, of which our hero formed a unit, into this remote and remarkable part of the globe for the first time.

It had become apparent to our Government for two years before, that Nasser-ed-Deen, the Shah of Persia, son of the late Mahomet Shah and Queen Velliat, of the Kadjar tribe, was resolved on having a war with us; and to this end had despatched an army, under Prince Sultan Moorad Mirza, into north-western Afghanistan, to act against our interests at Herat. The Governor-General of India remonstrated with the Shah on this hostile demonstration, and, meanwhile, many gross insults were offered to British officials at the Persian capital, where our envoy, the Honourable Charles Murray, had ultimately to strike his flag and retire.

The fall of Kars had been circulated over all Asia, with the most exaggerated stories and rumours, during the Crimean war; while the Russians took especial care that the fall of Sebastopol should not be known in the same remote quarters till long after that event was accomplished. The secret agents of the ever-aggressive Czar had thus the most ample means for producing a double result or effect, the sequel of which was, that, impressed by some vague but pleasing ideas that Britain had been beaten, weakened, and humiliated, the effeminate Persians, like the Zemindars of Oude, that kingdom but recently annexed by the Marquis of Dalhousie, thought that now or never was the time to make war on us, and in defiance of all rights and treaties, to conquer and annex Herat. As every attempt to obtain redress from the Shah--though a prince well acquainted with history, and tolerably correct in his ideas of the relations in which he stood to us and other European powers--proved unavailing, an expedition sailed from Bombay early in January for the Gulf of Persia.

Major-General Sir James Outram, K.C.B., "the Bayard of India," to whom the command was assigned, hastening from London, found that the first division of "the army of Persia," had already sailed, under Major-General Stalker, on which he placed himself at the head of the second, which he reserved for his old Indian comrade, Brigadier Havelock, who arrived soon after.

On entering the Gulf of Persia, Outram received the rank of Lieutenant-General. Colonels Wilson and Houssen were the brigadiers of the first division; Colonels Hamilton (of the Ross-shire Buffs) and Hale were brigadiers of the second. Brigadiers Tapp and Stuart led the cavalry; Hill, the artillery; and there was a numerous staff.

The strength of the whole force destined to invade and to humble the land of that Cyrus who was lord of Babylon, Media, and Persia, was singularly small; for, even when joined by the detachments on board the _Indus_, it only mustered as follows: 419 sabres, including the 3rd Bombay cavalry and Poonah horse; 4,653 bayonets, including H.M. 64th Foot; the Ross-shire Buffs, 2nd Bombay Europeans, a battalion of Beloochees, and three of native infantry, with thirty-two pieces of cannon, some European artillery, and 1,842 camp followers.

The 78th Highlanders, when joined by Captain Roderick MacAra's detachment, mustered only 739 bayonets.

The general rendezvous of the land and sea forces was at Ma'mer, on the Gulf of Persia, and towards that point all the transports and ships of war were speeding, under sail and steam, on the evening in the end of January.