The Lost Heir. Henty George Alfred
better still, take his passage home at once. Had the day and hour of his leaving been known, there was not a white soldier in the cantonments who would not have turned out to give him a hearty cheer, but although going on well the doctor said that all excitement should be avoided. It would be quite enough for him to have to say good-by to the friends who had been in the habit of coming in to talk with him daily, but anything like a public greeting by the men would be likely to upset him. It was not, therefore, until Simcoe was some way down the river that his departure became known to the troops.
Six weeks later there was a sensation in the cantonments. General Mathieson had so far recovered that he was able to be carried up to the hills, and the camp was still growling at the irritating orders and regulations of his temporary successor in command, when the news spread that Staff Pay-Sergeant Sanderson had deserted. He had obtained a fortnight's furlough, saying that he wanted to pay a visit to some old comrades at Allahabad; at the end of the fortnight he had not returned, and the Staff Paymaster had gone strictly into his accounts and found that there was a deficiency of over £300, which he himself would of course be called upon to make good. He had, indeed, helped to bring about the deficiency by placing entire confidence in the sergeant and by neglecting to check his accounts regularly.
Letters were at once written to the heads of the police at Calcutta and Bombay, and to all the principal places on the roads to those ports; but it was felt that, with such a start as he had got, the chances were all in his favor.
It was soon ascertained at Allahabad that he had not been there. Inquiries at the various dak-bungalows satisfied the authorities that he had not traveled by land. If he had gone down to Calcutta he had gone by boat; but he might have started on the long land journey across to Bombay, or have even made for Madras. No distinct clew, however, could be obtained.
The Paymaster obtained leave and went down to Calcutta and inspected all the lists of passengers and made inquiries as to them; but there were then but few white men in the country, save those holding civil or military positions and the merchants at the large ports, therefore there was not much difficulty in ascertaining the identity of everyone who had left Calcutta during the past month, unless, indeed, he had taken a passage in some native craft to Rangoon or possibly Singapore.
On his arrival at Calcutta he heard of an event which caused deep and general regret when known at Benares, and for a time threw even the desertion of Sergeant Sanderson into the shade. The Nepaul, in which John Simcoe had sailed, had been lost in a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal when but six days out. There was no possible doubt as to his fate, for a vessel half a mile distant had seen her founder, but could render no assistance, being herself dismasted and unmanageable and the sea so tremendous that no boat could have lived in it for a moment. As both ships belonged to the East India Company, and were well known to each other, the captain and officials of the Ceylon had no doubt whatever as to her identity, and, indeed, the remains of a boat bearing the Nepaul's name were picked up a few days later near the spot where she had gone down.
"It's hard luck, that is what I call it," Sergeant Nichol said with great emphasis when the matter was talked over in the sergeants' mess. "Here is a man who faces a wounded tiger with nothing but a hunting-knife, and recovers from his wounds; here is the General, whose life he saved, going on first-rate, and yet he loses his life himself, drowned at sea. I call that about as hard luck as anything I have heard of."
"Hard luck indeed!" another said. "If he had died of his wounds it would have been only what might have been expected; but to get over them and then to get drowned almost as soon as he had started is, as you say, Nichol, very hard luck. I am sure the General will be terribly cut up about it. I heard Major Butler tell Captain Thompson that he had heard from Dr. Hunter that when the General began to get round and heard that Simcoe had gone, while he was lying there too ill to know anything about it, he regularly broke down and cried like a child; and I am sure the fact that he will never have the chance of thanking him now will hurt him as bad as those tiger's claws."
"And so there is no news of Sanderson?"
"Not that I have heard. Maybe he has got clean away; but I should say it's more likely that he is lying low in some sailors' haunt until the matter blows over. Then, like enough, he will put on sea-togs and ship under another name before the mast in some trader knocking about among the islands, and by the time she comes back he could take a passage home without questions being asked. He is a sharp fellow is Sanderson. I never quite liked him myself, but I never thought he was a rogue. It will teach Captain Smalley to be more careful in future. I heard that he was going home on his long leave in the spring, but I suppose he will not be able to do so now for a year or so; three hundred pounds is a big sum to have to fork out."
The news of the loss of the Nepaul, with all hands, did indeed hit General Mathieson very heavily, and for a time seriously delayed the progress that he was making towards recovery.
"It's bad enough to think," he said, "that I shall never have an opportunity of thanking that gallant fellow for my life; but it is even worse to know that my rescue has brought about his death, for had it not been for that he would have by this time been up at Delhi or in Oude instead of lying at the bottom of the sea. I would give half my fortune to grasp his hand again and tell him what I feel."
General Mathieson's ill luck stuck to him. He gained strength so slowly that he was ordered home, and it was three years before he rejoined. Four years later his daughter came out to him, and for a time his home in Delhi, where he was now stationed, was a happy one. The girl showed no desire to marry, and refused several very favorable offers; but after she had been out four years she married a rising young civilian who was also stationed at Delhi. The union was a happy one, except that the first two children born to them died in infancy. They were girls. The third was a boy, who at the age of eight months was sent home under the charge of an officer's wife returning with her children to England. When they arrived there he was placed in charge of Mrs. Covington, a niece of the General's. But before he reached the shores of England he was an orphan. An epidemic of cholera broke out at the station at which his father, who was now a deputy collector, was living, and he and his wife were among the first victims of the scourge.
General Mathieson was now a major-general, and in command of the troops in the Calcutta district. This blow decided him to resign his command and return to England. He was now sixty; the climate of India had suited him, and he was still a hale, active man. Being generally popular he was soon at home in London, where he took a house in Hyde Park Gardens and became a regular frequenter of the Oriental and East Indian United Service Clubs, of which he had been for years a member, went a good deal into society, and when at home took a lively interest in his grandson, often running down to his niece's place, near Warwick, to see how he was getting on.
The ayah who had come with the child from India had been sent back a few months after they arrived, for his mother had written to Mrs. Covington requesting that he should have a white nurse. "The native servants," she wrote, "spoil the children dreadfully, and let them have entirely their own way, and the consequence is that they grow up domineering, bad-tempered, and irritable. I have seen so many cases of it here that Herbert and I have quite decided that our child shall not be spoilt in this way, but shall be brought up in England as English children are, to obey their nurses and to do as they are ordered."
As Mrs. Covington's was a large country house the child was no trouble; an excellent nurse was obtained, and the boy throve under her care.
The General now much regretted having remained so many years in India, and if an old comrade remarked, "I never could make out why you stuck to it so long, Mathieson; it was ridiculous for a man with a large private fortune, such as you have," he would reply, "I can only suppose it was because I was an old fool. But, you see, I had no particular reason for coming home. I lost my only sister three years after I went out, and had never seen her only daughter, my niece Mary Covington. Of course I hoped for another bout of active service, and when the chance came at last up in the north, there was I stuck down in Calcutta. If it hadn't been for Jane I should certainly have given it up in disgust when I found I was practically shelved. But she always used to come down and stay with me for a month or two in the cool season, and as she was the only person in the world I cared for, I held on from year to year, grumbling of course, as pretty well every Anglo-Indian does, but without having sufficient resolution to throw it up.