The little column filed out of the gateway into the road. As Captain
Fleetwood passed Colonel Carter the two men's eyes met. The colonel said
quietly, "Good night, captain. Let us have a good report from you."
The captain replied only with his gauntleted hand against the brim of
his slouched hat, but the next moment his voice was heard strong and
clear enough in the road. The little column trotted away as evenly as on
parade. But those who climbed the roof of the barracks a quarter of an
hour later saw, in the moonlight, a white cloud drifting rapidly across
the plain towards the west. It was a small cloud in that bare,
menacing, cruel, and illimitable waste; but in its breast was crammed a
thunderbolt.
It fell thirty miles away, blasting and scattering a thousand warriors
and their camp, giving and taking no quarter, vengeful, exterminating,
and complete. Later there were different opinions about it and the
horrible crime that had provoked it: the opposers of Peter's policy
jubilant over the irony of the assassination of the Apostle of
Peace, Peter's disciples as actively deploring the merciless and
indiscriminating vengeance of the military; and so the problem that
Peter had vainly attempted to solve was left an open question. There
were those, too, who believed that Peter had never sacrificed himself
and his sister for the sake of another, but had provoked and incensed
the savages by the blind arrogance of a reformer. There were wild
stories by scouts and interpreters how he had challenged his fate by
an Indian bravado; how himself and his sister had met torture with
an Indian stoicism, and how the Indian braves themselves at last in a
turmoil of revulsion had dipped their arrows and lances in the heroic
heart's blood of their victims, and worshiped their still palpitating
flesh.
But there was one honest loyal little heart that carried back--three
thousand miles--to England the man as it had known and loved him. Lady
Elfrida Runnybroke never married; neither did she go into retirement,
but lived her life and fulfilled her duties in her usual clear-eyed
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