Read The Karma of Love (Bantam Series No. 14) for Free Online Page B

has.”
    Orissa was extremely interested.
    Her Uncle had known General Gordon well and often talked of his fantastic personality, his brilliance and his eccentricity.
    Gordon’s successes in China, where he proved himself one of the greatest Commanders of Irregulars of all time, had made him a legend in his lifetime.
    When after much hesitation and the toss of a coin he agreed to become Governor General of the Sudan he wrote:
    “I go up alone, with an infinite Almighty God to direct and guide me.”
    Then when a Fakir called the Mahdi—“the Expected One”—had declared a Holy War and overrun a vast amount of territory, Gordon was sent back to Khartoum with the main object of effecting the vacuation of the Egyptian Troops.
    But in March 1884 the Mahdi’s huge army of Dervishes had closed round Khartoum and besieged it.
    It was not until August that the unceasing pressure of public opinion, supported in private by the Queen, compelled the Government to agree that steps should be taken to relieve the beleaguered town.
    On her way down from London in the train Orissa had bought The Graphic magazine and studied a picture of the Guards Division of the Camel Corps crossing the Bayunda Desert on their way to Khartoum.
    They were commanded by Sir Charles Wilson and Major Kitchener and she found herself praying for her brother’s sake, if for no other reason, that they might reach General Gordon in time.
    The Graphic of the second week in January had also had some information about India describing the celebrations which had taken place when the new Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, had arrived in Bombay to succeed Lord Rippon. It had gone on to speak of trouble on the North-West Frontier.
    This was something which Orissa had heard talked of incessantly in the past, because her father’s Regi ment was nearly always stationed in the Northern Provinces.
    She longed now to ask the General what the situation had been like when he was last in India, but she felt that it might be unwise to show too obvious a knowledge of Army matters.
    At the same time she felt certain that sooner or later the conversation would turn from the Nile Expedition to the trouble in Afghanistan.
    Dinner was, as the Steward predicted, extremely good and when it was finished Lady Critchley announced:
    “We will have coffee in the Saloon.”
    She left the table having first invited Colonel Onslow and his wife to join them and also Colonel McDougal.
    She very pointedly ignored the other people at the Captains table, and Orissa, following in the wake of Lady Critchley’s rustling grey bustle, felt rather sorry for th em.
    She knew how snobby the English were in India and felt their fellow passengers would be longing on their arrival to tell their friends how intimate they had been with the G.O.C. Bombay and his wife—that is, if they ever got on such terms!
    Coffee was brought by an attentive Steward and the General ordered brandy for himself and the two Colonels.
    Orissa had decided that as soon as she finished her coffee she would be expected to retire to her cabin.
    She was just about to rise to her feet when she heard the General say:
    “Hello, Meredith, I heard you were on board. I was expecting to see you at dinner!”
    It was with the greatest difficulty that Orissa prevented herself from starting violently.
    At the same time she thought that her heart had stopped beating as, with deliberate slowness, she turned her head to see standing by their table the man she had last seen on the stairs of Charles’s lodgings.
    Major Meredith looked, she thought, even more formidable than he had in the dimness of the ill-lit landing when she had slipped past him to run down the stairs.
    Then she told herself there was no need to panic.
    It had been very dark and, while she knew who he was because Charles had talked about him, why should he connect her in any way with the woman he was now about to meet in the company of the G.O.C. Bombay?
    Major Meredith shook hands with