101. A Call of Love Read Free Page B

moved.”
    “I think however rich he may be,” Lord Kenington said, “he will not wish to quarrel with me.”
    “No, of course I had forgotten for a moment how important you are. Your name is in all the newspapers day after day and I have often wondered what you were like.”
    Lord Kenington smiled.
    “What am I like?”
    “The kindest and most helpful man that I have ever known. You might easily have thought I was very forward to ask for your help. But I knew instinctively you were the only person who could assist me. Papa always says, ‘never be afraid of doing what is right’.”
    “I see that your father gives you excellent advice.”
    “I only hope he is taking care of himself,” Aisha replied. “As perhaps you know, he goes on very difficult and dangerous missions, so naturally I worry about him.”
    Lord Kenington remembered now where he had heard about Major Warde.
    He was one of the people who had been active in starting what was known as The Great Game . It was one of the extraordinary organisations that had been created recently.
    He knew, as only a very few others knew, that the authorities in India were greatly worried by the infiltration of the Russians into Asia.
    The Cossacks, riding fast horses and taking their victims by surprise, had advanced considerably in the last two or three years and they were now uncomfortably near to the frontiers of India. It had all begun in the early years of the nineteenth century, when Russian troops had started to find their way Southwards through the Caucasus, then inhabited by fierce Muslim tribesmen, towards Northern Persia.
    At the start, like Russian’s great march Eastwards towards Siberia two centuries earlier, this did not seem to pose any particular threat to British interests.
    No one took Russia too seriously in those days and their nearest frontier posts were too far distant to threaten any danger to the British East India Company’s territory.
    Then, as Lord Kenington knew, in the early 1800s intelligence reached London that was to cause considerable alarm, both to the British Government and to the East India Company’s Directors.
    Many politicians, especially the authorities in India, were now certain that the Russians intended to try to wrest India from Britain.
    And that was the reason why Lord Kenington was going to India.
    “I want to know what you think they are planning to do,” the Prime Minister had said to him. “And whether, if a Russian force did reach India after overcoming all the obstacles on the way, we would be strong enough to drive them back.”
    The Prime Minister was talking to Lord Kenington alone, as he was well aware that there were members of the Cabinet who thought that he was being hysterical and that it would be impossible for Russia to withstand the British Army if they were forced into a man to man fight.
    But Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, was undoubtedly troubled.
    When he sent Lord Kenington to India he had said,
    “I want to find out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I know that is what you will bring me back, however incredible it may seem to some of the people here who never wish to face up to these matters of urgency until it is too late.”
    There had been a scathing note in his voice as he spoke the last words and Lord Kenington was well aware that he was having trouble with his Cabinet. There were those who did not wish to spend too much money or send too many good men out to India.
    He promised the Prime Minister that he would find out the truth, but he could not help wondering whether it was possible here and now to anticipate what might happen in the next ten or twenty years.
    He had therefore brought with him a great number of books and he hoped they would tell him more about India than he knew at the moment.
    And he had certainly not expected his voyage to be interrupted by an extremely pretty and frightened young woman.
    He could not tell her that she must fight her own