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diff --git a/49555.txt b/49555.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c31de1b..0000000 --- a/49555.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,17862 +0,0 @@ - THE HERMIT DOCTOR OF GAYA - - - - -This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at -http://www.gutenberg.org/license. If you are not located in the United -States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are -located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Hermit Doctor of Gaya - A Love Story of Modern India -Author: I. A. R. Wylie -Release Date: July 30, 2015 [EBook #49555] -Language: English -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERMIT DOCTOR OF GAYA *** - - - - -Produced by Al Haines. - - - - - -[Illustration: A mad whirl of sound and colour. "Do you mind?" he said. -"Can you face it?" -Drawn by William J. Shettsline. (See page 266.)] - - - - - *The Hermit Doctor of Gaya* - - A Love Story of Modern India - - - By - - I. A. R. Wylie - - Author of "The Native Born," etc. - - - - "This kiss to the whole world" - _Beethoven's Ninth Symphony_ - - - - G. P. Putnam's Sons - New York and London - The Knickerbocker Press - 1916 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1916 - BY - I. A. R. WYLIE - - - - The Knickerbocker Press, New York - - - - - *CONTENTS* - - _BOOK I_ - -CHAPTER - -I.--The Story of Kurnavati -II.--Tristram the Hermit -III.--Tristram Becomes Father-Confessor -IV.--The Interlopers -V.--A Vision of the Backwater -VI.--Broken Sanctuary -VII.--Anne Boucicault Explains -VIII.--The Two Listeners -IX.--Lalloo, the Money-Lender -X.--An Encounter -XI.--Inferno -XII.--In which Fortune Pleases to Jest -XIII.--Crossed Swords -XIV.--Tristram Chooses his Road -XV.--The Weavers -XVI.--A Meredith to the Rescue -XVII.--Mrs. Smithers Does Accounts -XVIII.--The Feast of Siva - - - _BOOK II_ - -I.--Mrs. Compton Stands Firm -II.--A Home-Coming -III.--Mrs. Boucicault Calls the Tune -IV.--Anne Makes a Discovery -V.--Crisis -VI.--"Of your Blood" -VII.--The Price Paid -VIII.--Return -IX.--For the Last Time -X.--Anne Chooses -XI.--Freedom -XII.--The Meeting of the Ways -XIII.--To Gaya! -XIV.--Resurrection -XV.--The Snake-God -XVI.--Towards Morning - - - - - *The Hermit Doctor of Gaya* - - - _*BOOK I*_ - - - *CHAPTER I* - - *THE STORY OF KURNAVATI* - - -"Thus it came about that, for her child's sake, the Rani Kurnavati saved -herself from the burning pyre and called together the flower of the -Rajputs to defend Chitore and their king from the sword of Bahadur -Shah." - -The speaker's voice had not lifted from its brooding quiet. But now the -quiet had become a living thing repressed, a passion disciplined, an -echo dimmed with its passage from the by-gone years, but vibrant and -splendid still with the clash of chivalrous steel. - -The village story-teller gazed into the firelight and was silent. -Swift, soft-footed shadows veiled the lower half of his face, but his -eyes smouldered and burnt up as they followed their visions among the -flames. He was young. His lithe, scantily-clad body was bent forward -and his slender arms were clasped loosely about his knees. Compared -with him, the broken circle of listeners seemed half living. They sat -quite still, their skins shining darkly like polished bronze, their eyes -blinking at the firelight. Only the headman of the village moved, -stroking his fierce grey beard with a shrivelled hand. - -"Those were the great days!" he muttered. "The great days!" - -The silence lingered. The Englishman, whose long, white-clad body -linked the circle, shifted his position. He lay stretched out with a -lazy, unconscious grace, his head supported on his arm, his eyes lifted -to the overhanging branches of the peepul tree, whose long, pointed -leaves fretted the outskirts of the light and sheltered the solemn, -battered effigy of the village god like the dome of a temple. A suddenly -awakened night-breeze stirred them to a mysterious murmur. They rustled -tremulously and secretly together, and the clear cold fire of a star -burnt amidst their shifting shadows. Beyond and beneath their -whispering there were other sounds. A night-owl hooted, a herd of -excited, lithe-limbed monkeys scrambled noisily in the darkness -overhead, chattered a moment, and were mischievously still. From the -distance came the long, hungry wail of a pariah dog, hunting amidst the -village garbage. These discords dropped into the night's silence, -breaking its placid surface into widening circles and died away. The -peepul leaves shivered and sank for an instant into grave meditation on -their late communings, and through the deepened quiet there poured the -distant, monotonous song of running water. It was a song based on one -deep organ note, the primaeval note of creation, and never changed. It -rose up out of the earth and filled the darkness and mingled with the -silence, so that they became one. The listeners heard it and did not -know they heard it. It was the background on which the night sounds of -living things painted themselves in vivid colours. - -The Englishman turned his face to the firelight. - -"Go on, Ayeshi," he said, with drowsy content. "You can't leave the -beautiful Rani in mid-air like that, you know. Go on." - -"Yes, Sahib." The young man pushed back the short black curls from his -neck and resumed his old attitude of watchfulness on the flames. But -his voice sounded louder, clearer: - -"Thereafter, Sahib, the need of Chitore grew desperate. In vain, the -bravest of her nobles sallied forth--the armies of Bahadur Shah swept -over them as the tempest sweeps over the ripe corn, and hour by hour the -ring about the city tightened till the very gates shivered beneath the -enemy's blows. It was then the Rani bethought her of a custom of her -people. With her own hands she made a bracelet of silver thread bound -with tinsel and gay with seven coloured tassels, and, choosing a trusty -servant, sent him forth out of Chitore to seek Humayun, the Great -Moghul, whose conquering sword even then swept Bengal like a flail. By -a miracle, the messenger escaped and came before Humayun and laid the -bracelet in his hands, saying: - -"'This is the gift of Kurnavati, Rani of Chitore.' - -"And Humayun looked at the messenger and asked: - -"'And if Humayun accept the gift of the Rani Kurnavati, what then?' - -"'Then shall Humayim be her bracelet-bound brother, and she shall be his -dear and virtuous sister.' - -"And Humayun looked at the gift and asked: - -"'And if I become bracelet-bound brother to the Rani Kurnavati, what -then?' - -"'Then will the Rani of Chitore call upon her dear and reverend brother, -according to the bond, to succour her from the cruel vengeance of -Bahadur Shah.' - -"And because the heart of Humayun loved all chivalrous and noble deeds -better than conquest and rich spoils, he took the bracelet and bound it -about his wrist, saying: 'Behold, according to the custom, Humayun -accepts the bond, and from henceforth the Rani Kurnavati is his dear and -virtuous sister, and his sword shall not rest in its scabbard till she -is free from the threat of her oppressors.' And he set forth with all -his horsemen and rode night and day till the walls of Chitore were in -sight." - -"Well----?" The story-teller had ceased speaking and the Englishman -rolled over, clipping his square chin in his big hands. "Go on, -Ayeshi." - -"He came too late." The metal had gone from the boy's voice, and the -firelight awoke no answering gleam in his watching eyes. - -"The Rani Kurnavati and three thousand of her women had sought honour on -the funeral pyre. The grey smoke from their ashes greeted Humayun as he -passed through the battered gates. The walls of Chitore lay in ruins -and without them slept their defenders, clad in saffron bridal robes, -their faces lifted to the sun, their broken swords red with the death of -their enemies. And Humayun, seeing them, wept." - -Ayeshi's voice trailed off into silence. The headman nodded to himself, -showing his white teeth. - -"Those were the great days," he muttered, "when men died fighting and -the women followed their husbands to the----" He coughed and glanced at -the Englishman. - -"But ours are the days of the Sahib," he added, with great piety, "full -of wisdom and peace." - -"Just so." The Sahib rose to his feet, stretching himself. "And, -talking of wives, Buddhoos, if thou dost not give that luckless female -of thine the medicine I ordered, instead of offering it up to the -village devil, I will mix thee such a compound as will make thy -particular hereafter seem Paradise by comparison. Moreover, I will -complain to the Burra Sahib and thou wilt be most certainly degraded and -become the mock of Lalloo, thy dear and loving brother-in-law. -Moreover, if I again find thirty of thy needy brethren herded together -in thy cow-stall, I will assuredly dose thy whole family. Hast thou -understood?" - -The headman salaamed solemnly. - -"The Dakktar Sahib's wishes are law," he declared fervently. - -"I should like to think so. And now, Ayeshi, it is time. We have ten -miles to go before morning. Give me my medicine-chest. I see that -Buddhoos has a longing eye on it. Come, Wickie!" - -The last order was in English, and a small, curious shape uncurled -itself from the shadows at the base of the tree and trotted into the -firelight. The most that could be said of it with any truth was, that -it had been intended for a dog. Many generations back there had been an -Aberdeen in the family, and since then the peculiarities of that -particular strain had been modified to an amazing degree by a series of -_mesalliances_. In fact, all that remained of the Aberdeen were a pair -of bandy legs and a wistful, pseudo-innocent eye. Nevertheless, it was -evidently an object of veneration. The village elders made way for it, -regarding it with gloomy apprehension as it leisurely stretched itself, -yawned, and then, with the dignity which goes with conscious yet modest -superiority, proceeded to follow the massive white figure of its master -into the darkness. - -The headman salaamed again deeply and possibly thankfully. - -"A safe journey and return, Sahib!" he called. - -The Sahib's answer came back cheerily through the stillness. He looked -back for an instant at the patch of firelight and the sharply cut -silhouettes of moving figures, and then strode on, keeping well to the -middle of the dusty roadway, his footsteps ringing out above the soft -accompaniment of Ayeshi's patter and the fussy tap-tap of Wickie's -unwieldy paws. He whistled cheerfully. So long as the sleeping, -odoriferous mud-huts of the village bound them in on either hand, he -clung tenaciously to his disjointed scrap of melody, but, as they came -out at last into the open country, he broke off, sighing, and stood -still, his arms outstretched, breathing in the freedom and untainted air -with a thirsty, passionate gratitude. - -There was no moon. The luminous haze which poured out over the -limitless space before them was a mysterious thing, born of itself -without source, without body. Its pallid, greenish clarity stretched in -a ghostly sea between the earth and the black, beacon-studded sky, -distorting and magnifying, as still water distorts and magnifies the -rocks and tangled seaweed at its bed. It lapped soundlessly against the -cliff of rising jungle land to the right, and beneath its quiet surface -the shadow of the village temple floated like a sunken island, its -slender _sikhara_ alone rising up into the darkness, a finger of warning -and admonition. It was very still. The voice of the invisible, -swift-flowing river had indeed grown louder, but it was a sound outside -this world of shadows and phantoms. It beat against the protecting wall -of dreams, unheeded yet ominous and threatening in its implacable -reality. - -The two men crossed the path which encircled the village and made their -way over the uneven ground towards the temple. As they drew nearer, the -light seemed to recede, leaving the great roofless _manderpam_ a -shapeless ruin, whilst the _sikhara_ faded into the black background of -the jungle. The Dakktar Sahib whistled softly; a horse whinnied in -answer, and the amazing Wickie bounded forward as though recognizing an -old acquaintance. The Sahib laughed under his breath. - -"We know each other, Wickie, Arabella and I," he said. "A wonderful -animal that, Ayeshi." - -"Truly, a noble creature, Sahib," Ayeshi answered very gravely. - -A minute later they reached the carved gateway of the temple where two -horses had been casually tethered. They stood deep in shadow, but the -strange, unreal light which covered the plain filled the _manderpam_ -with its broken avenue of pillars, and threw into sharp relief the -carved gateway and the figure seated cross-legged and motionless beneath -the arch. Both men seemed to have expected the apparition. Ayeshi -knelt down before it and placed a bowl of milk, which he had been -carefully carrying, within reach of the long, lifeless-looking arms. - -"For the God thou servest, O Holy One," he said, and for a moment knelt -there with his forehead pressed to the ground. - -The old mendicant seemed neither to have heard nor seen. He was almost -naked. The bones started out of the shrivelled flesh, and the long, -matted grey hair hung about his shoulders and mingled with the -dishevelled beard, so that he seemed scarcely human, scarcely living. -Only for an instant his eyes, half hidden beneath the wild disorder, -flashed over the kneeling figure, and then closed, shutting the last -vestige of life behind blank lids. - -The Dakktar Sahib bent down and placed a coin in the upturned palms. - -"That also is for thy God, Vahana," he said, with grave respect. -Receiving no answer, he turned away and untethered his horse, a -quadruped which even the solemn shadow could not dignify. It must have -stood over seventeen hands high and its shape was comically suggestive -of a child's drawing--six none too steady lines representing legs, back, -and neck. The Dakktar Sahib whispered to it tenderly and reassuringly: -"Only ten miles, Arabella, on my word of honour, only ten miles. And -you shall have all tomorrow. I know it's rotten bad luck, but then I -have got to stick it, too--it's our confounded, glorious duty to stick -it, Arabella, and you wouldn't leave me in the lurch, would you, old -girl?" Then came the crunch of sugar and the sound of Arabella's -affectionate nozzling in the region of coat pockets. The Dakktar swung -himself on to her lengthy back. "Now, then, Ayeshi; now then, Wickie!" - -The three strange companions trotted out of the shadow, threading their -way through the long, coarse grass in the direction of the river; but -once the Englishman turned in his saddle and looked back. By some -atmospheric freak, the temple seemed to have drawn all the green -phosphorescent haze into its ruined self and hung like a great, dimly -lit lamp against the wall of jungle. The Dakktar Sahib lingered a -moment. - -"They must have dreamed wonderfully in those old days," he said, -wistfully. "To have built that--think of it, Ayeshi! To have given -one's soul an abiding expression to wake the souls of other men -thousands of years hence--to bring a lump into the throat of some human -being long after one's bones have crumbled to dust. Well--well----" - -He broke off with a sigh. "And you believe that tonight the Snake God -will drink your milk, Ayeshi?" - -"He or his many brethren, Sahib. He lies coiled about the branches of -the highest tree in the jungle and on every branch of the forest another -such as he keeps guard over his rest." - -"No man has ever seen him, Ayeshi?" - -"No man dares set foot within the jungle, Sahib, save Vahana, and he is -a Sadhu, a holy man. He has sat before the temple for a hundred years, -and none have seen him eat or heard him speak." - -"You believe that, Ayeshi?" - -The boy hesitated a moment, then answered gravely: - -"Yes, Sahib. My people have believed it." - -"Your people? Well--that's a good reason--one of our pet reasons for -our pet beliefs, if you did but know it, Ayeshi. There's not such a -gulf between East and West, after all." He rode on in silence, and then -turned his head a little as though trying to distinguish his companion's -features through the darkness. "Who are your people, Ayeshi--your -father, your mother, your brothers? You have never spoken of them. Are -they dead?" - -"I do not know, Sahib. I have never known father or mother or -brethren." - -The Dakktar Sahib nodded to himself. - -"You are not like the other villagers," he said. "One feels it--one -doesn't talk in the same way to you. Tell me, Ayeshi, have you no -ambitions?" - -"None but to serve you, Sahib." - -The Englishman threw back his head and laughed. - -"Well, that's a poor sort of ambition. Why, I might get knocked on the -head any time--typhoid, cholera, enteric--I'm cheek by jowl with the lot -of them half the days of my life. And then where would you be, Ayeshi?" - -"I should follow you, Sahib." - -"That sounds almost biblical. And what for, eh?" - -"Because of this, Sahib----" Suddenly and passionately, he discarded -the English language which he used with ease and plunged into his own -vernacular. "Behold, Sahib, there is the snake-bite on my arm, the -wound which the Sahib cleansed with his own lips. Is that a thing to be -forgotten? A life belongs to him who saves it." - -"Pooh, nonsense!" The Englishman leant over his saddle. "For the -Lord's sake, Wickie, keep away from Arabella's hoofs! Are you a dog or -an idiot? Ayeshi, you don't understand. That sort of thing's my -job--there, now, you've nearly run us into the river with your silly -chatter----" - -They drew rein abruptly. It was now close on the dawn, and the darkness -had become intensified. The stars seemed colder and dimmer. Where they -stood, their horses snuffing nervously at the unknown, they could hear -the steady hurrying of the water at their feet, but they could see -nothing. The Englishman patted the neck of his steed with a comforting -hand. "In a year or two, there will be a bridge across," he said. -"Then Mother Ganges won't have such terrors for us." - -"Mother Ganges demands toll of those who curb her," Ayeshi answered -solemnly. - -"You mean, that no bridge could be built here?" - -"I mean, Sahib, that the price will be a heavy one." - -The Dakktar Sahib made no answer. Suddenly he laughed, not as though -amused, but with a vague embarrassment. - -"That was a fine story you told us tonight, Ayeshi. I don't know what -there was about it--something that made one tingle from head to foot. -I've been thinking of it on and off all the time. Those were days when -men did mad, splendid things--bad too--worse than anything we do, but -also finer. Sometimes one wishes--but it's no good wishing. The Rani -Kurnavati and her bracelet are gone forever." - -"Humayun also is dead," Ayeshi said, in his grave way. - -"You mean----? Yes, that's true, too, I suppose. But oh Lord"--he -lifted himself in his saddle with a movement of joyous, fiery -vitality--"though I'm no Great Moghul, worse luck, still, if a woman -sent _me_ her bracelet and she were being murdered on the top of Mount -Ararat, I'd----" - -"The Sahib would come in time," Ayeshi interposed gently and -significantly. - -The Englishman dropped back in his saddle. - -"Well, anyhow, Arabella, Wickie, and I would have a good shot at it," he -said, gaily. He turned his horse's head eastwards and touched her -gently to a trot. "But it's no good bragging. No one's going to make -either of us bracelet brother. That's not for the like of us. And -meanwhile, we've got eight miles to go and the dawn will be on us in an -hour. I wish we'd got the seven-league boots handy. But you don't know -the story of the seven-league boots, do you, Ayeshi? I'll tell it you -as we go along. A story for a story, eh?" - -"Yes, Sahib." - -They trotted off along the bank of the river, Arabella slightly in -advance, Wickie skirmishing skilfully on either hand, the Dakktar -Sahib's voice mingling with the song of the waters as he told the story -of the seven-league boots. - -Behind them the temple had sunk into profound shadow. - -Vahana, the mendicant, still sat beneath the archway. He took the bowl -of milk and drained it thirstily. The coin he spat on with a venomous -hatred and sent spinning into the darkness. - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - *TRISTRAM THE HERMIT* - - -"Of course, all that one can do is to hope," Mrs. Compton said, ruffling -up her dark, curly hair with a distracted hand. "I don't know who it was -talked about hope springing eternal in the something-something, but he -must have lived in Gaya. If we hadn't hope and pegs in this withered -desert----" - -"My dear," her husband interposed, "in the first place, Gaya isn't a -desert. It's the Garden of India. In the second place, no lady talks -about pegs--certainly not in the tone of devout thankfulness which you -have used. Pegs is--are masculine. They uphold us in our strenuous -hours, of which you women appear to know nothing; they soothe our -overwrought nerves and prepare the way for a liverish old age in -Cheltenham. Praise be to Allah!" - -Mrs. Compton sighed and surveyed the curtain which she had been -artistically draping. Her manner, like her whole wiry, restless -personality, expressed a good-tempered irascibility. - -"Anyhow, they keep you human and grant us luckless females a lucid -interval in which we can call our souls our own. What you men would be -like if you didn't have your drinks and your tubs and all your other -multitudinous creature comforts--well, it doesn't stand thinking about. -Archie, do you like the curtain tied up with a bow or--oh, of course, -it's no use asking you, you materialistic lump." She turned from the -long, lean figure sprawling on the wicker chair by the verandah window -and appealed to the second member of her audience. - -"Mr. Meredith, you're a clergyman, you ought to have a soul. Do you -like bows or don't you?" - -Meredith looked up with a faint smile on his grave face. - -"I like bows, Mrs. Compton. I hope it's a good sign of my artistic and -spiritual development?" - -"Yes, it is. I like bows myself. Oh, dear----" She stopped suddenly. -"But supposing she's a horror! Supposing she paints and smothers herself -in diamonds, and gets hilarious at dinner, and has a shrill voice! -Goodness knows, I don't boast about our morals, but we're immoral in our -own conventional way, so that it becomes almost respectable, and -anything else would shock us frightfully. You know, I think we're -running an awful risk." - -Captain Compton guffawed cheerfully, and the smile still lingered in -Owen Meredith's pleasant eyes. - -"I shouldn't worry, my dear lady," he recommended. "After all, some of -them are the last thing in respectability. It belongs to their -profession. They're bound to be physically perfect, and physical -perfection goes with morality. Besides, I understand that there can be -genius in that sort of thing, and that she's a genius." - -"Well, genius doesn't go with respectability, anyhow," Mary Compton -retorted. "A professional dancer and a guest of the Rajah's! What can -one hope for?" - -Meredith compressed his lips and passed his hand over his black hair -with a movement that somehow or other revealed the Anglican. A look of -what might have been habitual anxiety settled on his square, blunt -features, and he found no answer. - -Captain Compton got up, stretching himself. - -"The Rajah's the best guarantee we could have," he said lazily. "He's a -harmless type of the little degenerate princeling who apes the European -and lives in a holy terror of doing the wrong thing. He wouldn't set -Gaya by the ears for untold gold. I know just what's happened. He saw -Mlle. Fersen dance and he sent her a bouquet--very respectfully--and -gave a supper-party in her honour--also very respectable--and assured -her of a warm, respectable welcome in Gaya should she ever visit India. -Well, she's come--as why shouldn't she?--and he's trying to do the -handsome and the respectable at the same time. You don't suppose old -Armstrong would have written about her if everything wasn't quite all -right." He pulled out his cigarette case and looked round helplessly -for the matches. "My dear, you will find that she is not only a perfect -lady, but that our ways will shock her into fits, and that we shall have -to live up to her." - -Mrs. Compton gave him the matches with the air of a nurse tending a -peculiarly incapable child. - -"You disappoint me horribly," she said, and went out on the verandah. A -minute later she called the two men after her and pointed an indignant -finger in the direction of the highway. "Look at that, Archie! How do -you suppose anybody's going to respect us with that sort of thing -running about! It's positively unpatriotic. It's a blow at the very -foundations of the Empire----!" - -"Why, it's the old Hermit," Compton interrupted, soothingly. "Don't -worry about him. If there were a few more hermits--Bless the man! -what's he doing? Ahoy, Tristram, ahoy there!" - -In answer to the shouted welcome, the little procession which had -aroused Mrs. Compton's ire turned in at the compound gates. The Dakktar -Sahib came first. He wore a duck suit with leggings, and carried his -pith helmet in both hands as though it were a bowl full of priceless -liquid. In its place, a loud bandanna handkerchief offered a slight -protection to his head and neck. Behind him, at her untrammelled -leisure; came Arabella, her reins trailing, her nose almost on the -ground, her legs obviously wavering under the burden of her protruding -ribs. Behind her again, in a cloud of sulky dust, waddled Wickie, -forlorn and spiritless. The three halted at the steps of the verandah, -and the Dakktar Sahib sat down on the first step without ceremony. - -"I'm done," he said. - -Mrs. Compton almost snorted at him. - -"I should think so! What on earth were you walking for, you impossible -person? What is the use of having a horse--if you call that object a -horse--if you don't ride?" - -"Arabella's dead beat," he explained simply. He put his pith helmet -between his knees and stared down into its depths as though something -hidden there interested him. "I know she's no beauty," he went on -earnestly. "But she's an awful brick. Never done me or any one a bad -turn in her lire. Can't say that of myself. And just because I paid -fourteen quid for her, I don't see why I should put upon her. I suppose -we three couldn't have a drink, could we?" - -Compton shook his head. He came and sat down on the step beside the -big, travel-stained figure and looked cooler and more immaculate by -contrast. - -"Afraid not. If you weren't so delightfully absent-minded, Hermit, you -would know perfectly well that we're not at home. Don't you recognize -the old dak-bungalow when you see it?" - -Tristram turned and looked about him rather blankly. At that moment Mrs. -Compton, who was feeling unjustifiably irritable, thought he was quite -the ugliest man she had ever set eyes on. - -"No--to tell you the truth, I was too dead to notice. I just tottered -in. What's happened? The old place looks as though it had had its face -washed. Who are you expecting?" - -"Ever heard of Sigrid Fersen?" - -Tristram returned rather suddenly to the contemplation of the mysterious -contents of his helmet. - -"Yes--on my last leave home. I saw her dance the night before I -sailed." - -"Well, she's coming here--world tour or something. The Rajah invited her -to Gaya, and Armstrong gave us a hint to do the hospitable. Mary is all -on the _qui vive_, hoping she'll do the high kick at a Vice-Regal -function or something." - -Tristram made no answer, and his silence was at once irritating and -final. He seemed scarcely to have heard. Mrs. Compton, watching his -profile with dark, exasperated eyes, suddenly softened. - -"You _do_ look fagged!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Has it been a bad -time, Hermit?" - -He looked up at her. - -"Pretty bad. I haven't seen a white face for two months or slept in the -same quarters for two nights running. There's any amount of trouble -brewing out there in the villages. It's the drought--and the poor -beggars can't get the hang of our notions. Anything might develop. I'm -going back to Heerut tonight. I came along only to get fresh medical -supplies. I left Ayeshi at the last village. He's a gem." - -Meredith, who had been standing by the verandah railings, drew himself -up, his swarthy face was brightened by his eyes, which were alight with -a grave, sincere fervour. - -"Yes, Ayeshi's unusual," he said. "He's different from the rest. I've -often noticed him. I wish we could get hold of him, Tristram." - -"Get hold of him?" - -"Give him a chance. You know what I mean. It's that type of man we -want. He ought to be encouraged to go ahead." - -"Ayeshi's all right," Tristram remarked slowly. "He's happy. And he's -a sort of poet, you know. I'd leave him alone, if I were you." - -Meredith laughed good-temperedly. - -"It's not my business to leave people alone," he said. - -There was a silence which unaccountably threatened to become strained. -Mrs. Compton, wearied by her struggles with refractory curtains, drew a -chair up to the steps of the verandah and sat down, ruffling her -husband's sleek hair with an absent-minded affection. He bore the -affliction patiently, his lazy blue eyes intent on the approach of a -neat, slow-going dog-cart which had turned the bend of the high-road. - -"It's the Boucicaults' turn-out," he said. "And little Anne driving -herself, too, by Jove! I wonder what she wants round here?" - -"Whatever it is, she must want it pretty badly," his wife remarked. -"She hates driving--if the truth were told, I believe that pony -terrifies her out of her life. Poor little soul!" - -"No nerve," Compton agreed. "Broken long ago." - -Meanwhile, with a lightness and agility that was unexpected in a man of -his short, heavy build, Owen Meredith had swung himself over the -verandah rails and walked down to meet the new-comer. The trio on the -steps watched him in silence. Then Compton chuckled rather mirthlessly. -"She'd make a first-rate parson's wife," he said. "If only----" then he -broke off and became suddenly business-like and astonishingly keen. -"Tristram--stop fidgeting with that damned helmet of yours. I know -you're dog-tired, old chap, but I want you to go round to the -Boucicaults before you return to the wilds." - -Tristram looked up. The tiredness had gone out of his face. - -"Anything wrong--I mean, worse than usual?" - -Compton threw his half-finished cigarette at Wickie. - -"You don't know what it's been like these last two months. The man's -mad, Tristram, or he's possessed of the devil. The whole regiment is -suffering from c.b. and extra drill and stopped leave--for -nothing--nothing. I oughtn't to talk about it, I suppose, but -something's got to be done. The men are getting nervy and out of hand, -and no wonder. There are moments when I feel ready to lash out myself." - -"Can't something be done? Can't you get rid of him?" - -Compton laughed shortly. - -"You know what happens to men who complain of their superior officers. -Besides, he's so devilishly efficient, and everything he does is done in -cold blood. It's drink, of course, but it doesn't make him lose his -head. It makes him deadly, hideously quiet. And it's not only the -regiment, Tristram--there's his wife. We hardly ever see her--and when -we do--well, they say----" - -Mrs. Compton clenched her small brown fist and thumped her husband's -shoulder in a burst of indignation. - -"They say he beats her," she said between clenched teeth. - -Tristram got up as though he had been stung. - -"That's--that's damnable!" he stuttered. - -"That's just the word," Mrs. Compton acknowledged gratefully. She -looked up at him and admitted to herself that, after all, he pleased her -profoundly. At that moment he was not ugly in her eyes. In one way, -she recognized him to be magnificent. She knew no other man with such -shoulders or who carried his height and strength with so natural a -grace. But now even his face pleased her, red-bearded and unlovely -though it was. In her quick, Celtic way, she imagined a sculptor who, -in an inspired mood, had modelled a masterpiece, incomplete, rough-hewn, -yet vigorous with life and significance. She liked his blue eyes, which -usually looked out on the world with a whimsical simplicity and now -flared up, dangerously bright. "Positively," said Mrs. Compton, "there -are moments when I love you, Hermit." - -Archibald Compton grimaced and pulled himself to his feet. - -"Anyhow, after that brazen-faced declaration you might help us," he -said. "You're a doctor. It's your business to interfere. Couldn't you -drop a hint at headquarters--suggest long leave or something? -Do--there's a good fellow----" - -Tristram had no opportunity to reply, for Anne Boucicault her companion -were now within earshot. Meredith walked at the wheel of her cart and -was talking gaily, his face lifted to hers, and, freed for the moment -from its habitual expression of fervid purpose, was almost boyish. She -smiled down at him, and then, glancing up at the group at the verandah, -the smile faded and she jerked the reins of her pony so that the animal -came to an abrupt stand-still. - -"Major Tristram!" she exclaimed. "Why, I didn't know you were back--I -thought----" She broke off, flushing to the brows. Her incoherency and -that quick change of colour added to her rather touching sweetness. She -was not pretty. Neither the dainty white frock nor the shady hat could -help her to more than youth. But her youth was vivid and gracious. -There was something, too, in her expression, in the look of the brown -eyes, that had all the appeal, the wistfulness of an anxious, frightened -child. There was nothing mature about her save her mouth, which was -firm, even obstinate. - -Major Tristram came to her and gave her his big hand. - -"I'm back for only a few hours," he explained, "and then my victims have -me again. But it's good to catch a glimpse of anything so fresh as -yourself. Isn't the sun ever going to wither you like other mortals?" - -The smile dawned shyly about the corners of her lips. - -"I don't know. I keep out of it as much as possible. I don't like it. -I only came out this afternoon because----" She hesitated and then -added rather breathlessly: "I knew Mrs. Compton was here--and I'm -anxious about mother." - -Mary Compton laid an impulsive brown hand on the white one which held -the reins in its frail, ineffectual fingers. - -"Well, here we all are, anyhow," she said, "and just dying to be useful. -What's the trouble, dear?" - -"Mother is ill," Anne Boucicault answered, with the same curious -hesitancy. "I was frightened. Major Tristram, if only you could -come----" - -He did not wait for her to finish her appeal. He scrambled up on to the -seat beside her, and took the reins from her hands. - -"You look after Arabella and Wickie, Compton," he said, "and hand me up -my helmet. No--not like that--for goodness' sake, be careful, man! -Thanks, that's better." - -"And I hope you're going to wear it," Mrs. Compton remarked, with -asperity. "I suppose you don't want to arrive with a sunstroke or give -Mrs. Boucicault a fit with that awful handkerchief?" - -Tristram shook his head. - -"Sorry, can't be done. It's occupied already. A patient of mine." He -put his battered headgear between his knees and poked gingerly about the -depths, producing, finally, amidst a confusion of straw and grass, a -tiny bulbul. The little creature fluttered desperately, and then, as -though there were something miraculous in the man's hand, lay still, a -soft, bright-eyed ball of colour, and stared around it with an audacious -contentment. - -"Its wing's hurt," Tristram explained. "Wickie bit it. In point of -fact, Wickie and I aren't on speaking terms as a result. It's a subject -we shall never agree upon." He soothed the little creature's ruffled -plumage with a tender forefinger, and held it out for Anne Boucicault's -inspection. She peered at it curiously and rather coldly. - -"It's very sweet," she said, "but wouldn't it be kinder to put it out of -its misery?" - -"Rather not. Besides"--his eyes twinkled in Meredith's direction--"it's -not my business to put people out of their misery. And I'd rather keep -this little chap alive than some men I know of. He's one of creation's -top-notes. He's a poem all to himself. He wants to live and he's a -right to live, and he's going to. His wing'll mend. I've mended dozens. -It's an instinct--mending. I've got a baby cheetah with a broken paw at -my diggins----" - -Compton laughed hilariously at his wife's grim disapproval. - -"I don't believe you could drown a kitten," she said. - -"Why on earth should I want to drown a kitten?" He put his _protege_ -tenderly back in its impromptu nest. "I brought two tabbies from -England, and there are a lot more now. The whole village looks after -them. They believe they're a specially imported sort of devil, and take -every opportunity to propitiate them with edible offerings. It's -great!" - -Mrs. Compton looked helpless. - -"You beware of that man, Anne," she said. "He's probably got a -dyspeptic rattlesnake in one of his pockets. As to you, Tristram -Tristram, I warn you that sooner or later you will get into serious -trouble. You're a sentimentalist. There--go along. And, meanwhile, -I'll let Arabella eat the grass tidy, and that so-called dog shall have -a bone. Good luck to you!" - -"I'm awfully obliged," he said solemnly. "Not a chicken bone, please. -They stick in his throat." - -"If I followed my conscience, I should give him poison," Mrs. Compton -retorted, with her brows knitted over laughing eyes. - -She had, however, no opportunity to carry out her threat. As the -dog-cart turned out of the compound gates the disgruntled Wickie, who -had been lying afar off, panting and disgraced, picked himself up, and, -uttering a hoarse wail of indignation and despair, took to his bandy -legs and rolled after the disappearing vehicle in a miniature storm of -dust. - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - *TRISTRAM BECOMES FATHER-CONFESSOR* - - -So long as the gleaming, unsheltered roadway lasted, Tristram remained -silent. His eyes were swollen with fatigue, and the sun blinded him. -Through a silver shimmer of heat, he could see the undulating plain, -yellow with the harvest, and his knowledge saw beyond that to the river -and the rising jungle land, and the scattered hapless villages where his -enemy awaited him. Cool and beautiful, Gaya lay above them, circling -the hillside, the white walls of the bungalows sparkling amidst the dark -green of the trees like the gems of a diadem. Tristram and his -companion watched it thirstily. As they trotted at last into an avenue -of flowering Mohwa trees, he drew rein and glanced down at the girl -beside him. She was sitting very straight as though in defiance of the -heat, her hands folded in front of her, her lips sternly composed. The -youthful tears were not far off, yet, through a transient break in the -future, he saw her as she would be years hence. And somehow the vision -amused and touched him. It was as though the phenomenon reversed -itself, and a stern-featured, middle-aged woman had grown young before -his eyes. - -"You mustn't worry," he said gently. "I don't suppose it's anything -serious. Tell me about it. I don't want to worry her with questions." - -"It won't worry her." He saw how her hands trembled as she clasped them -and unclasped them. "She wants to talk--it's terrible--that's why I was -so anxious--I had to find some one who would listen--and--and soothe -her. I really came for Mr. Meredith. She doesn't like him, I'm afraid, -poor mother, but that's because she doesn't understand. He's so awfully -good." - -"He's a fine fellow," Tristram agreed. - -"And I thought he might help her," she went on, earnestly,--"might give -her strength. Trouble overwhelms her. She resents it. And she has -nothing to fall back on--nothing to console her." - -Tristram did not answer immediately. They were going uphill, and he -gave the pony his head, letting him manage the ascent after his own -fashion. - -"It takes a lot to console a man when his machinery's out of order," he -said at last. "And one somehow does resent it. And then, I must say, -if I had the toothache, I shouldn't want Mr. Meredith." - -She gave a little nervous, unamused laugh. - -"You know quite well what I mean, Major Tristram." - -"Yes, I do. And I'm wondering if, after all, Meredith isn't the man you -want. He and I both concentrate on humanity, but we do it from -different points of view. I'm the man who looks after the house and sees -that it's hygienic and watertight and all that. Meredith puts in the -furniture and the electric fittings and keeps them polished." - -He glanced whimsically at her puzzled face. "I mean just that the soul -isn't my business," he added. - -She raised eager, trusting eyes to his. - -"I think it is, Major Tristram, I'm sure it is." - -"Well, to tell you the truth, I think so too. I believe that the soul -is the body and the body is the soul, and that one can't be healthy or -unhealthy without affecting the other. But that's heresy, isn't it?" - -A waxen, beautiful blossom from an overhanging mango-tree fell into her -lap. Mechanically she picked it up and tore it with her restless -fingers. - -"It's not what we are taught to believe," she answered. - -"No. You see, I'm a Pagan, Miss Boucicault. It's hereditary. My old -mother--she's nearly eighty--she still totters up on to the mountain -tops to say her prayers. As for me--" he gave a contented chuckle--"you -hear that little chap chirping inside my helmet? Well, he's my -consolation for every ache and sorrow I ever had--he and his like, and -the trees and the stars and the flowers--even that mango blossom you're -tearing up. To me they're just so many parts of God." - -"Oh!----" She looked at the tattered flower in her lap and brushed it -aside as though it suddenly frightened her. "I don't think that can be -right. I'm sure you're not a Pagan, anyhow, Major. You couldn't -be--and do the things you do." - -They came out of the belt of shadow into the broad sunlight, and the -blinding change covered his silence. A company of native infantry came -up from a cross-road and swung past them amidst a cloud of slow-rising -dust. The officers saluted Tristram. For an instant they seemed to -throw off their weary dejection and to become almost gay. But the men -did not lift their eyes. Their beards were white with dust and their -faces set and sullen. They passed on, the beat of their feet sounding -muffled and heavy on the palpitating quiet. - -"They look pretty bad," Tristram commented. - -"I'm frightened of them," she returned quickly. "Some of them mutinied -last week, and father was nearly shot. I wake up every night and fancy I -hear them firing on us." - -"They belong to a regiment that stuck to us through thick and thin in -1857," he answered. "It's not like them to turn against us." - -Her lips tightened. - -"You can't trust any of them," she said. - -By this time they had reached the first large bungalow of the European -quarter. It was at once a sombre, pretentious building, evidently newly -done up, and as they passed, a man on horseback turned out of the -compound. Seeing Anne Boucicault, he saluted at once with a faintly -exaggerated courtesy. The exaggeration matched the ultra-smartness of -his English riding-clothes and the un-English flashiness of his good -looks. Anne Boucicault returned the salutation stiffly, not meeting his -direct glance, which passed on with an unveiled curiosity to Tristram. -The latter urged the pony to a smarter trot as though something had -irritated him. - -"That's a stranger, anyhow," he said. "Two months brings changes even -to Gaya. I thought that place was deserted and haunted for all time." - -"Mr. Barclay has it now," she answered. "He came six weeks ago. I -believe he trades with the native weavers or something. He's very -rich." - -"He doesn't look like an Englishman." - -"He's not--not really. An Eurasian. His mother was a native, and his -father----" She broke off. "He makes it a sort of half mystery. He -just hints at things--I don't believe he knows himself. Anyhow, we hate -him and try to avoid him. It's awfully awkward." - -"I seemed to know his face," Tristram said, half to himself. He heard -her sigh, and the sigh roused him from his tired search after an elusive -memory. "He doesn't bother you, does he?" he asked. - -She shook her head, but he saw her lips tremble with a new agitation. - -"Not exactly--only it's all going to be so different. We were like a big -family, weren't we, Major Tristram--all friends, all of the same set, -and now this man has come, and then--you've heard, haven't you--about -this woman, this dancer----" - -"Mlle. Fersen, you mean?" - -"That's what she calls herself." There was a chilly displeasure in her -tone, which made her seem suddenly much older. "What does she want -here? Why does she come? She can't have anything in common with us. -She may even be a foreigner--vulgar and horrid----" - -"I don't think she's like that," he interposed. - -She flashed round on him. - -"You know her, then?" - -"I've seen her--just once," he answered, slowly. - -"Is she----" She seemed to struggle with the question. "Is she very -beautiful, Major Tristram?" - -"No--I think not--not at all." - -"That's worse then." And then quickly, passionately: "Oh, I wish she -wasn't coming! I don't know why the very thought of her frightens me. -It's as though I knew she was going to bring trouble--a sort of -presentiment----" - -"You're tired and anxious," he interrupted, and smiled down at her. -"Nothing will happen--or perhaps I'm sanguine because I shan't be there -to witness the upheaval." - -"You're going into camp again?" - -"Tonight." - -"For long?" - -"Until I've got things straight." - -He happened to see her hands, and how they were tightly interlocked as -though she were holding herself back. But her voice was quiet enough. - -"Will you go on like that always, Major Tristram?" - -"Until they push me on to the rubbish heap," he answered lightly. - -"It must be very, very lonely." - -He plunged his hand into his side-pocket and drew out a big bundle of -letters. His blue eyes twinkled. - -"You'd better not waste sympathy on me, Miss Boucicault. Look at these. -I picked them up at the station--two by every mail. What do you think -of that? And all from one woman!" - -"A woman?" she echoed, stupidly. - -"My old mother." He laughed with a boyish satisfaction. "We're the -greatest pals on earth, she and I. A man couldn't be lonely with her in -the background. We've got each other to live for." - -"But she's in England. How she must miss you!" - -He put the letters slowly back in his pocket. - -"Yes. It's like a chronic pain. It hurts, but it weaves itself into -the pattern of one's life. My mother's like that. My father was out -here too, and they were often separated. She accepts it as inevitable." - -"But you--your loneliness must be worse, out there in the wilderness." - -"It's not a wilderness, it's peopled with all kinds of things--all kinds -of"---- He caught himself up. "And I have friends in all the villages, -and my animals and my work." - -"I know your work is wonderful--the noblest work in the world." She -spoke with a grave, youthful wisdom. "But the loneliness must remain -all the same, Major Tristram." - -He was silent for a moment, and then shook himself as though freeing -himself from a burden. - -"It can't be helped," he said. "No one can share it with me." - -"Many people would be proud and glad to share it," she answered. She -held her head high, and there was a fervent simplicity in her low voice -which raised the impulsive words above suspicion. He turned to her with -warm eyes. - -"Thank you," he said. "I don't think it's true, and I shan't ever put -it to the test--but it's good hearing." - -He turned the pony neatly into the gates of the Boucicaults' bungalow -and drove up the shady avenue to the porch. A syce ran out to meet them -and caught the reins, and a minute later Anne Boucicault had been lifted -gently to the ground. "And we've chattered so much," Tristram remarked -shamefacedly, "that I don't even know your mother's symptoms." - -She made no answer, indeed did not seem to have heard him. She had lost -all her vigour, all her faintly self-opinionated eagerness. As they -stood together in the entrance hall she seemed just cowed and broken, a -white, frightened little ghost. - -"My mother's in here," she said, scarcely above a whisper. She held the -door open for him, and he went past her into a room so carefully -darkened that for a moment he hesitated blindly on the threshold. Then -a sound guided him. It was the sound of some one crying. Not -passionately, not desperately, but with a terrible monotony. Then one -salient feature detached itself from the shadows--a wicker chair drawn -up by the curtained window, and beside it, huddled together, with her -face buried in her arms, the figure of a woman. She wore some loose, -dark-coloured garment, and was so small and still that she would have -seemed scarcely living, but for the jerking sobs. Tristram checked the -girl's anxious movement and went forward alone. He knelt down by the -piteous heap and put his hand on her arm, and remained thus for a full -minute. He did not speak to her, and she seemed unconscious of his -presence. The sobbing went on unbrokenly. Then he picked her up -quietly and effortlessly, and placed her in the chair, dexterously -slipping a silk cushion behind her head. - -"Mrs. Boucicault!" She did not answer. Her eyes were closed. Her -small, white face under the mop of fair hair, fast turning grey, was -puckered like a child's. Her little hands gripped the arms of her -chair. From her place near the door, Anne watched with a frightened -wonder. "Mrs. Boucicault!" Tristram repeated quietly. Her eyes opened -then. They were tearless and very bright. She stared straight ahead, -her under-lip between her white teeth, and began to rock herself -backwards and forwards. She was still sobbing. Tristram knelt again and -took one of her hands and held it between his own. She looked down -then--first at her hand, as though it puzzled her, and then at him. -Suddenly, violently, she freed herself and tore open the heavily -embroidered kimono. Her shoulders were bare. On the right shoulder was -a black swollen stain bigger than a man's hand. - -"Look!" she said. - -Anne Boucicault caught her breath with a vague, vicarious shame. She -saw that Tristram had moved very slightly. His square jaws looked ugly -against the dim light of the window. - -"Get hot water and bandages," he commanded. "Linen will do--and -ointment--anything greasy." As she slipped from the room he drew the -kimono gently over the poor lacerated shoulder. "You've had a nasty -accident, Mrs. Boucicault," he said, levelly. - -"It was no accident." Her sobs had stopped. Her voice sounded like the -rasp of steel against steel. "_He_ did it--my husband. It's not the -first time, Major Tristram. It won't be the last. He'll kill me--and -he'll kill her." She nodded towards the door. The words poured from -her as though released from a long restraint, but she was coldly, -violently coherent. "Yes--he'll kill her--slowly, by inches. He'll -break her. She'll go under fast. She's not like me--I'm wiry--she's -hard, but she'll snap. For all her prayers and her church and her God, -she'll go under." Something contemptuous and angry crept into her face. -"Anne's cowed already. And it's not only us. His men--they tried to -shoot him. Did you hear?" - -He nodded. - -"Yes." - -Her eyes blazed. - -"Oh, I wish to God they'd done it!" she burst out, from between clenched -teeth. "Oh, why didn't they? He's goaded them enough. One of these -days they'll murder us all for his sake. He's a devil. He's made life -a hell. He likes to make suffering. He likes to see us wince. Oh, if -he were only dead!" Suddenly the tense mask of hatred broke up into -piteous lines of helpless misery. Two great tears rolled unheeded down -her white cheeks. "Anne talked about bearing our cross, and prayer, and -God's will," she went on chokingly. "But I want to be happy, Major -Tristram, I want to be happy." - -"You have an absolute right to happiness," he answered. "You've got to -be happy, Mrs. Boucicault. I'm going to see to it." - -She dropped back wearily among her cushions. Her grey eyes, now pale -and faded-looking, rested on his face with a childish questioning. - -"You talk as though--as though you could." - -"Well, I can do something--I promise you. Close your eyes." - -She closed them at once, and he took his handkerchief and brushed the -tears from her cheeks. Then he resumed his kneeling position, her hand -in his, soothing it much as he had soothed the frightened, broken-winged -bird. Once she sighed deeply, as if released from some stifling weight, -and thereafter her breathing sounded quiet and regular. By the time Anne -Boucicault returned, her mother had dropped into a heavy sleep. - -Major Tristram got up noiselessly, and motioned the girl to follow him. -His movements were curiously light and noiseless, and brought no shadow -of change on the sleeper's face. - -"It's better that she should sleep," he said quietly. "I shall come in -again tonight before I leave. I doubt if she wakes before then." - -They went out together. On the mat the ubiquitous Wickie lay extended -in a state of dusty misery. He rolled over as Tristram appeared, -displaying much humility and a blood-stained paw. Tristram picked him -up and hugged him. "You're not a dog--you're an ass, Wickie," he -declared. "And I'll wager you consider yourself a martyr into the -bargain, you assassin of innocent bulbuls. What do you suppose I'm -going to do with you--carry you, I suppose?" He turned a wry, laughing -face to his companion. - -"Well, I'll be off now, anyhow," he said. "You'll see me tonight. -Good-bye till then--and don't worry her or yourself." - -She took his extended hand. - -"Thank you. I thought it would be so terrible--for any one to know how -things are with us. I haven't minded you a bit." - -"I'm awfully glad." - -He took up his impromptu bird's-nest from its place of safety in an -empty fern-pot. The contents chirped defiance and terror, and Tristram -looked up smiling. He saw then that Anne Boucicault's eyes were fixed -on something beyond him, and that they were wide and stupid-looking with -dread. He turned. A man stood in the sunlit verandah. Against the -golden background he bulked huge and threatening, his features and -whatever expression they bore blotted out by shadow. The switch which -he carried beat an irritable tattoo against his riding-boots. - -Tristram nodded a greeting. - -"Good evening, Colonel." - -"Good evening, Major." He bowed satirically and crossed the threshold. -"This is a pleasant surprise. I understood you were out camping." - -"I have been for the last two months. I am off again tonight." - -"Then my daughter and I are indeed fortunate to catch this glimpse of -you." He came farther into the shade, half turning to fling his helmet -and whip on to a table. The light fell on his profile, revealing the -livid skin, the brutal line of the jaw. "To what are we indebted, -Major?" - -"I came professionally," Tristram answered. - -"On Anne's behalf, I suppose?" - -"No, for Mrs. Boucicault." He scrutinized the elder man deliberately. -"Perhaps I could do something for you, Colonel. You're not looking -well. You ought to take a year's leave." - -Colonel Boucicault allowed a moment to elapse before he answered. He -had the tensely vicious look of a hard drinker who is never drunk, and -whose jangling nerves are always writhing under restraint. Finally, he -seemed to take a stronger hold over himself. He laughed out, shortly. - -"Thanks, I'm very well. I'll last the regiment another year or two--to -its infinite satisfaction, no doubt. As to Mrs. Boucicault, your visit -was kind but unnecessary. There's nothing wrong in that quarter but -feminine hysteria." - -"I don't think so," Tristram returned. He had coloured slowly to the -roots of his ruddy hair, but his voice was even quieter. "I take a -serious view of the case. I have ordered Mrs. Boucicault an immediate -return to England." - -There was another break. The two men eyed each other squarely. - -"That is an absurd proposition which I cannot sanction," Boucicault said -in the same tone of violent self-restraint. - -"I'm afraid you'll have to, Colonel." - -The antagonism, whose note had sounded even in their greeting of each -other, now rang out clearly. Boucicault's big hands twitched at his -sides. - -"Surely, Major, that is scarcely fitting language----" he began. - -"I don't care a damn for what's fitting," Tristram broke in. "Mrs. -Boucicault's going to England with Anne. If she doesn't, I'll have you -hounded out of the army even if I get hounded out myself in the doing of -it. That's my bargain." - -"By God, Major----" Boucicault took a step nearer. - -By reason of his heavy build, he seemed to tower over the younger man. -His eyes were bloodshot in their inflamed rims; his whole body quivered. -"You'd better get out of here," he stammered thickly. "And take my -advice--keep clear of this place--keep out of my way." - -"Thanks." Tristram tucked Wickie more securely under one arm. "I'll be -round this evening," he added. - -He ignored the threatening gesture, and went leisurely down the steps -and along the drive. At the gates he stopped, drawing his breath with a -quick, deep relief. - -Across the roadway, the stems of the trees stood out black and straight -as the pillars of a great temple, whose red-gold lamp had been lowered -from the dome and now sank swiftly into an extinguishing pool of shadow. -A breeze rustled coolly overhead, brushing away the sweet, heavy incense -of many flowers and bringing the first warning of nightfall. A belated -finch fluttered amidst the dense foliage, and then all was still again. - -Tristram remained motionless, apparently plunged in his own thoughts, -for he started when a hand touched his arm and turned almost angrily. -Anne Boucicault stood beside him. She was breathless, her lips were -parted, and the wind had blown the dark, curly hair from her white -forehead, adding impulse and eagerness to her staid girlishness. - -"I had to come," she panted, "to--to thank you. And then--you mustn't -keep your promise. You mustn't come--it isn't safe----" - -He shook his head. His eyes, after the first glance, had gone back to -the fading light. - -"I shouldn't hurt your father," he said, gravely. - -"But you----!" she exclaimed. "No one knows what he might do to you." - -"I don't think that matters," he returned, still in the same rather -absent tone. "Anyway, if he's mad, he's not a fool. You mustn't -worry." - -She lingered. Her hand rested tremblingly on his arm. - -"And I want to thank you, Major Tristram. You've helped poor -mother--and I was so proud. No one's ever faced him like that. I -wish----" She faltered. "If we could only do something for you----" - -He was silent for a moment, then, as though her words only reached him -gradually, he turned with a quick smile. - -"You can. Take Wickie in as a boarder, will you? He's lame, and my -hands are full already. I couldn't take him with me. Ayeshi could -fetch him in a week or two. Would you mind?" - -"I'd love to have him." She took the unwieldy, protesting mongrel, and -held him rather clumsily in her arms. "And your little bird?" she asked. - -"No, he'll want special medical treatment. Thanks awfully, all the -same." He bent and patted Wickie's black snout with an apologetic -gentleness. "Don't fret your heart out, old chap. It's your own -fault--and Ayeshi shall come for you, upon my honour he shall." - -"I'll take care of him," Anne said. - -"I know you will." - -"Good-bye, Major Tristram." The sunlight was in her eyes, and they were -very bright. The colour in her cheeks deepened. "And God bless you," -she added, timidly but very seriously. - -He smiled down at her. - -"And you and Wickie and everybody," he said. "I'm sure He does." - -He strode off, and at the bend of the road turned and waved. - -But long after he had disappeared, she stood there gazing into the dusk, -the unhappy Wickie pressed tightly against her breast. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - *THE INTERLOPERS* - - -Rajah Rasaldu was wonderfully, if not impressively, European. He wore a -frock-coat and grey trousers, English in intention, French in execution. -They were almost too perfect. The native, brightly hued turban, an -unwilling concession, as he admitted, to local prejudice, came as a -rather startling finale, though it suited him better than his -Europeanism. He was a short, unmuscular little man, built in circles -rather than in straight lines, and a determined course of Parisian -good-living had added seriously to a natural tendency to embonpoint. -His manner, even in sitting still, was restless and fussy. He had, in -fact, neither the inscrutable dignity of the native nor the self-assured -ease of the race he aped. - -"When I look at you, Mademoiselle," he was saying, earnestly, "I forget -that I am in this dreadful country, and I imagine myself back to London. -I see myself in the darkened box, and you in all the brightness. I hear -the music and the roar of applause. I feel at home--almost happy." He -stared down at his round, soft hands as though he were rather pleased -with their severe lack of adornment, and sighed. The woman he addressed -did not look at him. She was watching the little groups of white-clad -figures dotted about the garden, with her head turned slightly away from -him. Next her, Mary Compton and the Judge's wife were talking with the -lazy earnestness engendered by tea and the cool shade of a flowering -mango. - -"But this is your country," Sigrid Fersen said. "You are surely -happiest here." - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -"I was born here. The Government has put me in a position of trust, and -it is my duty to be at my post from time to time. But my heart is with -you--with the West and Western civilization. And of all that, -Mademoiselle, you are the personification." - -She laughed a little, as though secretly amused. - -"Tell me your impressions of Paris, Rajah," she said. - -He told her. From time to time his brown, dissipated eyes shot -irritable glances at the figure seated immediately behind his hostess. -It was perhaps a somewhat startling figure, and though Gaya approved of -companions and chaperons, and had indeed heaved a sigh of relief over -Mrs. Smithers's existence, it had none the less been considerably -startled by her personality. She was well past middle age, and, in -spite of the considerable heat, was dressed severely in black grenadine, -and wore a mob-cap on a remarkably fine head of white hair, which she -occasionally patted with a nervous hand. If it is true all human beings -bear a resemblance to some animal, then Mrs. Smithers might easily have -been associated with a bull-dog of exceedingly determined character. -Her face was settled in wrinkles of challenging tenacity, but she never -moved and never changed her expression. She sat there, bolt upright, -and only her roving eyes betrayed the fact that she was alive. They -expressed also the bitterest and most annihilating disapproval of -everything existent. - -Mrs. Compton accepted her third cup of tea from an engagingly youthful -subaltern and went on talking. - -"Of course he's mad," she was saying. "He hates Tristram worse than any -one living, which is saying a lot. They had an awful row over Mrs. -Boucicault just before Tristram went away, and now Boucicault is taking -his turn. He refuses to forward Tristram's appeal for help--says the -whole thing's a scare, and that Tristram is simply fussing for his own -glorification. But it isn't true. Ayeshi came to my husband last night -and told him. It's cholera--oh, my dear Susan, don't jump like that! -Heerut's fifteen miles away, and we've the river between us, and Gaya's -healthy when everything else is riddled. Besides, Tristram has got the -thing in hand. He hasn't slept for four days. Ayeshi said he didn't -look human. Some of the natives went crazy with fright and got out of -hand. But Tristram managed them--single-handed, my dear, and with not -so much as a revolver. Ayeshi talked about him as though he were the -tenth Avatar, or whatever they call it. Of course, he'll do that sort -of thing once too often. _C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la -guerre_. But I love that man. I tell Archie once a day at least, and -he's getting quite tired about it----" - -"Of whom are you talking, Mrs. Compton?" - -Mrs. Compton started, and the Rajah, who had been expatiating on French -genius as revealed in the _Bal du Moulin Rouge_, went on for a minute, -carried forward by his own momentum. Then he stopped and dropped into a -silence, which would have been sulky in any one less anxious to appear -civilized. As for Mrs. Compton, the question had come with such -self-assured, if quiet authority, that she felt certain that, as a woman -on her own ground, she ought to take offence. In fact, all Gaya, as -represented in the old dak-bungalow's garden, was in much the same -position. Without performing the high kick at the club dinner or -otherwise living up to the conventional reputation of her class, the -newcomer had sailed serenely across all their unwritten laws, and not -only had Gaya not been outraged, but it had been secretly delighted. -And it was ashamed of itself for being delighted. Mrs. Compton was -ashamed of herself--ashamed that she, the untamable spirit of the -station who had insulted Colonel Boucicault to his face should sit there -and meet this woman with a smile of propitiating amiability. - -"Major Tristram," she said. "He belongs to the Medical Service. You -haven't met him yet, and I don't suppose any of us will see him for some -time. He's fighting the cholera in one of the native villages." - -Sigrid Fersen nodded thoughtfully. Then she got up. - -"I heard you say just now that you were interested in old china," she -said, abruptly. "I have a piece in the drawing-room which I should like -you to see. Will you come?" - -"I should be delighted----" - -"Your guests, Mademoiselle," Rasaldu murmured. But his protest passed -unheeded, and Mrs. Compton got up and left the Judge's wife without a -word of apology. Mrs. Smithers had risen with equal promptitude and -brought up the rear. - -They crossed the garden to the bungalow, and the little parties grouped -lazily in the vicinity of the tea-tables became silent, and remained -silent until Sigrid Fersen had disappeared. Then they went on talking. -Very few of them realized that they had ever stopped, much less that -they had been staring with the naive directness of children. They -certainly made no comment. Only Jim Radcliffe, the newly joined -subaltern, who had the inexhaustible restlessness of a fox-terrier -puppy, became quiet to the point of thoughtfulness. - -"By Jove, did you see her walk?" he said to Mrs. Brabazone. But the -latter made no reply, being in a state of dudgeon and not inclined to -appreciation. - -Meantime, Mary Compton had become aware of a profound and very -mysterious change in her own psychology. As she crossed the threshold of -the darkened drawing-room she perceived that every earnest, painstaking -effort of hers to make the place habitable and presentable had suffered -a ruthless upheaval. The hours of patient questioning which she had -spent on the to-be or not-to-be of the curtain bows had been so many -hours wasted. Yet her fiery Celtic susceptibilities remained unruffled. -She admitted at once that the changes were improvements,--small but -effective strokes of genius. Moreover, various new items had been -introduced--a piano procured from heaven alone knew where, a few rich -embroideries, a vase or two, and a pale-tinted Persian rug. She was -busy cataloguing these items, when her quick eyes encountered Mrs. -Smithers. Mrs. Smithers had seated herself promptly on the chair nearest -the door, and assumed her former attitude of unbending severity and -disapproval. Her appearance somehow made a further reduction in Mrs. -Compton's forces of self-assurance, and when her hostess, who had been -busy with the contents of a carved chest, came back to her, she was -overpowered by an unusual sense of almost fatuous helplessness. -Whatever this small woman meant to do, she would do. And therewith the -fate of Gaya seemed sealed. - -"There--you recognize it, of course." - -Mrs. Compton forgot Gaya and her own lost prestige. In the ten years of -her married life, there was one passion for which she and the -easy-going, hard-working Archie had scraped and saved. It was a passion -which was one day to find a fitting background in some English home, a -place created almost daily afresh in their minds but always with the -abiding features of spacious lawns and an orchard and stables, and -within doors oak cupboards guarding the treasures of the hard years. -But with all their savings and searchings, they had never possessed -anything like this. - -"It's Sevres--of course--how beautiful! I'm almost afraid to touch it." - -"Don't be. It's yours." - -"Mine!" Mary Compton gasped--whether audibly or not, she did not know. -She felt that there was fresh cause for offence coming and that she had -no adequate forces with which to meet it. "But, of course not----" - -"I bought it for you." - -Mrs. Compton nearly regained her usual briskness. - -"That's nonsense. We haven't known each other a week. And you must -have bought that in Europe." - -"Yes--I did, years ago. But I bought it for you, all the same. I -bought it for some one who would look at it and touch it as you did. -And besides, I want you to have something of mine--I am selfish enough -to wish to be remembered by those who have been kind to me--as you have -been. It was the Rajah's invitation which brought me to Gaya, but only -a woman could have welcomed me. Any one in my position makes enemies -automatically, and without you I should have had to face a whole army of -prejudices. But you paved the way--you made it possible to invite all -these people without offending them--and this in spite of the fact that -you thought you were probably introducing a firebrand." She laughed in -her curious, reflective way. "And then it was your hands prepared this -beautiful home for me," she added. - -Mrs. Compton crimsoned and swallowed the delicate morsel of brazen -flattery with a ridiculous pleasure. She made a last effort, however, -to retire to her first position of friendly reserve. - -"Of course, we did what we could," she said. "Gaya is rather proud of -its hospitality. We wanted you to take back a good impression, -Mademoiselle----" - -A quick gesture interrupted her. - -"I'm not 'mademoiselle.' I'm English. My mother was a Swede, and I -took her maiden name because--there never has been a great English -dancer, and in England what hasn't been can't be. It's just one of the -Rajah's foibles to give everything a Gallic touch. But I'm just Miss -Fersen--or Sigrid if you like." - -The Celtic temperament works both ways. The only certain feature is its -uncertainty. Mrs. Compton abandoned her offensive-defensive and with -great dexterity managed to cling to the Sevres vase and kiss the giver -on both cheeks without disaster. - -"I'd like it to be Sigrid," she said warmly. "And my name's Mary--and -I'm going to take the Sevres because I want it badly, and because I like -you and I shan't mind feeling horribly grateful. And I hope you'll make -me your master of ceremonies, and our bungalow your headquarters. You -will, won't you?" - -She thrilled under the touch of the cool, small hand on hers. - -"Yes, I promise you. It's what I wanted. I shall need a friend. A -great many people will hate me--men and women. I have seen it in the -eyes of one woman already. And, besides that I want to get to know real -human beings. All my life I have lived for and in the one thing. -People have been shadows to me. Now I need them. But they must be -real--good, honest flesh and blood. Not puppets." She sat down on the -big divan drawn up against the wall and patted the seat beside her. -"Tell me about this Major Tristram," she said. - -And Mrs. Compton, whose rules of etiquette were Gaya's social law, sat -down and for half an hour talked about Major Tristram, whilst Sigrid -Fersen's guests wandered unshepherded about her garden. - -At the end of the half-hour Mrs. Compton found her husband near the -gates, disconsolate and alone, guarding the rather shabby little -turn-out which they called a dog-cart. He was in uniform, and had -evidently been at some pains to escape notice. - -"You said six o'clock and it's half-past," he commented, gloomily. "I -shall be confoundedly late. What on earth have you been doing? And -what's that you've got under your arm?" - -She chuckled to herself. - -"Can't you recognize Sevres when you see it?" - -"By George--what a piece!" His eyes opened with a hungry appreciation. -Then he shook his head at her. "My dear girl, put it back! I knew we -should come to this sooner or later--all collectors do. Put it back -before it's missed. Think of the scandal. And a newcomer, too!" - -She broke into a half-pleased, half-ashamed laugh and wrapped the -precious trophy in the protecting folds of a rug. - -"She gave it me--yes, she did. And she calls me Mary, and I call her -Sigrid, and we've kissed each other, and I've given her the run of our -bungalow." She climbed up into the driver's seat and took the reins. -"You know how I _hate_ those sort of sudden familiarities, Archie. But -I've no explanation. Have you?" - -"Not one." - -"She isn't beautiful. I'm better-looking myself." - -"A dozen times, old girl." - -She smiled down upon him with a rather absent-minded graciousness. - -"I believe she's got electric wires instead of nerves and sinews," she -said reflectively. "I felt them in her hand. It was like putting one's -fingers into a steel glove covered with velvet. What bosh I'm talking. -I believe I'm hypnotized. I shall go round and look up poor Anne and -restore my self-respect. Mr. Meredith told me she looked as though she -was breaking her heart over something. Of course, it's that brute! Why -aren't you men plucky enough to shoot him----?" - -"My dear girl----" - -His wife cut short his protest by turning her pony out of the gates and -up the broad avenue which led from the outlying dak-bungalow to Gaya -proper. The steep hill, her new possession, and various rather confused -speculations accounted for the fact that her pony promptly dropped to a -walk and was allowed to proceed in a leisurely fashion, which culminated -in an abrupt halt. Mrs. Compton awoke then. She felt vaguely annoyed -with herself, and her annoyance changed to something like consternation -when she perceived that the stoppage was not attributable either to the -pony's disinclination or her own day-dreaming. A man stood at the -animal's head and now came up to the step, his long, brown hand lifted -to his topee in greeting. - -"I called to you, Mrs. Compton," he said, "but you didn't hear me, and I -took the liberty of stopping you. I hope I'm forgiven." - -She stared down at him. Her confusion of warm disjointed musings -chilled instantly to her usual trenchant matter-of-factness. - -"If you wanted to speak to me, Mr. Barclay----" she began. - -"I know--I might have called formally. But I ran the risk either of -being refused or landing into a crowd of people. I wanted to see you -alone." He waited a moment. His hand rested firmly on the side of the -cart, and she could not have driven on without going over him. She saw -also the dogged set of his dark face and waited with an angry -resignation. "You've just come from Mademoiselle Fersen's At Home, -haven't you?" he asked. - -"Yes." - -"I used to know her," he said, "that is to say, I was introduced at some -big reception in England. She wouldn't remember me. That was in my -undergrad days. I was at Balliol, you know." - -Mrs. Compton's fine lips twitched satirically. She was not feeling -charitable, and this man was offering her his credentials in a way that -incited derision. He must have seen her expression, for his brown eyes, -with their blue-tinted whites, never left her face. "I want you to do -me a favour," he burst out. "I want you to introduce me again, Mrs. -Compton." - -Her smile faded. She was thoroughly angry, but some other less -definable emotion confused her indignation to the point of -ineffectuality. - -"I'm sorry, Mr. Barclay, but I really haven't the right or the power to -introduce any one to Miss Fersen without her permission." - -"I know that--at least, your friends and acquaintances would be -introduced naturally----" He broke off. The nostrils of his fine, -aquiline nose distended, his whole face, handsome in line and profoundly -brooding in its fundamental expression, was tense and strained-looking. -He seemed like a man doggedly setting himself to a hated task. "May I be -straightforward with you, Mrs. Compton?" - -"Of course. Why not?" - -"I know you are anxious to drive on--over me even," he said, with a -flash from a smothered bitterness. "But you are the only person I feel -I can speak to, and I mayn't get you alone again. Look here, Mrs. -Compton, I'm an Englishman. My father was English--I was educated at an -English University--I hold an English degree. I've got any amount of -money. It seems to me I've got the right to demand--well, decent -civility. So far--I've been here two months--I've been out of things. -Of course, I don't belong to the military lot, and I haven't a -government appointment--but it seems to me-out here in an alien -country--we English ought to hold together----" He was choking and -breaking over his words like a man breathless with running, the fatal -mincing accent betraying itself in his gathering excitement, and -instinctively Mrs. Compton looked away from him. He was trembling, and -somehow the sight filled her with an odd pity almost stronger than her -repugnance. - -"What do you want me to do, Mr. Barclay?" she asked. - -"After all--it's not much. If your husband would put me up for the Polo -Club--I'm a good player, and I've got some of the finest ponies in -India. Gaya could beat any team you like with my ponies. Your -husband's popular--he could easily do it--if he wanted to----" - -"I couldn't ask him," she interrupted hurriedly. "It's not my business. -I hate backstair influence with husbands." She took refuge in a -cowardly compromise. "You ought to speak to Captain Compton yourself." - -He laughed shortly. - -"That means you won't," he broke out suddenly and violently. "It's the -touch of the tar brush that's worrying you, isn't it? Yet you don't -mind kowtowing to a full-blooded native. You'll have that dissipated -degenerate Rasaldu at all your feasts, though he's not even accepted by -his own people. His grandfather was a village cow-herd, and the -Government set his people up in the place of the hereditary heirs -because they were likely to be more tractable. You know all that, and -yet you'd lick his boots, whilst I, with your own blood in my veins----" -He caught himself up, smoothing his working features with a desperate -effort. "Look here, Mrs. Compton, I want to do the right thing. I want -to serve my country loyally. But I've got to have a country--I've got to -belong somewhere. Otherwise----" - -She tightened the reins, moving her pony's head round so that she could -go forward without driving over him. - -"I'm sorry," she said, coldly. "I have no prejudices myself, but I also -have no right to interfere with the prejudices of other people. You -must make your own way. Please let me pass----" - -The pony started under the cut of her whip, and Barclay instantly jumped -out of danger. He stood then in the middle of the dusty road, his hands -clenched at his side, his cheeks wet. He was crying with the helpless -passion of a child. Meanwhile, the swift Indian nightfall had risen up -out of the plain to Gaya's hilltops pouring its shadow army into the -dak-bungalow's neglected garden, veiling its rambling decay with an -unfathomable, shapeless beauty. - -The Rajah had been the last to leave, lingering clumsily and -obsequiously to the limits of the law, but now even he had gone, and in -the place of the voices and subdued laughter there was nothing but a -flutter of a night-bird among the trees, the hushed, mysterious -rustlings and whisperings of darkness. - -Sigrid Fersen had drawn her chair near to the verandah. A lamp burnt -behind her, and she was reading intently in some old vellum-bound book. -Mrs. Smithers sat opposite her, knitting a sock, which even now that the -day's heat was over had a curiously smothering and woolly appearance. -From time to time her faded, truculent blue eyes glanced across to the -figure beneath the light, and their habitual expression of grim -disapproval yielded to a wistful anxiety. - -For half an hour there had been no sound but the turning over of the -thick leaves and the click of the knitting-needles. Now Sigrid Fersen -touched the soft-voiced silver bell beside her. The curtains at the far -end of the room parted almost immediately in answer. - -"Tell the syce to have the best horse in the stable saddled by -daybreak," she said. "I am riding to Heerut. I shall need a guide." - -There was a moment's perceptible hesitation. The ayah's roe-eyes were -large with trouble. - -"Mem-Sahib, there is much sickness in Heerut." - -"I know." - -"It may be, Mem-Sahib, that no guide will dare----" - -"He need not accompany me farther than the river. See to it." - -"It shall be done, Mem-Sahib." - -The curtains fell noiselessly in their place. Mrs. Smithers dropped her -knitting-needles. - -"Oh, lawks a-mercy!" she said. "Lawks a-mercy!" - -It was as though some solemn old Egyptian sphinx had broken into broad -Cockney, and, having given vent to its feelings, relapsed into the -historic pose of unfathomable and supercilious meditation. Sigrid -Fersen closed her book. She rested her head on its smooth yellow surface -with a curious tenderness. - -"You mustn't be unhappy, Smithy, and you mustn't try to prevent me. One -way or the other, my days are numbered, and each one of them has to be -an episode, something definite and new, something to take with me or to -look back on. Afterwards----" Her voice lifted from its veiled -softness and rang clearer. "We have travelled a long, long way, Smithy, -and now we are almost at the end. You have seen it all with your wise -old eyes, perhaps better than I have, and you know what life is. What -shall it be, Smithy?" - -The old woman clasped her knotted hands together and rocked herself -slowly backwards and forwards. - -"I don't know--I don't know. It's just a nightmare. I wake up sometimes -o' nights and ask myself if I've gone clean mad, or what we're doing -here in this awful heathen country--you, the greatest of 'em all, -hobnobbing with ninnies wot don't know Taglioni from Queen Elizabeth, -and me trying to be a lady by dint of keeping my mouth shut like a -mouse-trap--me, that stood and waited for you night after night and -'dressed' you quicker than the smartest of them--lawks a-mercy, wot am I -doing here?" - -Sigrid Fersen got up slowly, putting her book on the table, and came and -stood at her companion's side. She caressed the grenadine-clad shoulder -lightly, affectionately. "You're here because I am, and because you've -stuck to me through everything. You can't help sticking to me any more -than I can help wanting you somewhere in the background. And I'm here -because of this"--she laid her hand on her left side--"and this----" -She opened a drawer in the table, and, taking out a little shiny-backed -note-book, dropped it into the old woman's lap. "Open it. Now take the -bottom figure on the right-hand column from the bottom figure on the -left. What does it leave?" - -Mrs. Smithers coughed apologetically. - -"I never was a hand at figures, Sigrid." - -"Never mind. Take your time." - -"I don't know rightly--it looks to me like a thousand." - -"That must be about right. Well, that's what we've got. No more. What -would you have me do--teach dancing to loutish girls in some stuffy -English suburb? No, Smithy. You wouldn't. In my art there is no one -greater than I--there never has been--and though I want to live I -mustn't burn out like some poor candle. I must be a splendid rocket, -lighting up all the country, and most splendid of all at the last. Then -darkness." - -The old woman put up her hand blindly. - -"Oh, my dear, my dear----" - -Sigrid Fersen seemed to have forgotten her. - -"'To die in beauty.' That's Ibsen. It's the most wonderful thought in -the world. It's the only prayer I know. Not squalidly, not in misery -and decay and ugliness, but in beauty. That is the goal of life." - -"I don't understand, Sigrid. And I can't believe it all. I can't. -Never to wait for you in the wings--never to hear men shout for you--and -see the women crying for love of you. Never to hear you silence them -all so that they don't even seem to breathe. Lawks a-mercy, when I -think of that there waltz--Chopin, wasn't it--the tune runs in my head -now--I can see the faces in the front row, white as death, Sigrid, as -though they had seen----" - -Her voice cracked. Sigrid Fersen turned away from her. - -"No--never again--or perhaps once more--just once----" - -She went out on to the verandah and stood there motionless, her face -lifted to the darkness. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - *A VISION OF THE BACKWATER* - - -The Dakktar Sahib stepped carefully over the body of Ayeshi, who lay -asleep inside the doorway, and went down the centre of the street. The -village was silent and seemingly deserted. Even the grain-dealer, -Lalloo by name, not unknown as a money-lender with Eastern ideas on -interest--had deserted his wooden booth, and the lean dogs which were -wont to nose hungrily in the gutters had gone elsewhere for their -hunting-ground. The gutters themselves were clean; there was no cattle -to wander haplessly in and out of the open doorways; the half-naked -babies were hidden and silent. And in all this silence and garnished -peace there was something ominous and dreadful. A mighty scavenger had -passed through the village and swept it clear of refuse and misery and -sickness and life itself. Heerut lay under the burning midday sun like -a body awaiting burial, wrapped in the orderliness of death, silent, -colourless, for all its piteous poverty, majestic. - -Tristram's footsteps rang out loudly in the stillness. He alone was -alive and bore the agony and stress of life stamped on his body. He was -ugly with the ugliness of a soldier returning from the battle-field. -His clothes were dirty. He reeled drunkenly, his eyes were bloodshot -and swollen in their deep sockets, and a month's growth of reddish beard -covered his long chin. He might have passed for a spectre of Death -itself, stalking through the place of its visitation. - -He reached the village cross-roads. The pointed leaves of the -council-tree hung limply, their soft mysterious voices hushed. -Underneath, the earth was scarred and burnt by the bonfires around which -the village elders clustered at nightfall, listening to the tales from -the great past. There had been no bonfire for many nights, and the -elders had gone their ways. - -Tristram went on, out of the village, across the ancient -half-obliterated path of Auspiciousness, through the coarse jungle grass -to the river. It flowed broad and swift, swirling against its muddy, -artificial barrier with sullen impatience, its farther bank lost in the -blaze and shimmer of heat. Tristram went on, past the temple whose -battered walls glowed warm and golden in the sunlight, to the clump of -trees beyond. He entered their shade at a stumbling run like a man -seeking refuge from pursuers, and burst through the tangled undergrowth -with the whole weight of his body. - -Here, beneath the branches of the stately Mohwa trees, the Ganges had -built herself a backwater. Her waters, grey still with the snows of her -mountain mother, had turned from their stern course and become clear as -crystal and still as the surface of a mirror. They reflected softly the -flaming green of the overhanging foliage and the red and gold of the -strange flowers growing on their banks. A lotus-flower floated like a -fairy palace in a patch of subdued sunshine, its pale petals half open -and delicately tipped with pink as though the light had awakened them -from their white sleep to life. Beneath, in the shining, deceptive -depths was a world of mystery, forests of twining, sinuous growths, the -monster blossoms swaying in the under-current. - -Tristram dropped down on his knees at the water's edge and then rolled -over with his face hidden on his arm. He lay so still that a golden -lizard flashed out from the long grass and lingered almost at his elbow -and a water-hen gliding down on to the breast of the water preened -herself in complacent security. - -The patch of sunlight moved on. It left the lotus-flower in an emerald -shadow, and rested like a bright, watchful eye on a patch of flaming -poppies on the farther bank. The silence deepened. Even the gentle -parting of the undergrowth behind the spot where Tristram slept brought -no sound. With a noiseless strength the lean hands of Vahana, the -Sadhu, pressed back the opposing branches. He came forward so slowly, -so stealthily, that the foliage seemed rather to thin imperceptibly -before him like a green mist, leaving him at last unveiled on the fringe -of the clearing. Even then it was as though he had been there always, -not a man, not even living, but the dead twisted stump of some -tempest-riven tree. - -But the water-hen heard and saw him and rose with a whirr of wings. The -lizard flashed back into his hiding-place. - -Tristram did not stir. The emaciated, half-naked body glided towards -him and bent over him. For a long minute Vahana remained thus, -scrutinizing the half-hidden face of the sleeper, then he stood upright, -tossing the hair from his wild eyes, his long, fleshless arms raised -high above his head, with a gesture that was as a salute to some -oncoming, resistless destiny. Then, in an instant, he seemed to -shrivel, his arm sank, and with one swift glance about him he turned and -vanished among the trees. - -Tristram awoke suddenly, but not completely. He rested on his elbow, -gazing at the blur of colour before him with heavy eyes, then drew -himself up and, with the clumsiness of a drunken man, began to undress. -Presently he slipped into the quiet water; the circles widened about -him, and the lotus-flower rocked on the breast of the strange upheaval, -but after that the intruder scarcely moved. He became as one of the -giant weeds growing amidst the stones, upborne by the water, himself -inert and quiescent. His head was thrown slightly back and his eyes had -closed again. - -Half an hour later, when he scrambled back on to the bank, the agony of -exhaustion had been washed from him. He held himself upright to the air -and sun, his body shining white and splendid against the background of -foliage, the joy of life in every muscle, in every firm and graceful -line. Then, with a sigh of unutterable content, he began to dress -leisurely, retrieved a battered cigarette case and a box of matches and -crouched down, tailor fashion, amidst the grasses. For a time he smoked -peacefully, watching the light changing on the water and the swift -moving life that hid in the shallows and darted out between the stones -and swaying weeds. The lizard, tempted by his quiet and perhaps some -luscious prospect of supper, wriggled out and took grave stock of him, -and he stared back as motionless and absorbed, until the forgotten -cigarette burnt him, when he swore and the lizard vanished like a tiny -golden streak into its fastness. The man laughed to himself and dropped -back upon his elbow. A smile still lingered about his mouth, but his -eyes under the big square brows had forgotten their amusement. They -were fixed dreamily ahead, and what they saw smoothed out the last lines -of tension from his features, and lent them a look of youth and -tenderness. And presently he dropped back, and, with his hands clasped -behind his head, stared up into the shadowing green, as though whatever -dream he conjured up had taken refuge there. - -He slept again, not heavily as before but on the border-land of -consciousness where thoughts break from their moorings, and sail out -into a magic, restless sea of change whose bed lies littered with -forgotten treasures. When the thud of hoofs broke on the stillness a -dream rose up and shielded him, covering the sound with a fantastic -picture, so that he slept on. - -The patch of sunshine travelled upwards. It had forsaken the poppies as -it had left the lotus-flower, and rested on the fair head of a woman. - -Though Tristram saw her he did not move. - -She stood scarcely five paces from him near an opening in the trees. -One hand rested on the bridle of a tired horse, the other was lifted to -her face, the forefinger to her lips, half in reflection, half as though -hushing her own breathing. A pith helmet and the white coat of her -simple riding-habit were fastened carelessly to the pommel of her -saddle. - -She stood quite motionless--as still and living as a bird resting among -the flowers. It was that wonderful, restrained lightness in her that -made her seem smaller and more fragile than she was. Her hair, of a -gold paler than the sunlight and parted primly in the middle, waved down -smoothly on a forehead that was high and too domed for beauty. Her face -was small, more round than oval, with small features, exquisitely -imperfect, demure, and resolute. There was something Victorian about -her, and something vitally modern. It was as though a Botticellian -Madonna had thrown off her serene and lovely foolishness and stepped -down into life with the mocking happy humour of a faun at the corners of -her fine lips and the wisdom of the world in her eyes. And added to all -this there was in her expression an odd touch of an impersonal, aloof -pity and tenderness. - -She stood there looking down at the man in the grass with her subdued -smile, and he stared back at her. Then presently she spoke: - -"How do you do, Major Tristram? My name is Fersen--Sigrid Fersen." - -"I know," he answered. His own voice seemed to break a spell, for he -shot up as though she had struck him, his hand flying to the neck of his -graceless, unbuttoned collarless shirt. "I beg your pardon--I'm awfully -sorry--I'd been asleep--and day-dreaming--I thought you were just--not -real----" - -"A sort of concrete vision?" she suggested. - -"It sounds absurd, of course, but it wasn't an ordinary sleep. In fact, -barring today, I don't know when I slept last. That makes a man -queer----" - -"Obviously." Her enigmatic kindly smile was like sunshine on her demure -gravity. "For instance, you said 'I know' when I introduced myself." -The blood welled up under the man's brown skin, and she went on lightly. -"I saw you half an hour ago. The shade tempted me--I was hot and tired. -Fortunately I came quietly. You had just come out of the water and stood -there like a young Beethoven--'this kiss to the whole world----'" - -"I felt like that," he stammered. "It just expresses it--only----" - -"Of course I went away at once," she said. "I felt you would be -disconcerted if you knew--possibly very shocked. You may be now for all -I know." - -He looked down at his right hand, and then, as though it annoyed him, -thrust it into his pocket. - -"No," he said, "I'm not." - -"I didn't think you would be." She led her horse down to the water, -and, with accustomed fingers, unfastened the bit. "Please sit down -again, Major Tristram." - -He obeyed her instantly, and with his big hands clasped about his knees -watched her as she came towards him. The blood was still dark in his -face. - -"I'm wondering how you knew me," he said abruptly. - -"Gaya described you." - -He burst out into a big laugh. - -"My word! Did Gaya tell you I usually went about with nothing on or in -these evil-smelling rags?" - -"It is enough that I recognized you," she said primly. She added, as an -after-thought: "They didn't tell me you were so beautiful." - -"Me--beautiful?" - -"As far as your figure goes." - -"And my face?" - -She looked at him whimsically. - -"No, not exactly." She slipped down into the long grass beside him with -an effortless, unconscious grace. "We're rather like each other," she -went on, "both of us--how shall I say?--plain, and both of us quite -lovely in our way. A perfect body is worth more than a perfect nose." - -"Yes," he agreed. His voice sounded suddenly thick and tired and he -looked away from her. "You're not alone, are you?" he asked. - -"I have been. I've a faithful syce waiting at the bridge-head five -miles up. He wouldn't come any farther. Perhaps----" She studied his -hard-set profile with amused eyes. "Perhaps you're wishing I hadn't -burst in upon you, or perhaps you share Gaya's dismay." - -"Was Gaya dismayed?" - -"Very. One or two are still. They thought I was an adventuress, partly -on account of the Rajah and partly on account of my profession. And -they were quite right." The laughter died out of her. Her voice -sounded grave and eager. "I am an adventuress. I can't conceive myself -being anything else. To live is to explore an unknown country, with -every day a step forward. Some people shrink from it and cringe at -home, and when they're taken by the scruff of the neck and flung out -they're frightened and helpless. I'm not like that--you're not. Even -my art was an adventure--the greatest. Every bar of music, every step, -every inspiration that came to me, was like a mountain peak scaled and a -new vista into a new country. Do you understand?" - -He turned to her, his sunken, red-rimmed eyes warm with a generous, -almost passionate sympathy. - -"I can understand your feeling like that--I do too, in my way, -especially out here. Out here nothing lasts. Every day brings -change--the very trees and flowers and fields and forests--I don't know -how it is--one says good-night to them and in the morning it's as though -new friends had taken their place--people whom one had to study and -wonder at--and then----" He turned away from her again and stared down -at his strong hands--"anything can happen--the most wonderful, -impossible things----" - -She did not answer him. When she spoke again it was after a long -silence and more lightly. - -"I don't believe you're an official at all," she said. "You don't talk -like one. You haven't asked me what business I have here or tell me -that I am a danger to myself and a nuisance to everyone else. Why -haven't you?" - -"I forgot," he answered quietly. "For one thing, I knew you were not -afraid, and people who are not afraid have nothing to fear. And besides -that, the infection is over in Heerut. The poor beggars are either -underground or isolated miles away. I did that 'on my own,' and I -expect there'll be lots of trouble about it." - -"You've had a bad time." - -"Yes," he said simply. - -"Mrs. Compton told me. I was immensely interested, and made up my mind -to call on you. The 'lone fight' has always thrilled me. I don't care -whether the fighter is a murderer or a hero so long as he fights against -odds." - -He laughed. - -"Well, I'm not a criminal or a hero," he said. - -"You can't tell. We're all potentially one or the other--or both." - -He seemed on the verge of protest, but, looking at her, dropped to -silence. She leant forward, her chin in the palm of her hand, and he -saw that she smiled to herself, her eyes intent on the shadowy water. - -"Doesn't Brahma sleep in the heart of that lotus-flower, Major -Tristram?" - -"He did once--so they say. And it is the lotus-flower which encloses -our world. When the pink-tipped petals open then it is dawn with us." -He hesitated, and then added with a shy laugh, "Shall I fetch it for -you?" - -"No, why spoil it? It is loveliest where it is." - -"Yes, I know--but if you had wished it----" He broke off. "Somehow I'm -glad you didn't," he said almost inaudibly. - -The quiet rose up between them. It was like a mist, veiling them from -each other with a drowsy peace. When she spoke again her voice sounded -gay but subdued. - -"Major Tristram, I'm disappointed--I meant to drop on like a -bombshell--and here you sit next me as though it was the sort of thing -you had done all your life. You don't even bother to talk to me. Do -you think we were married in our last pilgrimage?" - -The man turned his head away from her. - -"Anything seems possible, here," he answered. - -"Even hunger," she suggested gravely. - -"Hunger?" - -The dreamy unreality which had sunk upon them dissolved, letting through -the light of every-day facts. She laughed at him. - -"_I'm_ hungry. I haven't eaten anything since dawn, and I didn't bring -food because Mrs. Compton said you practically lived here. I was -sure--after the first skirmish--that you'd ask me to tea." - -He was on his feet now--less with eagerness than with a half-angry -consternation. - -"Mrs. Compton misled you----" he began hotly. - -"She didn't--she didn't know I was coming. Are you going to let me -starve?" - -"I _do_ live here," he went on stammeringly, "but in a native hovel like -the rest of them. I can't take you there." - -"Why not?" Her eyes were mocking, her lips pursed into a demure, ironic -challenge. "Don't you want to?" - -"It's not that----" His opposition collapsed and he faltered like a -boy. "Only--well, I daresay you know what they call me--Tristram the -Hermit. It's because I've had to live alone so much. No one comes out -here. I've got accustomed to it. I'm like a miser with my loneliness." - -"Then I had better go," she said gravely. - -"No--not now. I want you to come. You'll understand better----" - -He bridled her horse and brought it to her. For a moment they looked at -each other with a steadiness in which there was a vague antagonism. -Then the man stooped, hiding his face, and placed his hands for her to -mount. She scarcely seemed to touch them. He looked up into her small -face, flushed now with an eager colour. "You are lighter than the leaf -on the wind," he said. - -She laughed, but her laugh was more meditative than gay. - -"And you, Major Tristram, are a poet in the wilderness," she answered. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - *BROKEN SANCTUARY* - - -He walked beside her, his hand light on her bridle, and silently they -made their way through the long grass, along the banks of the grey, wide -flowing river, past the temple, and into the empty village streets. -Only once did she speak to him, bending slightly towards him in her -saddle. - -"I have been wondering what your name is," she said, "your other name. -I've been trying to fit you with one." - -"Tristram," he said. - -"Tristram Tristram?" - -He nodded, and she repeated the name thoughtfully under her breath. - -"That's a curious repetition----" - -"Yes, my mother liked it. It's the only thing we've ever quarrelled -about. I tell her she suffered from lack of imagination, and that she -took a mean advantage over my helplessness. What could anybody expect -of a Tristram Tristram?" - -"And yet it suits you somehow." - -"I'm not flattered," he answered laughing. - -The magic sunlight had gone and the low thatched huts were grey and -sordid in the rising tide of shadow. Here and there a golden patch -lingered palely, and the council-tree at the cross-roads blazed in the -full flood from the west. - -"This is my home," Tristram said. - -The hut from the outside was not different from its fellows, save for -the big windows that had been cut in the mud wall. The rough wooden -doors stood open. Sigrid Fersen slipped out of her saddle and for a -moment he barred her path. "You won't let me go forward to prepare the -way?" he asked. - -"No--I want to see what you are like, Major Tristram." - -"It's as though I made you a confession," he said unevenly. - -"I am woman enough to want to hear it." - -He stood aside and she passed through the low doorway. At other times -the contrast to the foetid street outside must have been overwhelming, -but even now the dwelling's cool monastic purity arrested her on the -threshold. A curtained doorway appeared to lead into a second -apartment. There was scarcely any furniture--a chair, a table, a couple -of Persian rugs on the uneven floor, a pile of cushions heaped into a -divan against the wall. Nothing on the walls. Yet the old, exquisitely -shaded rugs were probably priceless, and all the art and mysterious -symbolism of India had gone into the carving of the great chair whose -high back was Brahma the Creator and whose wide arms were pictured with -strange fantasies of the Avatars. As her eyes grew accustomed to the -twilight the woman saw beyond this dignity to details that brought a -sudden laugh to her lips. A yellow ball that looked like a spotted St. -Bernard pup rolled yelping off the cushions, displaying its teeth and a -bandaged paw, and thereby rousing its bedfellow--a common English tabby, -who stretched itself, threw an offhand curse at its disturber, then -advanced arching its back and purring stormily. Sigrid bent down to -stroke him, but he passed on with the crushing disdain of his race and -rubbed himself against Tristram's leg. - -"That's Tim," Tristram explained. "He has a wife, but she's probably -out hunting. To tell the truth, she does most of the work. There were -half a dozen kittens, but they died, worse luck. Couldn't stand the -heat." - -"Anything else?" - -"Wickie isn't here. And Arabella. Laid up, both of them." - -"And pray what is Wickie and what is Arabella?" she persisted. - -"_I_ call Wickie a dog and Arabella a horse," he answered solemnly, "but -I'm told the matter is open to dispute. Wickie's boarding out with Miss -Boucicault." - -"Ah, Anne Boucicault!" She echoed the name with an amused inflection of -her quiet voice. "An odd little person who detests me. And she is so -touchingly conscientious about it. Not in the least spiteful, only very -religious and full of doubts and scruples----" She made a little -gesture which seemed to brush Anne Boucicault into nothingness. "Go on -with your menagerie, Major Tristram. Introduce that terrifying little -growl-box." - -He picked up the yellow ball by the scruff of its neck and offered up -his fist to the ineffectual first teeth as a sacrifice. - -"A cheetah cub. I found him on the edge of the forest with his paw -broken. He's nearly all right now, and will be able to go home." - -"And start his criminal career," she suggested. - -He laughed. - -"Oh well, that's the risk the world runs every time a new infant is -brought into it," he retorted. But he had become suddenly embarrassed, -almost guilty-looking, and, after one glance at him from quizzical -brows, she changed the subject. - -"Am I at liberty to inspect, Major Tristram?" - -"You must do whatever you wish." He stood at the entrance to the hut -and watched her as she crossed straightway to the writing-table. His -face, now in shadow, was set in grim resolution. There were two large -photographs on the table, and one of these she picked up and held to the -light. - -"A fine old face--your mother, Major Tristram?" - -"Yes," he assented briefly. - -"She must be very beautiful." - -"I think she is," he answered, with a sudden relaxing of his strained -features. - -"Not a bit like you." - -He feigned a rueful discontent. - -"Not a bit. I always tell her that she was jealous, and wouldn't spare -me so much as one good feature." - -"Whereat, I hope, she boxes your ears for your ingratitude, you mortal -with the perfect body!" She replaced the picture regretfully. "And -this----" - -She broke off. It became very still in the low-roofed room. Even the -cheetah had ceased its infant growlings as though it felt the tension in -the quiet about him. Tristram threw back his head, his chin thrust out, -and did not speak. Suddenly she turned to him. Her lips were parted, -in a wide, eager smile that was like a child's. Impulsively, -ingenuously, she held out her ungloved hand to him, palm downwards. - -"Is that your confession, Tristram Tristram!" - -For one instant he wavered, the next he was at her side, had taken her -hand and bowed over it and kissed it. Then he stood back, defiant, -trembling, like a man who has committed a world-staggering enormity. -But to her, it seemed, nothing had happened, nothing that she had not -willed and desired. Still smiling, she turned away from him and, -seating herself in the high-backed chair, placed the photograph where -she could see it best. Then she became intent, absorbed. The brief -incident and the man who watched her waveringly seemed to have been -swallowed up in something greater, some passionate feeling. Without a -word he left her and she did not hear him go. It was only when he -returned presently and placed a cup and saucer before her that she -looked up, colouring faintly. - -"A poet in the wilderness and now Worcester! Major Tristram, I begin to -think you are a rather strange and wonderful doctor!" - -He smiled with frank pleasure in her pleasure. - -"I love beautiful things," he said. "I fancy they are to me what wine -is to some men. I'm like my mother in that. She understands. She -saved and saved to buy me that cup. There's a teapot--not to match--I -hate sets--but equally lovely. You shall see it when the water boils." - -"And the chair--and these rugs! I know a Park Lane plutocrat who would -sell his greasy soul for them. Was that your mother too?" - -"No, the rugs are a gift from Lalloo the money-lender. His baby son had -a bout of something or other, but got over it, and Lalloo wanted to -shower blessings on somebody. He knows the markets for rare things and -I have a shrewd, painful suspicion that he used unholy forces of -financial coercion to get hold of these. Ayeshi carved the chair for -me." - -"Is Ayeshi a wood-pecker, or what?" she asked gaily. - -He laughed with her. - -"No--my aide-de-camp, orderly, servant, friend, all in one. Rather a -wonderful sort of person. Heaven alone knows where he came from. He -was brought to me by the man who 'owned' him, he was suffering from -snakebite, and after the cure he stuck to me. Nobody minded. The people -he lived with were afraid of him." - -"Why?" she asked. - -"Oh, I don't know--he wasn't of their caste--any one could see that. He -is a Brahmin of the Brahmins, and believes in his gods. There isn't -anything so disconcerting to conventional religionists as genuine -belief." Tristram was on his way to the door of the inner room. He -stopped a moment and looked back at her. "And he can tell the most -wonderful stories," he went on slowly, as though overtaken by some -memory. "One day you must listen to him as I do--by the firelight, with -night overhead." - -"I shall come," she answered deliberately. "And I shall see the -snake-bite on his arm and think of the story of the man who saved him." - -Tristram had gone. She laughed a little and then fell to her old -brooding contemplation of the picture at her elbow. But when he returned -with the promised teapot and a plate of sandwiches she pushed it -impatiently from her. - -"Tell me, Major Tristram, are you glad I've broken into your sanctuary?" -she asked abruptly. - -He poured her tea out for her with a hand that shook a little. - -"I don't know----" - -"That's ungracious, Major Tristram. But you're altogether unexpected. -Even this room-it's not a man's room. Where are your guns, your skins, -your trophies?" - -He looked about him, flushing to the roots of his fair, untidy hair. - -"I haven't got any--I never had a gun of my own. I've got an Army pistol -somewhere in the kitchen, but it's got rusty and I don't know what would -happen if I fired it." He put the sandwiches near to her and then -stalked across to the doorway and sat down cross-legged on the rug, his -irregular profile cut sharply against the light. "I can't kill things," -he said doggedly. - -"Go on, Major Tristram. I am getting almost excited. A man who can't -kill things!" - -He heard the irony in her voice and winced, but did not look at her. - -"Oh--I know it's ridiculous--laughable. Compton says I'm a -sentimentalist--a freak. I can't help it." - -"Is it a theory--Tolstoyism, Jainism----?" - -He shook his head. - -"I haven't any theories--it's just instinct--perhaps a kind of -revulsion. My father was the finest shot in the Indian Army. Once when -I was in Scotland I killed a stag. I felt--beastly--like a sort of -cowardly criminal who couldn't be punished and knew it." - -"Still go on. Tell me more. I came here to get to know you, Major -Tristram, and I am a spoilt woman. Yes, you are a freak. I want to know -how freaks originate. Tell me--no, not about your father--I have a fancy -he was not freakish--but your mother----" - -He stiffened, averting his head, his brows stern. - -"My mother is different----" he began proudly. - -"You have known me so long," she interrupted, "did you think I meant to -joke at her? Haven't you understood better than that?" - -He turned. Twilight had begun to invest them both. In the great carved -chair among the shadows she looked almost luminous, a white spirit -neither of heaven nor earth, aloof and radiant in fairy immortality and -serene with a wisdom high above the man's painful plodding. Seeing her, -he caught his breath; the anger passed from his face, leaving it with a -curious look of bewilderment and pain. - -"I'm sorry----" he said unevenly. "Of course I ought to have known. -But I am a heavy, unpresentable fellow--rather ridiculous too--and I -didn't want you to think I was like her." He turned away again, his -eyes intent on the dark strong hands clasped about his knees. "As to my -antecedents, there isn't much to tell. My father was a Captain in the -Indian Army. He was killed out here in Gaya when I was a baby. No one -ever found out how it happened. My mother was in England at the time. -She had nothing but her pension. She starved herself to keep me fit and -give me my chance." He broke off sharply. "I'd rather not talk about -that. It means a responsibility that would be intolerable if I wasn't -so proud of it--it would be awful to fail a woman who had starved for -you." - -"I can understand that, Major Tristram." - -He seemed to listen a moment as though to an echo of her low voice. - -"All my people had been in the Indian Army," he went on. "I knew I -should make a dismal failure of soldiering. It seemed to me--it's my -nearest approach to a theory--that it's a man's business to make life -more tolerable--not to destroy it. So I compromised with the I.M.S. -And here I am." - -"A hermit!" She leant forward, with her chin resting in the palm of her -hand. "Is that also part of your law of life, Major Tristram?" - -"I have my work," he answered. "It's a huge district, and I've got to -be at it all the time. It is my life. But I'm a queer cuss--I have -other thoughts too--absurd daydreams. I'm alone so much that it's -natural enough--and if I came much among men and women I should be -afraid----" - -"--that the vision might become concrete." She waited a moment--"or -fail you." - -He shook his head. - -"No--not that. But since I have got to be alone always I mustn't want -anything too badly." - -She got up suddenly. - -"It is getting late," she said. "I promised to be at the bridge-head by -nine. Mr. Radcliffe, who is in the adventure, meets me there and -escorts me back to safety. We should be home by midnight, and tomorrow -Gaya will have a new scandal. Mr. Radcliffe is very young. He will be -so pleased." - -"I will come with you as far as the bridge-head," Tristram returned -gravely. - -"I had expected nothing less." - -For all her change of tone the suspense which had crept in upon them -with the twilight remained unbroken. It lay upon the man like a -quivering hand. As he led her horse through the black streets it -vibrated on the hot obscurity. They came out on to the plain and it was -there also, at his throat, suffocating him. - -The full moon hung low on the horizon like a silver lamp. There was -nothing hid from it. It revealed and transfigured fantastically; the -very blades of the high-standing grass were drawn in separate delicate -lines of shadow, but they did not look like grass. The great river -flooded through the darkness--an endless winding army of ghosts whose -murmur was never still. - -Sigrid Fersen looked down at the man beside her. As distance brings out -the significance of a rough sketch, so now the grey half-light threw -into relief lines and hollows of his face which she had not seen before. -They were as vigorous and ugly as they had ever been, yet their -silhouette under the helmet rim conveyed to her a new impression--the -thought of something chivalresque and simple, mystic and -single-hearted--a Pure Fool on the Threshold of his Quest. She bent -towards him, stroking her horse's neck with a gentle hand. - -"And I too have a theory, Tristram Tristram," she said, as though there -had been no silence between them. "It is this--that there can be no -going back for any of us. We climb from experience to experience, and -grow or shrivel as our experience is a high or low one. There was a man -sleeping by the backwater. He is gone, and in his place you walk beside -me." - -"Why should I not be the man by the backwater?" he asked. "He knew you -also." - -"Since when?" - -"Since two years ago." - -"Tell me how he met me--I have forgotten." - -"You never knew," he answered. "It was his last night in England. He -had said good-bye to all he cared for, and he felt pretty bad. He knew -what lay ahead of him--lonely, hard years and perhaps no return. So he -did what he had never done before, because money and pleasure had not -come his way--he took himself and his pain into a theatre. And there he -saw you." - -"Well--and then?" - -"That's all. There was wonderful music, and you explained it to him. -You showed him a new beauty that he had never dreamed of, you unlocked a -door, and he entered a new world. When it was over he got up and left -the theatre. He behaved like a boy--he went and stood by the river -until day broke." - -"And the photograph." - -"He bought it to take with him." - -She smiled to herself, tenderly, ironically. - -"It did not occur to him to ask for my autograph--to seek me out." - -"No, then you would have been a reality to him--an unattainable reality. -He wanted you as a dream he could live with and conjure up at will." - -"As he did by the backwater." - -"Yes." He pointed out towards the grey bulk of the temple lying against -the forest. His voice lost its habitual unevenness, and grew full and -clear. "One thing you danced--do you remember?--the ballet in _Robert -le Diable_? The scene was a churchyard--an ugly thing of cardboard and -clumsy carpentering until you came. But out there is a real temple. At -night the moon plays through the great sun-window of the _sikhara_ and -fills the space between the pillars. And I have gone there at -night-time and seen you dance." - -"Shall you go again, Tristram Tristram?" - -"I don't know--I don't know." - -They went on in silence. There was no sound but the song of the water -and the swish of the grass at their feet. Presently she drew rein. - -"We are near the bridge; I can hear voices, and I want to say good-bye -to you now. I want to thank you. I have made my experience, and -climbed higher." - -He looked up at her with a wistful smile. - -"I don't know about that--I don't know what I have done. I do know that -I have grown frightened for you. I've been thinking of infection and -cheetahs on the home road and all the horrors I don't believe in. I -wish I could go with you to Gaya." - -"There is nothing to fear, Tristram Tristram. And you will come to Gaya -tomorrow or the next day or next week and I shall play to you Beethoven, -Chopin, Brahms--all the most wonderful music in the world. I shall open -new doors for you and new worlds----" - -He shook his head. - -"There's cholera out in Bjura." - -"Still you will come----" she answered. - -Her hand touched his. Then she was gone--a speck of moving light--into -the darkness. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - *ANNE BOUCICAULT EXPLAINS* - - -It was Anne Boucicault's birthday--her twenty-second--and Owen Meredith -had proposed her health in lemonade--a beverage which he was assured had -no unlucky superstition attached to it. The rest responded in -champagne. It was not Colonel Boucicault's champagne, though it was on -his verandah that Gaya had gathered to celebrate. Jim Radcliffe, who, -since his midnight ride with Sigrid and the consequent hubbub, had -developed into a very debonair and self-confident young man, had -produced a case-full with the satisfaction and mystery of a popular -conjurer, and Mrs. Boucicault showed neither offence nor appreciation at -this addition to her hospitality. She sat in the shade near the doorway -and scarcely spoke. From time to time her hand rose involuntarily to the -high collar which had been added to her elaborate gown, and rested there -as though it hid something painful. When a remark reached her a fitful -smile quivered about her lips steadied to artificial gaiety. But her -pale eyes were wide and unsmiling, their sight turned inwards on to some -ugly vision, and never lifted from their unseeing watch on the avenue -leading to the high-road. Anne sat on the arm of her chair and held her -hand. She looked very young, and, whilst Meredith spoke, almost -radiant. He had seen the colour creep back into her pale cheeks, and -had become gay and eloquent and a little reckless. For all the -lemonade, and the little chilly mannerisms of his calling, he was a -passionate young man, and the sight of her fragile pleasure roused in -him a fierce pity and tenderness. He betrayed himself, and did not know -it. Afterwards, when he came and touched her long-stemmed glass with -his tumbler, he lingered, looking down at her, his hazel eyes bright -with a new purpose and an old hope suddenly and daringly set free. - -"Anne--dear--before I go tonight I have something I want to say to you. -Give me a chance, will you?" - -She met his eager gaze for an instant, and then her own eyes faltered -and dropped. She looked startled, a little frightened, like a child -that has been taken unawares, but her colour remained unchanged. - -"Of course--we shall be going into the garden. Come with me. I will -show you our new rose-trees." - -"Thank you," he answered. He stood back, others crowded to take his -place, and she received their good wishes much as she had received him, -with a shy graciousness that made her appealingly attractive. Only when -Sigrid Fersen held out her glass she stiffened, and grew suddenly much -older. It was as though for an instant they had changed places, and the -girl had become the woman defending herself coldly and bitterly against -the threat of youth. - -"And I can wish you nothing better than that you should always have some -one like Mr. Meredith to wish you so much good, with so much fervour," -Sigrid said lightly. She turned her head towards the man standing behind -Anne Boucicault's chair, and her eyes in the shade of the big garden hat -sparkled with subdued merriment and kindly mockery. "Tell me, is Mr. -Meredith so eloquent in the pulpit?" she asked. - -"You should hear him for yourself," Anne replied staidly. - -"But then, I never go to church." - -"That is a pity." She flushed a little, her mouth small and -tight-looking. "It is especially a pity out here--because of the -natives. But then, of course, you haven't our responsibility." - -Meredith frowned slightly, not at Anne's words, but at the expression -which he saw pass over the small face opposite him. It was still -kindly, but the merriment had become ironic. Up to that moment he had -felt nothing very definite towards her, recognizing, with an unclerical -modesty, that he did not understand her. Now he thrilled with an odd -dislike. - -"I'm afraid my eloquence won't cure Miss Fersen's backsliding," he said, -hurriedly good-humoured. "And, in the meantime, behold a new arrival, -breathless with congratulations." - -The new arrival proved to be Wickie, escaped from the compound, who -bounced up the verandah steps and advanced among the scattered tables -practising the ingratiating squirm with which the Aberdeen masks his -real impertinence. He was received with acclamation, partly for his -master's sake, partly as a tribute to his own irresistible ugliness. -Anne whistled timidly to him, but he ignored her and sniffed at Sigrid's -outstretched hand. - -"It's almost as though he knew you," Anne said sharply. - -"Well, we know of each other at any rate, don't we, Wickie?" - -"How?" The question was rude in its abruptness and Anne's manners were -always very gentle. Sigrid Fersen did not look at her. She bent down -and balanced a generous portion of cake on Wickie's hopeful snout. - -"Major Tristram told me about him," she said. - -"But Major Tristram has not been in Gaya since you arrived." - -"Nevertheless, we have met." She glanced across at Radcliffe who -chuckled with boyish self-consciousness. "I paid Major Tristram a -visit," she added. - -"At Heerut?" - -"Well, we had tea there--but we met by the river. Major Tristram had -been bathing." - -Anne Boucicault sat very straight and still and hard-eyed. Meredith saw -that her hands were clenched so that they were white at the knuckles, -and again he felt the passing of a sudden emotion which was this time a -mingling of inexplicable pain and dread. - -"That must have been an unusual--dangerous adventure," Anne uttered from -between stiff lips. - -"I had hoped that it might be--it proved to be nothing but a very -agreeable afternoon," was the answer. - -The dialogue passed unnoticed. Mrs. Brabazone was telling one of her -only three stories, and trying to sort out the point. Gaya listened and -waited reverently, and Mrs. Brabazone, being possessed of a fine sense -of her own total lack of humour, finished with a round fat laugh which -added a perfecting touch to her rotund figure and creaseless, elderly -face. - -"Anyhow, I do amuse you," she said triumphantly. "Nobody amuses you like -I do. I don't believe you could get on without me. One of these days I -shall have that story right, and then you'll see that it was worth -waiting for it. You know, I always mix it up with the one about the -Lancashire woman who----" She stopped, her mouth agape. "What on earth -was that?" she demanded sharply. - -"Firing," Mary Compton answered. She raised herself from her -comfortable lounging attitude on the long chair, and leant forward with -a curious expression on her alert face. "What was it, Mr. Radcliffe?" - -The boy got up hurriedly, ostensibly to refill his neighbour's empty -glass. His fresh-coloured face, not yet burnt with the Indian sun, had -turned a dull red. - -"Oh, I don't know," he said. "Some silly ass over in the barracks. A -rifle gone off by mistake. Or a sentry. The sentries have taken to -firing at their own shadows." - -"It may have been at the barracks," Mrs. Compton pursued, "but that -wasn't a rifle, Jim Radcliffe. It was a squad firing, and you know it." - -"And how do you know?" Mrs. Brabazone broke in. "Sometimes, Mary, I feel -that you can't be really nice. You do know such dreadfully unwomanly -things." - -"I was shut up in Chitral with Archie when the regiment mutinied," Mrs. -Compton retorted coolly. "I learnt to know the meaning of every -sound--even to the snapping of a twig under a naked foot." - -Mrs. Brabazone shook herself like a dog throwing off a douche of cold -water. - -"My dear, don't! You're trying to insinuate that we are on the verge of -being murdered in our beds, and I know it perfectly well. I tell the -Judge so every night, and he says he's sure I shall die of a broken -heart if I have to go off peacefully. But then----" - -Her voice trailed off. For once her headlong garrulity failed to evoke -a response, and the little group of men and women sat silent, avoiding -each other's eyes. It was very still again. A drowsy late afternoon -peace hung over the shady garden at their feet. Yet the sound which had -fallen lingered among them like a long-drawn-out echo. - -They lived lightly and gaily, these people of Gaya, most blessed of -Indian stations. Polo and tennis, a drag-hunt here and there, a -constant happy-go-lucky exchange of hospitality, a close fraternity -which allowed for scandal and malice and all uncharitableness, and never -failed at a pinch. And then for an instant a rift--a glimpse down into -the thinly crusted abyss on which they danced--a tightening of the lips, -a laugh, a call for a new tune, a fine carrying-on of their life with -the secret knowledge that their pleasure and their brotherhood was other -and greater than they had thought. - -Mary Compton broke the silence. Her voice sounded light and careless. - -"I don't think we're going to die just yet, anyhow," she said; "there's -Colonel Boucicault. Perhaps he will condescend to tell us what Mr. -Radcliffe won't." She gave the latter one of those penetrating glances -which made her a rather dreaded little personality, and immediately -afterwards, catching sight of Mrs. Boucicault's face she flushed -crimson. It was, as she afterwards expressed it, as though she had been -caught eavesdropping or prying into a confession not meant for her -reading. For Mrs. Boucicault had sunk together like a faded flower -whose stem had been snapped. The elaborate lace dress and the jewelled -hands in her lap added painfully to her look of broken helplessness. But -it was in her eyes that Mary Compton had seen her self-betrayal. They -were half-closed, and from under the heavy lids they kept watch as a dog -watches who has been beaten past protest, even past subjection into a -terrible patient waiting. She pushed her daughter's hand aside, and -Anne smiled down at her with an attempt at careless ease which had its -own piteousness. - -Colonel Boucicault came up the verandah steps, his hand to his helmet -with that exaggerated formality which made the greeting a veiled gibe. - -"I trust I don't interrupt," he said. "Anne is celebrating, isn't she? -I heard whispers of something of the sort, but I was not invited. In -fact, I suspect that the entertainment was fixed for the afternoon in -the hopes that my duties might keep me elsewhere." - -He accepted the chair which his subaltern had vacated for him. "Thanks, -Radcliffe, always the soul of correctness, and ever to be found where -there is nothing more arduous going than champagne. Well, what are you -all silent for? Mrs. Brabazone, you are positively pale. Has anything -happened?" - -Mrs. Brabazone waved one of her podgy hands with a gesture that was -probably an expression of an otherwise inarticulate rage. Boucicault -laughed at her. Whether he had been drinking or not could not be said -for certain. He never betrayed himself. His hands and his voice were -equally steady. His complexion, sallow and unhealthy, added to the -unnatural brightness of his pale eyes, which, like the mouth under the -heavy moustache, expressed a deliberate, insane cruelty. - -Anne Boucicault met his roving stare and tried to smile. - -"We heard firing," she stammered. "We didn't know what it was. We were -rather frightened." - -"Frightened? Of course you were. You're given that way, aren't you, -Anne?" He held out an irritable hand for the glass which Meredith had -filled for him. "Well, you weren't the only one. Five more terrified -wretches I never saw--why, I can't think. A transmigration at this time -of the year must be rather agreeable." - -Mary Compton turned her head sharply. - -"The five men who mutinied," she exclaimed, "they were shot---just now?" - -Though the sunlight was still strong the garden seemed to have suddenly -passed into a chilling shadow. - -Colonel Boucicault nodded. - -"Yes, before the whole regiment with the exception of this gentleman who -had--what was it--the toothache?" He lifted his glass towards -Radcliffe, whose boyish face had whitened under the taunt. "Allow me to -congratulate you on your taste in champagne, sir. You should be -invaluable on the mess committee at any rate." - -Radcliffe's lips twitched but he made no answer, and it was Sigrid -Fersen who spoke. She bent down, stroking Wickie's pointed ears with a -deliberate hand. - -"Wasn't the execution a trifle ostentatious, Colonel Boucicault?" she -asked. - -He stared back at her, an ugly smile at the corner of his lips. - -"It was meant to be ostentatious. I'm afraid I cannot always consider -the delicate female nerves." - -"My nerves weren't upset," she returned levelly. "I'm not afraid of -anything." - -"Indeed?" He seemed to meditate a moment, as though something either in -her voice or appearance struck him, then jerked his head in Anne's -direction. "My orderly told me there was a messenger for me. Bring him -here." - -"Here, father?" - -"That was what I said." - -Anne slipped from her place, and, motioning Meredith aside, hurried into -the house like some frightened little animal. As she disappeared Mary -Compton started a conversation which was taken up eagerly but without -more than a faltering success. It failed altogether as Anne returned. - -"That's Ayeshi," Radcliffe whispered in Sigrid's ear. - -She looked up. The young Hindu had salaamed gravely, partly to -Boucicault, partly to the assembled company and now stood upright and -silent. He was barefooted, and the white loose clothes were grey with -dust. Yet there was that in the carriage of his slender body and in the -dark, delicate featured face which was arresting in its dignity. To -Boucicault, possibly, the boy's untroubled ease appeared as insolence. -He frowned at him moodily. - -"You are Major Tristram's servant," he asked in English. - -"Yes, Sahib." - -"Well, he has not taught you manners. But that was hardly to be -expected. You have brought a message?" - -"Yes, Sahib." - -"Deliver it." - -"It is by word of mouth, Sahib." - -"Well, then, deliver it, in Heaven's name." - -Ayeshi put his hand to his neck, pushing back the short black curls -which escaped from under his turban. He seemed to become suddenly -conscious of the attention centred on him, and his eyes, moving over the -watching faces, encountered Sigrid Fersen. He looked at her intently -and then at the dog at her feet, and she saw that his lips quivered -though not with fear. - -"It is that there is cholera at Bjura," he said. "The Dakktar Sahib is -hard pressed, and begs for help." - -"He is always doing that. Tell him I have no one to send. Captain -Treves is on furlough, and I should not dream of recalling him. The -Dakktar Sahib must manage as best he can." - -Ayeshi held his ground. His mouth had hardened. - -"The Dakktar Sahib is ill," he said. - -"Well, let the physician heal himself," Boucicault laughed. - -"Colonel Sahib--it is urgent----" - -Boucicault rose to his feet. - -"You can go," he said. Then, as Ayeshi lingered, with a suddenness that -was awful in its expression of released passions, Boucicault lifted his -hand and struck the native full on the mouth. "Now will you go?" he -said softly. - -Mrs. Brabazone screamed, but her voice was drowned wholly by a more -full-throated sound. Wickie, barking furiously and bristling with all -the fighting fury of his Scottish forbears, broke from a long restraint -and flung himself at the aggressor. Even his teeth, however, could not -prevail against the leather riding-boots, and Boucicault kicked himself -free. His passion had died down or had become something worse, a cold -still fury. - -"What brute is this?" he asked. He looked at Anne, and she tried to -meet his eyes and flinched. - -"It's Major Tristram's dog--he gave it to me to take care of--it had a -broken paw--it was shut up in the compound--I hoped you wouldn't mind, -father." - -Boucicault made no answer. He took the riding-crop which he had -carried. There was a tight line about his jaw which betrayed the -grinding teeth. He was very deliberate, almost ostentatious in his -purpose. Anne watched him. She held out a hand of protest--then let it -drop. Her pallor had become pitiful. Sigrid Fersen got up. She was so -swift and light in her movement that no one realised what she was doing -till it was done. She crossed the verandah and picked up Wickie in her -arms, narrowly escaping the murderous descent of the riding-crop. Then -she rose and faced him. - -"I like Wickie," she said. "From henceforward, Colonel Boucicault, he -is under my protection." - -Boucicault drew back. His face was grey looking. - -"You have some courage, Mademoiselle," he said almost inaudibly. - -She smiled composedly. - -"I am not 'Mademoiselle,' and you know it, Colonel Boucicault. Also, as -I said before, I am not afraid. I killed a mad dog once, and since than -I have been afraid of nothing." She turned carelessly. Ayeshi stood -behind her. There was blood on his mouth and on the hand which he had -raised in self-defence. His eyes were full of a sick suffering which -was terrible because it was not of the body. She laid her free hand on -his arm. "You are hurt," she said; "please go to my bungalow. Mrs. -Smithers will look after you--tell her I sent you. You mustn't mind -what has happened----" She looked back mockingly over her shoulder. -"Colonel Boucicault is a little out of temper. He would hit me if he -dared." - -There was a silence of sheer stupefaction. Mrs. Compton's temperament, -usually leashed by her passionate care for her husband's career, bolted -with her, and she laughed outright, and Mrs. Brabazone settled herself -back in her chair with a subdued complacency of one who has seen herself -fitly avenged. But Anne Boucicault had risen to her feet. There was a -look on her face more painful than her fear, and almost reckless in its -self-betrayal. For an instant she stood looking at the woman who faced -her father, and then without a word she turned and slipped into the room -behind her. Meredith followed. He did not speak to her. He knew where -she was going, and the knowledge gave him an odd comfort, as though in -her need she had remembered him and turned to him. Like a shadow she -glided along the dim passages. The verandah overlooking the rose-garden -was deserted and the garden itself already full of a cool twilight which -added to its sad air of neglect and death. Roses grew well in Gaya, but -they did not grow well in Anne's garden. She loved them but not -successfully. Meredith stood beside her as she lay huddled together on -the old bench and waited. Though she was so still he felt that she was -crying and the knowledge stirred him to a compassion that was not one of -understanding. In truth he understood as yet very little--the mere -surface of her grief. Presently he sat down beside her and drew her -hand gently and resolutely from her face. It was wet with tears. - -"Anne!" he said unsteadily. "Little Anne!" Loyally unselfish and -modest though he was, yet at that moment he accused himself of a tender -insincerity as though his grief and pity were masks covering his own -happiness. The thing for which he had longed and prayed had come to -pass, so swiftly and splendidly that in his warm faith he seemed to -recognize the hand of the God he prayed to. "You mustn't grieve so," he -whispered. "People understand--and we are all your friends. We know -too what this country can do with a man's character--we can make -allowances. And then, dear, no harm was done. Miss Fersen saved the -situation for us all." - -She withdrew her hand slowly and looked at him then, in spite of her -girl's tears and the veiling twilight, he wondered at the unyouthfulness -of her expression. - -"Yes, I suppose she did. She saved Wickie. She was very brave." - -"I thought so too." - -"And yet I hate her." She made a quick gesture, silencing his -involuntary protest. "I hate her--not wickedly. There is a hatred -which isn't wicked--the kind of thing we feel for what is harmful and -evil. I've tested myself over and over again. I know--I feel that she -isn't a good woman--she has no faith, no ideals. She has done harm in -Gaya already--she sticks at nothing--and because of that she wins, and -people yield to her and let her poison them. That is why I hate her." - -The man beside her was silent for a moment. He had no answer ready. He -had felt nothing for Sigrid Fersen save a masculine admiration for her -cool courage. Anne's passionate dislike, compared to what he hoped was -coming to them both, seemed a little thing and yet it chilled him. The -cold shadows of the neglected garden laid hands upon him, checking and -paralysing the headlong impulse and joyous confidence with which men win -victories. With an effort he tried to free himself. - -"You may be right," he said quietly, "I don't know. I'm no judge of -character. But the truth is, I haven't thought about her. I haven't -thought of any but the one woman--of any one but you, Anne." He paused -a moment. He no longer dared to look at her, but leant forward, his -hands tightly interlocked, his eyes fixed on the on-coming tide of -darkness. He did not know that his voice shook. "Anne, I haven't dared -boast to myself--and yet we have been so happy together--we love the -same things and have the same faith; we look at life with the same eyes. -All that is surely something. As to myself--God knows how little I have -to give you--but I won't apologize for the rest--not for my work. That -is the grandest, best thing I have to offer. I know you think so too." - -"Yes, Owen." She put her small, unsteady hand on his arm. And for a -second hope blazed up in him, dying down again to grey premonition. -"And you weren't boastful to think I cared--I do--but not like that, -Owen." - -Something impersonal within himself marvelled at the banality of -tragedy. People made fun of scenes like this--caricatured them. And he -was sick with pain and weakness. - -"Little Anne--you're so young--how should you know?" - -"I do know," she answered. - -Then he looked at her, driven out of himself by the simplicity and -strength of her confession. She held herself upright and even though -her face was full of shadow he could see the line of her mouth and it -frightened him. He knew now what he had always refused to know. -Ruthlessly, from the secret depths where we bury our hated truths, he -drew out a memory and a fear and recognized them for what they were. -The recognition was the end of the one hope of personal happiness he had -granted himself, and it staggered him. Then the man and the Christian -in him rose triumphant. - -"I won't pretend I don't guess," he said quietly and naturally. "I do. -And, Anne, though I was selfish enough to want you myself--still, there -was one thing I did want more. It isn't a phrase--it's honestly true. -I wanted you to be happy. I think you will be--I think you are--so I -haven't the right to grumble, have I?" - -He tried to smile at her. Commonplace as his form of renunciation had -been, he was not conscious now of any banality either in himself or her. -He stood on that rarely ascended pinnacle whence men look down on their -daily life and see in its tortuous monotony the weaving of a divine -pattern. He felt for the instant glorified as some men are who stand -before a miracle of nature, or a great picture, or listen to grand -music. It was his vision of the Beautiful--willing sacrifice, happy -renunciation. - -But Anne Boucicault got up and stood beside him, very straight, her -hands clenched at her sides. - -"I am not happy," she said. "I do not think I ever shall be." - -And she left him standing there in the twilight, a very human and tragic -figure, with the grey ash of his vision between his hands. - - * * * * * - -Such was Anne Boucicault's birthday. Mrs. Compton, driving home from -the scene of celebration, met her husband at the barrack gates and -forced the reins upon him in order that she might give herself over -entirely to invective and lurid description, two pastimes for which she -had an unlimited talent. Archie Compton chuckled at her picture of -Sigrid's dramatic and triumphant intervention, but his chuckle was not -all that she had expected, and she caught herself up. - -"What a brute I am!" she exclaimed repentantly. "I had forgotten. You -poor old boy! You must be feeling sick----" - -"I am," he returned grimly. "It was damnable." His voice was lowered -for the benefit of the syce balanced on the back seat, but it was no -less vibrant with bitterness. "But that's how it is out here. We--you -and I--men like Tristram--everybody--sweat out our lives, sacrifice -every personal wish we've got, play the game from the Viceroy down to -the new-fledged Tommy as, heaven knows, the game isn't often played on -this earth--for what? Well, we don't talk about that. We just go ahead -with our best. And then some blundering ass--some blackguard, is let -loose among us and the whole thing is in the fire--we might as well -never have been--or played the deuce to our hearts' content----" - -She caught a glimpse of his drawn, miserable face. - -"You think--things are pretty bad?" she asked, gropingly. "Something -will happen?" - -"Sure." His grip tightened on the reins. "Something--God knows -what--but something----" - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - *THE TWO LISTENERS* - - -It was typical of Owen Meredith that, as he left the Boucicaults' -compound behind him, he put aside his own grief and turned sternly to -the duty that lay nearest him. That duty concerned Ayeshi. Possibly, -had Ayeshi been moulded in the common clay of his race, Meredith might -have taken his duty with less seriousness, though his blood would still -have burnt at Boucicault's wanton brutality--as it was, a -long-considered purpose now took a definite form. - -It chanced that, as Meredith trudged on his way to the Mission, the -Rajah's English dog-cart swerved round a bend of the dusty road, and -came down upon him with the best speed of a rather showy high-stepper. -Rasaldu drove himself, the knowledge of animals being the one talent -that he appeared to have inherited from his cowherd ancestry, and, -recognizing Meredith, he drew up so smartly as almost to jerk his -attendant from off his precarious perch in the rear. - -"I have just come down from the dak-bungalow," he explained. "I was to -have taken Mademoiselle Fersen out with my new cob--beauty, eh?--but she -was out. Happened to have seen her?" - -Meredith accepted the fat brown hand extended towards him. - -"I left her at the Boucicaults'," he said. "But that was some time -back. It was Miss Boucicault's birthday, you know." - -"No, I didn't." Rasaldu's face fell like that of an offended child, and -Meredith hastened to add lightly: - -"It was a very small affair--only a handful of Miss Boucicault's women -friends and an odd male or two like myself. Miss Fersen was there as a -matter of course. I don't think any affair in Gaya could get along -without her." - -The Rajah chuckled, flattered and reassured. - -"No, I suppose not. A wonderful woman. Well, I daresay she had to go. -Anything I can do for you, Meredith? Want a new schoolhouse or anything -like that?" - -"I want money, Rajah," Meredith returned promptly. - -"Thought so. You shall have it. Let me have the list and I'll head it -with as much as you like----" - -"Hadn't you better hear what it's for?" Meredith suggested. - -Rasaldu shook his head. - -"Oh, I don't know; that's hardly my business." - -"In this case, I think. It concerns one of your own people, Rajah." - -Rasaldu's smile faded. He looked oddly crestfallen. - -"A protege of yours, eh?" - -"Yes, a very brilliant young man--much above his class. Though I've not -been able to trace his parentage, I imagine he has good blood in his -veins. Anyhow, I want to give him his chance, perhaps eventually send -him to Calcutta University." - -"Convert, eh?" - -"That may come," was the grave answer. - -Rasaldu was silent a moment, busy with the restless animal in the -shafts. A rather supercilious smile flickered at the corners of his -thick lips. - -"Well, you shall have all you want," he said finally. "But send him to -London--Paris. Paris is the place. It opens a man's mind--gives him -ideas. We want that sort of stuff out here. Don't fuddle him with -universities. Show him life. And there's nothing like Paris for that. -It was there I met Mademoiselle Fersen, you know. A fine woman, eh? -Fairly taken Gaya by storm, I fancy." - -"She certainly does pretty well what she likes," Meredith admitted with -a wry smile. - -"I thought so. She was bound to win. At home she fairly walked over -everyone--don't know why exactly. It wasn't only her dancing--I couldn't -quite understand it myself--not enough of it or too much--and it wasn't -her beauty. She isn't in the least beautiful.... There were women in -Paris I knew----" He caught sight of Meredith's face and burst out into -a good-natured laugh. "Well, all that won't interest you. But you shall -have your money. Keep clear of the wheels, my dear fellow--the brute's -got the devil in her--good-bye." - -He raised his whip in salutation, and a minute later was a speck in a -rolling cloud of dust. - -Owen Meredith trudged on patiently and interwove his thoughts of -Ayeshi's future, and of the slow piling of stone upon stone which was to -make a new temple in India, with the red thread of his own pain. - -Meantime the subject of his anxious consideration sat on the top step of -the dak-bungalow and was ministered to by Mrs. Smithers. Mrs. Smithers -had accepted him much as she would have accepted a herd of wild -elephants if they had presented themselves in Sigrid's name. She -brought hot water and bathed the blood from his face, and set food in -lavish quantities at his side, all this--except for a single -exclamation, "lawks a-mercy!"--without surprise or question or the -slightest change in the expression of her grim features. Ayeshi seemed -scarcely aware of her. Nor did he touch the food. He sat with his back -against the wooden pillar of the verandah, his knees drawn up to his -chin and shivered as though in the grip of a violent ague. Mrs. -Smithers tried to cover him with a rug, but he thrust her offering -aside. - -"I am not cold," he said. - -"You're very ill, young man," Mrs. Smithers retorted. - -He turned his half-closed, suffering eyes for a moment to her face. - -"It is not my body----" he muttered. - -Mrs. Smithers gave it up. Nevertheless, she drew up a chair on the -other side of the steps and sat down with her hands folded in her lap -and kept watch over him as though he had been a criminal given over into -her keeping. - -It was thus Sigrid found them half an hour later. The brief Indian -twilight still lingered on the open roadway, but in the happy wilderness -which was the garden of the dak-bungalow it was night, and the figures -of the two watchers were only shadows. - -Sigrid stepped out of the white military cloak which covered her light -dress and revealed the presence, under one arm, of a black-snouted, -alert-eared something which in other days, when Aberdeens and their -mongrel offspring were unknown, would have been taken for a baby dragon. -Mrs. Smithers's unexpectant lap received Wickie, helplessly entangled in -the cloak, and Sigrid knelt at Ayeshi's side. He had tried to rise and -salaam, but she forced him back with a resolute hand. - -"We've had enough of that sort of thing," she said almost angrily. "How -you must hate us all!" - -He gave a long shuddering sigh like that of a child which has exhausted -itself with crying, and then was still. - -"Mem-Sahib is very good," he said softly. "But he had the right----" - -"He had not," she flashed back fiercely. "What gives him the right?" - -"If Mem-Sahib were not a stranger she would know," he answered in his -broken voice. - -She struck her knee with her clenched hand in a storm of anger. - -"There is no law----" she began. - -"There is a custom, Mem-Sahib," he interrupted. "I think many of them -were sorry, but had I turned on him and struck him they would have flung -themselves on me. That is the difference." - -"You are as good as he," she protested recklessly. "If you had a chance -you would be more than he is. Major Tristram has told me----" - -"There are barriers that Mem-Sahib would be the first to remember," he -persisted. - -But the fire of her outraged chivalry burnt fiercer in the wind of his -opposition. - -"You're wrong, Ayeshi. I shouldn't. There are no barriers--at least, -none like that. Goodness knows, we're not born equal, but the -inequality that matters isn't of birth or race, but of mind and soul. -And you have a mind and soul above most. There are no barriers for -you." - -He bent his head. - -"That is what Meredith Sahib has said to me. We are all brothers--that -is the message of his God to us. Somehow, I do not think that Meredith -Sahib is wise to bring the message--nor you, Mem-Sahib--and yet we who -are athirst in the desert----" - -He seemed to meditate and to have forgotten her. He rose stiffly and -painfully to his feet. - -"I go to seek Tristram Sahib," he muttered. - -She also had risen with an effortless slowness which made even of the -simple movement a kind of wonder. - -"Tristram Sahib? Is Tristram Sahib here?" - -He pointed vaguely out into the darkness. - -"There--in an hour I am to meet him with the Colonel Sahib's answer. He -would not come himself, for he is hard pressed, and if he met the -Colonel Sahib----" - -"There would be an end to his theories," she interposed with a little -laugh. - -"And to you also he sent a message, Mem-Sahib." - -She turned to him. Mrs. Smithers, to whom the darkness was in the -nature of an impropriety, had lit the high lamp in the room behind them, -and the dim gold which flooded Sigrid Fersen's face seemed more the dawn -of an expression than a reflected light. - -"Give it me!" she said. - -His back was to the light. He looked at her for a moment, his face a -blank, featureless shadow. - -"It is here, Mem-Sahib." From his tunic he drew out a little bundle -wrapped in a thick silk cummerbund, and gave it tenderly into her hands. - -"It was that which made me most afraid," he added. - -"That!" she said, scarcely above her breath. She held the fragile china -cup in both hands, her head bent. "I can't accept it," she said -hurriedly. "You must tell him so, Ayeshi. It was his mother's gift--he -valued it--he loves beautiful things--I couldn't take it----" - -"Mem-Sahib"--the young Hindu's voice sounded rough and uneven--"the -Dakktar Sahib goes to Bjura tonight. There is much terrible sickness in -Bjura, and the Dakktar Sahib goes weary and single-handed. The cup was -precious to him--most precious--and that was why he sent it to the -Mem-Sahib who loves the beautiful as he does. He believed that his -mother would have wished it." He waited and then asked: "What message -shall I take to the Dakktar Sahib?" - -"Wait--you must give me time to think, Ayeshi--or, no, why should I -think?" Her laugh sounded low and unsteady. "Come, you must sit there -in the shadow again. It is not yet time for Tristram Sahib. Wait--I -will give him my message--sit there----" - -She was gone noiselessly. Mrs. Smithers, who hovered gloomily about the -drawing-room in search of the absconded Wickie, saw her go to the piano -and throw it open. For many minutes she sat before it motionless, -seeming to listen, then her left hand touched the keys, and almost -inaudibly, like the stir of a newly awakened wind, there sounded the -first notes of the Andante Appassionata. - -Mrs. Smithers no longer fidgeted. She stood in the shadow of the -curtained window, her old, hard-set face to the darkness. Only her -mouth had lost something of its grim severity, and had become tender. -She did not see Ayeshi, though barely the breadth of the verandah -separated them. She looked past him as sightlessly as he looked past -her. Evidently he had turned to go. One foot rested on the lower step -and his body was thrown back against the balustrade as though he had -been arrested in the very act of flight. The dim light on his face -revealed its look of wonder--almost panic-stricken wonder. - -Mrs. Smithers continued to disregard him. But presently she turned and -went across to the piano. Whatever momentary weakness had overcome her -had gone and she was again her ruthless, uncompromising self. - -"Sigrid--there's some one out there in the compound--under the trees--a -man. Who is he?" - -"Major Tristram--the Dakktar Sahib--a very poor and gallant -gentleman--who is perhaps going out to die and now trembles on the brink -of Paradise." She broke off and passed joyously into the next phrase -and through its glowing crescendo her voice sounded with a light -distinctness. "I can play too, Smithy! And dance. I could dance to -this and Beethoven would say I knew more of his soul than half the fools -who gape in stuffy concert-halls. Think, Smithy, that man out there has -never heard such music--only Meyerbeer's pompous little ballet--and -after that he went and stood by the river until the daybreak--because of -me----" - -Mrs. Smithers shook her head sternly. - -"You mustn't, Sigrid--you mustn't. It's not fair--you've always been -fair. You know nothing can't come of it. You know yourself. You can't -change your course----" - -"I do know. But sometimes the wind shall blow me whither it listeth. -Haven't I the right to that much?" - -"Not at some one else's cost, Sigrid." - -There was no answer. Sigrid Fersen lifted her right hand and touched -her lips with her forefinger. It was as though she called the very -garden without to a deeper stillness. Her left hand passed swiftly from -chord to chord, from major to a wistful minor, resting at last on one -deep lingering note of suspense. - -"Hush, Smithy! Don't talk! What does anything matter? Now listen! Do -you remember--the D minor valse--do you remember that last night--the -grand-dukes and the princesses, what were they all?--was there anything -but God and Chopin and I----" - -Her fair small head was thrown back, her eyes were bright, but not now -with gaiety. Her mouth was slightly open, and she was breathing deeply -and quickly with the glory of divine movement. - -Mrs. Smithers turned away again and went back to the window. She was -crying, her mouth stiff as though it could not yield, even to grief. - -The man under the trees had taken a step forward and now stood still -again. Between them Ayeshi lay huddled together on the top step of the -verandah, his face hidden in his arms. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - *LALLOO, THE MONEY-LENDER* - - -It had come to be an accepted fact in Gaya that the old bungalow lying -on the outskirts was haunted and therefore undesirable. Not that Gaya -feared ghosts or anything else in heaven or earth. The average -Anglo-Indian's nerve, strained by the subtle but immediate juxtaposition -of frivolity and danger which shade so imperceptibly into each other, -that the border-line can be crossed unconsciously and in an instant, -cannot indulge in emotionalism or fancies. He has to close his mind -both to the fascination and the veiled menace of Indian life, or be -lost. It is for that reason that he is always the last to admit the -fascination, except in regard to the social conditions, or the danger, -beyond the obvious ones of ill health and consequent retirement on a -beggarly half-pay. - -So Gaya's inhabitants locked up fear, and hid the key where it could not -be found even by the most unbaked, fluttered newcomer, and the old -bungalow with its ugly secret left them unmoved. But they never denied -the existence of the blight which rested on the gloomy, tumbled-down -building, and they avoided the place as unpleasant and depressing, and -took care that innocent newly appointed officers and their wives, for -whom so large and spacious a dwelling seemed eminently suited, should -house elsewhere. It was owing to this circumstance that James Barclay -had been able to obtain possession and a consequent but dubious foothold -on the outskirts of Gaya's sternly fortified social life. The bungalow -had been built in the dim ages before the Mutiny, and had been patched -and patched till little was left of the original. James Barclay -promptly renovated it from end to end, and added various bizarre -additions of his own which, however, did not alter the place's -fundamental characteristic of mouldering gloom and depression. - -In the room in which he sat talking to Lalloo, the money-lender, -everything of native origin had been rigorously excluded. The chairs -were covered with English chintzes, the curtains were futurist in design -and colour; there were copies of European masterpieces in heavy gilded -frames on the walls, and a new art bronze lamp suspended from the hand -of a marble Venus cast a bright, garish reflection on the upturned, -contemplative face of its owner. - -It was curious, therefore, that, as little as he had been able to -eradicate the gloom, as little had he been able to oust the indigenous -element. The objects might be Western, but the atmosphere remained -obstinately Oriental. Perhaps it was the irrepressible outbursts of -colour-love betrayed by the chintzes, or perhaps Lalloo supplied the -cause of this phenomena. He sat cross-legged on the carpet and stroked -his grizzled beard with a dark hand, that seemed all the darker for the -scrupulous whiteness of his _puggri_ and loose tunic. Compared with -him, Barclay looked almost blond, almost English. Yet Lalloo also -accentuated what was un-English in him. There were lines about the old -usurer's mouth and nostrils which were already dimly suggested in -Barclay's face. There was a gulf between them, but there was also a -bridge across. - -"There is Seetul, who says he cannot pay," Lalloo detailed monotonously, -and as though he were reading from an account-book. "He has owed us ten -rupees these last six months, and still he says he cannot pay. But he -has had many fine stuffs in his loom--and his daughter's hands have been -busy with rich embroideries on which the Sahibs' wives have cast longing -eyes. It would be well to claim your due, Meester Barclay, before it is -too late." - -Barclay nodded absently. - -"Good. I can leave that to you, Lalloo," he said. - -"It is well. Then Heera Singh--we lent him five rupees a year ago when -the harvest failed. Twenty-five rupees is what I claimed from him two -days ago, and he has nothing--that is to say, he has some fine cattle -and this year the rabi has done well. Your claim would be a just one, -Meester Barclay." - -"You'd better make it quick, then, before the beggar sells out. -Afterwards he'll come whining with some infernal lie. He's had rope -enough." - -"It is well." The old man continued to stroke his beard for a moment in -silence, watching the face under the light with a blank intentness which -revealed nothing. "Nehal Pal has paid in full," he resumed at length. -"His daughter was given in marriage to Meer Ali a week since. Meer Ali -is a very old man, and there was some difficulty, for in these -degenerate days the tongues of the women wag to some purpose--but the -marriage contract was very favourable to Nehal Pal. And he has paid in -full." Lalloo patted his waistband and drew out a small jangling bag, -which he set with an almost religious gravity at his patron's feet. -"These and the other moneys of which I have already rendered account are -now before you, Meester Barclay." - -Barclay picked up the bag and weighed it negligently in his lean, brown -hand. - -"You've got an amazing head for figures, Lalloo," he commended. "And -you're some business man, as our American friends would say. We shall -want both qualities badly in the future. I want money--as much as I can -get. I mean to rope in all the industries of every village within three -hundred miles and make them paying concerns. At present, they're just -in a state of straggling, unprofitable hugger-mugger, out of which -nobody gets anything." - -"I have done my best," Lalloo insinuated deprecatingly. - -Barclay tossed the bag on to the polished oak table beside him. - -"One man's best isn't enough. Nothing's of any good without -organization, and to organize one must have the power to make others do -what they're told. So far we've got most of the grain-dealers into the -net, and by the next harvest they'll have to sell me their grain at my -own price. But that's a drop in the ocean. The weaving--that's the -thing. That's what's going to count. There are three hundred thousand -weavers round and about Gaya, swamped by rotten fakes from Manchester. -I'm going to change all that. It's Manchester that's going to be -swamped. One of these days, I shall be a power in Gaya, Lalloo." - -He said it with a mixture of arrogance, complacency, and appeal which -elicited no more than an enigmatic "It may well be, Meester Barclay," -from the expressionless Hindu Kara cross-legged on the carpet. - -Barclay got up and stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his -riding-breeches, his eyes roving from one to another of the expensive -atrocities with which the room was crowded. - -"I've begun here," he went on, in the same tone. "I daresay they would -have fought me tooth and nail for possession of the place if they'd had -the power. But they hadn't. Even in Gaya money spells the last word, -and I had money. There isn't another bungalow like this in Gaya." - -"That also is true," Lalloo assented. He turned his head for a moment, -fixing an intent look on the curtained doorway as though it reminded him -of something. "I know the place well. It was here in this room many -years ago that I found the body of the great Tristram Sahib. He had been -murdered. There was blood on the floor--almost where Meester Barclay -stands now. The carpet hides the stain. We tried to wash it out, but -the blood had soaked into the wood." He made a little regretful -gesture. "It had flowed freely, and we came many hours too late," he -finished. He gave his account as casually, tonelessly as he had recited -his accounts, not noting the uneasy start of the man in front of him, -but seeming to fall into a mood of profound retrospection. Barclay came -nearer to the light again. - -"Murdered?" he echoed. "In this room--by whom?" - -The sharp brown eyes lifted for a moment. - -"That is not known. One could tell, perhaps, but he has been long -silent. The young and foolish swear he has not spoken for a hundred -years, but that is vulgar superstition. I remember Vahana the Holy Man -when he was young and handsome and loved a beautiful wife." He jerked -his head significantly. "It was her body I found out in the garden well -yonder," he added. - -"Murdered, too----?" - -Lalloo smiled subtly. - -"Tristram Sahib was handsome and brave and lonely. It was said that he -had a way with women--and he was Sahib. No doubt she came willingly. -In those days, Gaya was not as now. She lived with him for a year -before the--accident. There was a child, but that was never found." - -"And Vahana?" - -The smile, unchanged, gained in significance. - -"He was on a great pilgrimage to Holy Benares, Meester Barclay." The -old usurer put his hand to the neck of his tunic and pulled up something -which hung there by a cord. The thing glittered yellow in the light. -"See, this is what I found on her body-0an old bracelet--strange and -wonderful in design, Meester Barclay. I wear it, for there is a saying -that a murdered woman's jewels shield a man from the evil eye, and I, -Lalloo, who believe in nothing, am cautious. There was a fellow to it, -but that I gave to Vahana in remembrance of the wife he had loved. He -thanked me and went his way--some say to Kailasa, but there is no -knowing, for since that day no man has heard him speak." - -Barclay, who had bent down for a moment, let the bracelet slip from his -fingers. He turned away and went and stood near the spot which Lalloo -had indicated, frowning down at it as though the stain were still -visible or bore for him some deeper significance. - -"And so, because of a sordid tragedy, many years old, the place is -boycotted by all save outsiders--such as I am. Is that the delicate -point of your story, Lalloo?" he asked. - -"They say a spirit dwells in this room," Lalloo answered indirectly, -"--an evil spirit," he added. - -"Or a living one. Ghosts, if there are any, are men's deeds which live -after them. But there are no ghosts." He shrugged his shoulders and -laughed. "Look about you, Lalloo. A ghost couldn't haunt this room -now. He'd lose his bearings. It's changed since those days, eh?" - -Lalloo looked at the marble Venus with her lamp. - -"It is indeed wonderful," he assented. - -Barclay swung on his heel and came back. He was suddenly neither -arrogant nor pleading, but utterly and rather terribly sincere. - -"You don't think it wonderful," he said, softly and bitterly. "What you -think, God knows, but at least it's not admiration for me that you're -hiding behind your damned impassivity. I'm your partner--a very rich -partner. I'm Meester Barclay, that's all. But the youngest -whipper-snapper with a pink and white face and a pair of epaulettes is -Sahib." He stopped, trying to master himself physically. The lean -brown hands were clenched at his side in the effort. "Why am I not -Sahib?" he asked. - -Lalloo spread out his hands. - -"I speak to you in English. Is not 'Meester Barclay' the English way?" -he asked with deference. - -Barclay laughed. The muscles of his handsome features still quivered -with the gust of nervous passion which had swept over him, but there was -a certain satisfaction in his laughter. - -"Well, you have always a soft answer--and I understood. I am simply not -Sahib. They--your masters--have not recognized me, so you do not -recognize me. But all that is going to change, and when you see me -cheek by jowl with the best of them you will salaam and ask the bidding -of Barclay Sahib." He paced restlessly backwards and forwards in his -excitement, the mincing quality of his accent asserting itself. "You -know the law, Lalloo. A man is what his father was. My father was -English--I have got good English blood in my veins. I've always known -it--it would be damned awkward for some of them if I proved it. But, at -any rate, they've got to have me. I'm forging a gold key to their -strongest locks, and if that won't do, then----" He broke off again, -changing his tone to one of trenchant decision. - -"I've got to have money--money enough to swamp them. I've got to have -those weavers. Once get a hold on the throat of the industries and the -rest's easy. Start at Heerut, Lalloo. They've had an epidemic, and -will be ready to sell their souls. You can give them easy terms--" - -Lalloo got up leisurely. - -"At Heerut--no, Meester Barclay," he said. "Not there." - -"And why not?" - -"The Dakktar Sahib lives in Heerut. He is a strange man. He has no -love for my calling." - -"Well, are you afraid of him?" - -"No; he drove a devil out of my son," Lalloo explained, without -particular emotion. - -Barclay laughed irritably. - -"That means fear, right enough. You think if he can drive out devils, -he can also inflict them. I know your ways of argument. Well, in the -name of the devil he exorcised, who is the fellow?" - -"Tristram Sahib." - -"Tristram----?" - -"The son," Lalloo explained, his eyes on the spot near the curtain. - -James Barclay turned on his heel and went over to the window. For a -full minute he stood there motionless and silent, seemingly intent on -the sound of English voices which drifted towards him over the darkness -of the compound. When he spoke again it was with a drawling heaviness. - -"Tristram----the son? That's a curious coincidence. Still, I see your -point, Lalloo. You could not very well oppose him. Leave Heerut to me. -I shall manage. You can go now." - -The old usurer lingered. He was watching the tall, stooping figure by -the window, his head a little on one side, as though he, too, listened, -but apparently to other sounds. Presently he slid noiselessly to the -door and drew back the curtain. - -A woman entered. - -Lalloo greeted her with silent deference. He lifted his hand half-way -to his forehead, looking in Barclay's direction, and the gesture was -nicely expressive of a courteous equality. Then he was gone. - -Barclay continued to stand by the window. He had noticed neither -Lalloo's departure nor the woman's entry. Evidently the English party -outside on the road had just returned from some entertainment. He could -hear a fragment of a laughing reference to champagne, then an -indistinguishable murmur pitched in a graver key, and a woman's -exclamation of contemptuous disgust. Some one called good-night, a whip -cracked, and a light-wheeled vehicle rolled on its way down-hill towards -the dak-bungalow. - -Barclay drew in his breath between his teeth like some one who has -received a hurt, but he did not move. The woman came nearer to him. -Her movements were quiet and graceful, and curiously typical of the -whole of her. Everything about her was harmonious in a supple, boneless -way. The big straw hat, made garishly ornate with artificial poppies, -flopped over the dark little face and its untidy, beautiful frame of -straight, jet-black hair. The light sprig dress revealed the yielding -lines of her body, and was in itself pretty and badly made and -carelessly put on. She had all the charm, all the lithesome fascination -of a young animal, but there were also lines in her face, in her figure, -which gave warning of a less lovely maturity. - -As she came softly forward she clasped her hands, half in excitement, -half in a childish appeal, and they were long-fingered, olive-tinted, -and gaudy with bright rings. - -"Jim!" she whispered. "Jim!" - -He started. The moody dejection passed. He swung round, his features -blank with the very violence of contending emotions. For a moment he -stared at her, whilst the breathless joy in her eyes faded into hesitant -questioning, then into fear. "Oh, Jim," she repeated helplessly. - -"Jim!" - -He strode up to her, catching her roughly by the wrist, shaking her less -with anger than in a kind of panic. - -"Why have you come?" he stammered. "How did you get here?" - -She cowered like a dog before threatening punishment, and her eyes, -lifted to his face, were dog-like in their steadfast, wistful appeal. - -"By train to Bhara and then I drove--for two days, Jim. But no one knew -me. I didn't ask any questions--I didn't tell any one. Not a soul. I -just found my way here. I had your letters and they described things so -wonderfully, I felt I was coming home. Jim, how beautiful it all is! -Much more beautiful than I ever dreamed!" - -Partly she was trying to propitiate him, but partly the exclamation was -sincere. Her brown eyes were wide and bright as they passed over the -room's treasures, resting at last on the culminating vulgarity of the -Venus. Barclay followed her gaze, then, without a word, he released her, -and going over to the lamp, turned down the wick. It sputtered feebly, -throwing up decreasing flashes of light on to the white, stupid -loveliness of the goddess, and then died out. Through the darkness, -Barclay's voice sounded thick with anger. - -"Anybody might have seen us from the road," he said. "You must be mad, -Marie, or bent on doing for my chances. Don't you know what I told -you--or did you just choose to forget? Good God, don't whimper! You're -like a child. You smash something and then you cry as though you were -the injured party----" - -"I was so awfully lonely----" she broke in, piteously. - -He was silent. She could not read his expression, but the quiet -following on his first violence suggested a furious effort to regain -self-control. She waited, not moving or speaking, and presently he took -up her plea, scrutinizing it with the level coldness of suppressed -anger. - -"Lonely, you say? Hadn't you friends enough? You used to make me sick -with your boasts about them. There were the Mazzinis and the Aostas--in -our Calcutta days they lived with us, fed on us, borrowed from us. -What's become of them? You had money enough to buy the lot. Lonely!" -He exploded on the word, falling on it with a raging bitterness, then -choked himself back to his pose of judicial deliberation. "It did not -at all occur to you that I might be lonely, I suppose. It did not occur -to you that whilst you were lolling comfortably in your rut, I was -cutting new roads for us both through a granite opposition with not a -soul to help me. You imagined me in a whirl of conviviality, no -doubt--feted, courted, the catch of Gaya----" He laughed out. "You -fool!" he flung at her, in a paroxysm of exasperation. - -She gasped, as though he had struck her across the face, but she was no -longer crying. Her voice sounded flat and tired like a child's. - -"I was lonely," she reiterated patiently. "I had the Mazzinis and the -Aostas. I saw them every day, and they were very kind. But they were -not you, Jim. I wanted you all the time, night and day, worse and -worse. I thought I should have died, wanting you. And I did imagine -things. I couldn't help it. I thought how brilliant and handsome you -were, and I knew you'd win through and climb--ever so high--and I should -be left behind. I couldn't bear it, Jim, dear. I had to come." - -Barclay did not answer, but now his silence was no longer the tense, -savage thing it had been. She could see his tall, slight figure dimly -outlined against the paler darkness of the garden. Presently he turned -and drew up, the Chesterfield to the shadow's edge. - -"Come here!" he said authoritatively. - -She came, groping blindly towards him and knelt down at his knees. She -put her hands up, touching his face his shoulders, his whole body. - -"Oh, Jim!" she whispered huskily. "Just to feel you again--just to know -you're there--near me. It's like slaking an awful thirst--you don't -know what it's been----" - -"Hush!" he whispered back. She had flung aside her hat, and he bent and -kissed her hair. A curious fragrance rose to meet him--Eastern, -sensuous, intoxicating. He flung his arms round, dragging her close to -him, kissing her eyes, her lips with a ruthless desire. - -"And haven't I thirsted--haven't I wanted you? Do you think I haven't -been lonely--among these strangers who turn their backs on me, shrink -from me as though I were a leper? Hush, don't cry! I'm not angry now. -I'm glad. We shall have these few hours together. Tomorrow----" - -"Tomorrow?" she interrupted fearfully. - -"Tomorrow you must go back." He laid his hand on her lips, stifling her -involuntary cry of pain. His own voice grew clearer and less -passionate. "You must. We can't let ourselves be carried away by our -feelings like this. It would be ridiculous to sell the whole future for -the present." - -"We were happy before," she whispered. "What more can one be than -happy?" - -He made a little impatient movement. - -"You were happy. But I--couldn't you see for yourself--I didn't belong -there--not among your set or the set I'd been brought up in--poor, mean, -petty folk, squabbling and wrangling over the degrees of their -insignificance. Who was your father?--a rotten little clerk, sweating in -a Government office, too poor to get an English wife. But my -father----" He broke off, and then went on rapidly. "I'm different, -Marie. I've got good blood in my veins--good English blood. It's -restless in me. It won't let me rot like the others. I've got to get -on. I've got to win through--back to my own people. Don't you -understand?" - -"Yes," she said dully, "and I am afraid." - -He went on, with gathering determination: - -"So you must go back and wait. I shall pull through, but you couldn't, -and I couldn't help you. You'd drag me back. You must have patience -and faith. When I've made my position safe here----" - -"You will not want me," she interrupted gently. "You'll have climbed -too high for me, Jim. That's why I am afraid." - -He laughed a little. His hand brushed the tears from her hot cheeks, -and passed on caressingly down her arm to her wrist and lingered there. - -"You're tired and fanciful, Marie. Some one's been putting ideas into -your head. You've got to trust me and help me----" - -"Jim--what are you doing?" she whispered. - -"The bracelet--the one I gave you--you're still wearing it----?" - -"Always. Night and day. It's been like a bit of you----" - -"I want it back----" - -She tried to wrench herself free from him. "Jim--don't--don't, dear." - -"I want it. Hush, don't make a fuss. You shall have it back, I promise -you. Heavens--what a child----!" - -She was crying now convulsively. He put his arms round her and pressed -her closer with an impatient tenderness. - -"It was all I had of you," she sobbed. "It was our luck--a sort of -link--now it's gone----" - -"--into my pocket," he retorted, good-humouredly, "and in a week or two -it'll be back on your wrist. I'll put it there if I have to come all -the way to Calcutta. Hush, for God's sake; don't cry like that----" - -She became suddenly very quiet. Instinctively she knew that he was -trying to listen to something beyond her sobbing, and she too listened, -intently, with the alertness of a frightened animal. - -"Jim--what is it----?" - -He freed himself deliberately from her arms. - -"It's down at the dak-bungalow. Some one playing. It's a long way off. -The wind must be in the east----" - -"The dak-bungalow? Who lives there?" - -"Sigrid Fersen----" - -"A woman. Jim, do you know her?" - -He got up. It was as though she no longer existed for him. The D minor -valse came down to them on the breath of the night-breeze--maddening and -exhilarating--a song of life at its full tide. - -"Yes--I--I know her," he said. - -"Jim, where are you going?" - -He turned on her, thrusting aside her clinging hands with a cold -violence. - -"Stay there!" he said. "Don't let any one see you. Stay there----!" - -He pushed past her and went down the verandah steps. It was as though he -had thrust a dog out of his path. She called to him, but he did not -hear her--a minute later, he had vanished into the shadow of the trees. - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - *AN ENCOUNTER* - - -Ayeshi, with his face buried in his arms, had neither seen nor heard, -and it was Mrs. Smithers who stepped challengingly into the man's path. -Her old heart beat terrifyingly, but she held herself with a very dour -and acrimonious determination. - -"Of all the impertinence!" she hissed at him. "Go away with you, you -nasty, maraudering heathen----" - -But it was then that Sigrid saw him, and the D minor valse broke off -sharply, leaving a flat and drear silence, as though some splendid, -glowing spirit had fallen lifeless. She herself had risen and stood with -one hand on the keys, the other at her side. Her mouth was still a -little open, but no longer with her wide smile of joyous living. She -looked tired, and rather wan. - -"Who are you?" she asked, breathlessly. "What are you doing here?" - -"I beg your pardon." Barclay bowed to her. "I assure you, I did not -mean to interrupt your playing, but this--this lady caught sight of me -and I had to present myself at once or be taken for a burglar. I hope I -am forgiven?" - -She shrugged her shoulder, studying him with an impassivity before which -his suave manner faltered and became uncertain. - -"I neither know you nor your business," she said. "When I have heard -your explanation, it will be time to consider whether I can accept your -apology." - -"Meantime, I accept the reproof," he retorted. "But we are old -acquaintances--at least, we have met before. That is the first paragraph -of my excuse. We met at the dinner Lord Kirkdale gave in honour of your -return, and I was introduced to you. My name is Barclay--James -Barclay." - -"There are many thousands of people who have been introduced to me and -whose names and faces I have forgotten," she said, simply. "That does -not warrant their walking into my drawing-room at odd hours of the -night." - -His smile, uneasily ingratiating, persisted. - -"Haven't I apologized, and won't you make some allowances? I had missed -you this afternoon at Colonel Boucicault's--business detained me--and -was bitterly disappointed. Passing your bungalow, I heard you -playing--I was mortally tempted--and, relying on the fact that we are in -India and not in stiff-necked England, I ventured to present myself at -once." - -"You relied on the facts that I am a dancer, that you once paid half a -guinea for a stall to see me dance, that you cadged for an introduction -where introductions were valueless, and that, once a woman ventures out -into publicity, men of a certain type consider her fair game." She -spoke quietly enough, but there was a whiteness about her distended -nostrils which betrayed a rising anger. "Well, as you rightly say, we -are not in England. The half-guinea stall is of no value here. My -privacy is my right, and I beg of you to respect it." - -He held his ground. His impulse had carried him into an _impasse_ from -which he could not possibly retreat with dignity. - -"You are like royalty, Miss Fersen," he said fluently. "People whom you -don't know, know you. It's the penalty of greatness. You can't be hard -on us poor mortals who take the sunshine when they can get it. Besides, -I have only forestalled events. Sooner or later, I should have met -you----" - -"I have lived in Gaya for two months," she interrupted, "and I have -neither met you nor heard of you, Mr. Barclay." - -She closed the piano, sighing impatiently. Had she looked at him at -that moment she might have repented her only half-intended cruelty, for -his insolent ease had become a desperate and rather pitiable -humiliation. He had committed a blunder which he had neither the art -nor the social adroitness to cover over, and he looked to her to make -his escape possible--decent. And she ignored him. Whereat what little -self-possession he owned deserted him, leaving him to the mad guidance -of a raw and quivering pride. - -"You know very well who and what I am, Miss Fersen," he stammered, "or -you wouldn't behave like this. If I'd been one of the others, you'd -have welcomed me. You wouldn't have dared treat the merest subaltern as -you've treated me. If Rajah Rasaldu, a full-blown native, from whom you -accept----" - -She turned like a flash. - -"Will you go, Mr. Barclay?" she said, scarcely above her breath. - -He remained stubbornly unmoved. A minute before, he had been merely a -tragi-comic figure, a victim of a midsummer night's ambition, and his -own intoxicated senses. He might, to himself at least, have pleaded -many things in extenuation--certainly a fundamental harmlessness and -even a rather painful humility. Now he had become dangerous. - -"I'll go at my own time," he said unevenly. Mrs. Smithers had once more -intervened and he pushed her back. - -"I can afford a scandal--you can't----" - -It was at that moment that Tristram stalked in through the open -verandah. Sigrid saw him first, and laughed. - -"So it's your turn to play _deus ex machina_," she said gaily. It was -as though his advent had swept away every vestige of her annoyance. She -looked at Barclay with bright, malicious eyes. "You've just come in -time to show Mr. Barclay the way out," she said. "He was unable to find -it for himself." - -The two men stared at each other. At that moment either of them could -have passed easily for the villain of the little drama, Barclay's -quivering, passion-distorted features being balanced by the Englishman's -general appearance, which was ragamuffinly, not to say ruffianly. His -white clothes had been washed since Sigrid had seen him last, but had -not been ironed, an unfortunate omission, since the result was one of -soiled inelegance. The stubble on his unusual chin had become a reddish -beard, in itself an unlovely object, and lent his countenance a look of -aggression and truculence. - -Barclay laughed. He was beside himself, less with anger than with panic -before the inevitable _debacle_, and he groped round for any weapon -which might deliver him with a semblance of dignity. - -"I appreciate my blunder, Miss Fersen," he jerked out. "I had no idea -that I interrupted an--an appointment. I can quite understand your -annoyance--and I apologize. I wish you both good-night." - -Tristram blocked his way. - -"Your name's Barclay?" he asked quietly. - -"It is." - -"I've heard of you." - -"I daresay." The Eurasian's eyes narrowed. He looked into his -opponent's face with a sudden curiosity. "I daresay we have met before, -Major Tristram." - -"I don't think so." - -"Perhaps in a third person." - -"I don't understand," Tristram returned simply. "But I have heard of -you. Some time I'd like to have a little talk--about various things, -which concern us both--notably about some friends of mine who have been -hard pressed.----" - -"I shall be delighted to meet you any time, Major Tristram," Barclay -retorted. "I, too, may have matters of interest to discuss with you." - -Tristram stood on one side. - -"Shall we go together now?" he suggested. "Since we are both -intruding----" - -"Not you, Major Tristram," Sigrid interposed quietly. - -There was a moment's silence. The way was now open to Barclay, and the -three implacable watchers gave him no choice. He tried to insinuate -into his bearing, into his exaggerated bow, a mocking ease, a cynical -suggestiveness which might give him even a semblance of advantage. But -he failed, and knew it. He stumbled out, blind and sick with the -consciousness of defeat, of a hideous, self-inflicted humiliation. - -Mrs. Smithers saw him to the verandah steps as a policeman sees a -doubtful intruder off premises specially recommended to his care. She -adjusted her neat wig with dignity and a touch of wrathful defiance. - -"In a brace of shakes, I'd have boxed his ears," she muttered -ferociously. "Not but what my heart was beating about inside me like a -fly in a bottle. The impudent blackguard! Called himself an -acquaintance! What next! We shall have the sweep dropping in for tea -and the butcher leaving his card----" She caught herself up. "There, in -another minute, I'd have forgotten I was a lady and said things. Shall -I see about coffee for you, Sigrid?" - -"Please, Smithy." - -Sigrid Fersen stood near the middle of the room, looking out on to the -dark garden, her hand raised to her small face in the familiar attitude -of half-whimsical, half-sad reflection. Tristram glanced at her and -then hurriedly away. - -"I was dancing," she said suddenly, with a catch in her breath. "I -don't think I'd ever danced like that before. And then he came. It was -as though something vital in me had been snapped--a bird brought down in -full flight----" - -"Ayeshi came out and told me you were in difficulties," he said. "I was -eavesdropping. I suppose I behaved like a cad, too." - -She shook her head. - -"I was playing to you--and dancing. I knew you would see me dancing." - -"Then you knew----?" - -"Ayeshi told me you were coming. I knew if I played you would come into -the garden and listen. I wanted you to come. And you came." - -He tried to laugh, and the laugh failed him. - -"I am almost afraid of you," he said. - -She considered him quaintly. - -"Smithy would say you were quite right to be afraid. And Smithy would be -right, too. I am dangerous." - -"And I am a believer in the theory which bids us 'live dangerously,'" he -retorted more lightly. - -"But with you the theory would work out as self-sacrifice--with me it -would mean the sacrifice of others." She drew a lounge chair out on to -the verandah and sat down with a little sigh of relief. "How tired I -am! The D minor valse always tired me--not my body--that doesn't -matter--but the invisible spirit which makes a single step a divine -thing. Mr. Meredith would call it the soul, if he could connect his -speciality with anything so vulgar and mundane." She laughed and -snuggled herself back among the cushions. "Anyhow, my soul has danced -and my soul is tired," she announced contentedly. - -Tristram remained standing. He was looking down at her profile with a -puzzled intentness. - -"Yes," he admitted, "very tired." - -"That means--I'm looking ugly?" she suggested. - -"No," he answered, abruptly. - -At that moment, seated there with her back to the light, she looked -elfish, something aerial and inhuman. Her fair hair, smoothed down with -a delicious primness on either side of her small head, made an aureole -in which her face gleamed white and transparent. Beauty and ugliness -were terms inapplicable to her. As well have measured air and fire by -the standards of a Venus de Milo. "Still, you're not well tonight," -Tristram persisted obstinately. - -"Feel that, then, Dakktar Sahib!" - -He took her outstretched hand. For a second it lay in his, small, cool, -amazingly soft and supple, then clasped itself round his fingers like a -steel band made living by electric forces, and he looked up wincing and -laughing, and their eyes met. She was smiling at him with a childlike -satisfaction. - -"You see, I am stronger than you, Dakktar Sahib!" she said gaily. - -"That wouldn't be saying much tonight," he answered. - -She still held his hand, but her hold had changed its character. - -"I had forgotten--Ayeshi told us--you are ill----" - -"It is nothing," he muttered. - -She became thoughtful in her silence. Wickie made a scrambling rush up -the verandah steps and flung himself, with an hysterical yell of -triumph, against Tristram's legs. By what cunning he had eluded Mrs. -Smithers's methodical but unpractised search cannot be told--but he was -there, a wriggling, writhing, panting mass of delirious happiness. -Tristram caught him up and hugged him. - -"And how in the name of the Creator of Mongrel Puppies did you get -here?" he asked. - -"I commandeered him," Sigrid Fersen answered. - -"I left him with Miss Boucicault." - -"And Colonel Boucicault threatened to knock his brains out, so I -commandeered him." - -Tristram glanced down at her wonderingly. - -"You bearded the Colonel? That was plucky of you. Anne must have been -frightened, poor little soul." - -A faint, malicious smile quivered at the corner of Sigrid's lips. - -"A little, I think. But she had no time to interfere. I was nearest to -the scene of action." - -"I am awfully grateful. Wickie and I are old pals." - -"I know. If I deserve reward, let him stay with me. What will you do -with small dogs out there?" - -"I don't know--would he stay with you?" - -"Try him!" - -He set Wickie on his short bandy legs and she called the dog by name. -He came and sat in front of her, beating the ground with his lengthy -tail, his ears flat in an ingratiating humility. She bent and patted -him. "You see!" - -Tristram nodded. His silence became tense and painful, as though he -laboured under a physical weakness, kept only at bay by a sheer effort -of will. She looked at him critically, and saw that he was trembling. - -"You are ill, Major Tristram. Sit down and rest. Smithy will bring us -coffee--it will do you good to sit with me here in the darkness and -quiet." - -"I ought to be on my way," he answered unevenly. - -"Well, then, if not for yourself--for me. I will admit that I am ill -and that I need the Dakktar Sahib's ministrations. It comforts me to -have you here. It is your duty, therefore, to remain." - -"You are stronger than I," he answered, with an unsteady laugh. But he -sat down opposite her, his body bent forward, his hands clasped between -his knees. She could see nothing of his face, but the outline of his -fine head, distorted a little by its mass of thick hair, trimmed by an -amateur hand, lent his shadow a look of way-worn distress and physical -disintegration. Yet it remained an indomitable shadow. She remembered -him as she had seen him once before. Since then the Quixote had had his -tussle with the windmill and now, bruised and broken, prepared himself -for a fresh onslaught. - -"Why do you do it?" she flung at him, almost angrily. - -He looked up at her, as though waking from a dream. - -"Do what?" he asked. - -She shrugged her shoulders. - -"Oh, I know. Ayeshi has told me. You're going into that hell -single-handed and crippled. Boucicault has refused to get you help. -Why do you let him trample on you? He is not in your service. Are you -afraid of him, too?" - -He met her taunt with a grave simplicity. - -"No, I am not afraid. Up till now, Colonel Boucicault has blocked my -line of communication with the authorities. That's over. There's going -to be a tussle to the death between us, and he knows it. That's why I -didn't come myself tonight." - -"Then why need you go? Any one would exonerate you. Ayeshi said it -might mean----" She recoiled from her own thought. "It's almost your -duty not to go," she exclaimed. - -"Do you want me to remain?" he asked. - -She beat her clenched fist irritably on the arm of her chair. - -"No--because it wouldn't be you then--because you are a fool, Major -Tristram--a sublime fool whom one wouldn't have changed even to save him -from destruction. Go, by all means, and sacrifice yourself to your -duty. For that you were born." - -He sank back in his chair, his face lifted to where the jungle of the -neglected compound thinned before the night's luminous sapphire. - -"I don't believe in duty and sacrifices," he said, "but in happiness." - -"And isn't your happiness here?" she demanded, imperiously; "isn't this -happiness--the thing you dreamed of?" - -She saw his hands clench themselves. - -"Yes--but a dream that can't be fulfilled--a secret corner of -fancy--that isn't enough. In the end--if one lived on it, set it before -one as the end-all--one would sicken and starve. The dream itself would -die. I've figured it out--happiness is the consciousness of -purpose----" - -"What purpose can any one of us have?" she retorted scornfully, "we who -are ourselves purposeless creations?" - -He waited a moment. When he answered, his voice sounded clear and -steady, though his words were faltering, groping efforts of expression. - -"I don't know--I mean rather that I can't explain. I'm an inarticulate -sort of fellow. It seems to me--ninety-nine days out of a hundred we -don't worry as to where we're going or why. We do what we've got to do -blindly. But the hundredth day is a day of reckoning. You were going to -say just now that I might die if I went out there. Well, that doesn't -seem to me so important. Death is the only visible goal we have. What -matters, what is vital, what is happiness is that we should reach that -goal splendidly--as splendidly as we can. Surely happiness is this, -that in our moments of reckoning, when we have to face ourselves, or -when we reach the goal, perhaps suddenly and unexpectedly, we can look -back on our course with the knowledge that, whether punishment or reward -or nothing awaits us, we ran straight according to our lights." - -"And 'running straight' for you means plunging into the sickness and -suffering of others?" she asked moodily. - -She saw him throw back his tired shoulders. - -"What other 'running straight' is there that matters?" he returned, -ardently. "Those poor folk out in Bjura--I'm the only hope they've got. -Supposing I fail them? No one would blame me---no one would say I hadn't -run straight--but I should have broken the only law I recognize--I -should have denied the only god I know. And more than that--I'm -English. When I go out there, I carry my colours with me. It depends -on me whether those colours signify to these people suffering or -happiness, and whether, in the end, they signify happiness or suffering -to us----" He paused, and then went on quietly. "And they must be held -higher and steadier because others have forgotten." - -"As Colonel Boucicault has forgotten," she put in. - -"And is he happy?" he asked quickly. She was silent, and he made a -little gesture of apology. "I'm sorry--I'm like all lonely men--I've -grown preachy and prosy. I've tired you----" - -But she turned to him, her head high, her eyes brilliant with a suddenly -revealed feeling. - -"Why should you apologize? I also have my theories of life and death. -Yes--to die splendidly--on the mountain top, in a palace of gold and -silver, in the full tide of youth and strength, of one's own free-will, -not knowing decay or suffering--to look back on a life without ugliness, -without poverty or meanness--that is the goal--that is happiness." - -"That is your vision," he said, smiling at her wistfully. "But you are -fire and air, and I am heavy earth." - -She got up and went to the steps of the verandah, and stood there with -her back turned to him. - -"Oh, your vision of me, Major Tristram--beware of it. Why do you make an -idol of me?" - -But he did not answer. - -Ayeshi came out of the shadow of the trees, leading the grotesque -Arabella and his own sturdy pony. Tristram half rose. - -"No!" she said imperatively. "You have made me tired and wretched and -angry. You, a physician! You have got to cure me before you go." - -"What shall I do?" he asked humbly. - -She was quiet a moment, her finger to her lips. Her anger had gone, and -she was once more the being of swift and joyous fancies. - -"Look--the moon is showing between the trees. It has made a white pool -at my feet, Tristram Sahib. Do you remember what you told me--how at -night-time you sat by the village fire and listened to Ayeshi's stories -of the great past? You promised that one day I should listen, too. Now -I claim fulfilment. We will sit round the moonlight and warm our hands -at it, and Ayeshi shall tell the story that his Sahib loves best. Shall -it be so?" - -"Yes," he answered. - -Both Mrs. Smithers and the soft-footed native servant, whom she now -marshalled in with a forbidding air of distrust, were waved imperiously -aside. - -"No--coffee and Smithy are civilized--and we are miles from -civilization. We are on the borders of the jungle. If I listened, I -should hear the howl of the jackals--so I shan't listen, for I detest -jackals. There are monkeys overhead peeping at us and chattering soft -insults--and birds pluming themselves for sleep. The moonlight will be -on our faces, and it will be like the firelight. And the river shall -make the music to Ayeshi's story." - -She slipped down on to the stone floor and sat there, cross-legged, her -chin cupped in her hand. The circle of pale silver reflected itself -back on to her earnest face and painted faint, mocking shadows at the -corners of her composed lips. Ayeshi crouched dreamingly on the lower -step of the verandah. On the other side of the little circle, Tristram -sat with Wickie drowsing at his feet, his hands outstretched as though, -to please her fancy, he warmed them at the firelight. Once, as Ayeshi -told his story, he looked across at her and his face was haunted with -weariness and suffering and famished desire. - -Thus Ayeshi told of the Rani Kurnavati and her Bracelet Brother. - - * * * * * - -The moonlight faded. With Ayeshi's last words a chill darkness crept -over them, hiding them from one another and silencing them. It was as -though they had indeed warmed themselves at a fire which had gone out, -leaving them to the grey ash of their dreams. - -Silently Ayeshi had risen and untethered the horses and led them towards -the gates of the compound. But Tristram lingered, standing on the steps -of the verandah, his face turned from the woman who looked down at him. - -She laid her hands on his shoulders. - -"And you who go out very gallantly, perhaps to meet the end which you -fear so little--have you nothing to ask first of life, nothing you -desire, no fulfilment of mad dreams dreamed by the river and by your -fireside--nothing that I might not grant?" - -He made no answer. She felt him tremble under her hands. Her laugh was -subdued, pityingly triumphant. - -"Oh, Tristram Sahib, do you think I don't know--do you think I haven't -read your heart?" she said. - -And bent and kissed him. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - *INFERNO* - - -He pitched his tent outside the village in a paradise of brilliantly -painted flowers and high grass, whose bright emerald shone luminously -where the dying sun touched it. A pool in the shadow of the trees wore -a score of lotus-flowers on its still breast, and the ghosts of yellow -blossoms from the overhanging mango shimmered tremulously beneath among -the tangled undergrowth. - -But there was no living thing. The sand at the water's edge was -unbroken by the familiar _pugs_, and the trees and the long grasses were -empty and silent. Death and over-abundant sensuous life lay side by -side. The very soil, rich and moist, gave out an aroma of sickly -sweetness tainted with corruption. - -The native bearers shook their heads and crouched down near their -sleeping quarters, awaiting the loathsome, invisible thing with the -fatality of their race. - -But Tristram shouldered his case of medicaments and sought the road -leading to the village. - -The road was ankle deep in a fine powdery dust, which rose at each step -and hung in the dead air long after he had passed. There were -treacherous ruts which the dust covered, zig-zagging through what had -been slimy marsh-land and was now a crumbling, sun-baked bed of miasma. -Here, too, the stillness was absolute. The village roofs rose out of -the flatness like irregular ant-heaps, deserted by their once restless -workers. The night which came striding over the plain was a stifling -mantle, choking out the last breath of life under its smothering folds -of darkness. The quiet itself was eerie, unnatural, the terrible quiet -of a suffering which has passed protest. - -Then at last there came a sound--a whimpering, inhuman cry--and the man -stood still, peering through the darkness. A form lay by the roadside -and held out thin arms of appeal towards him. - -"Siva! Siva! Have mercy!" - -He came nearer and knelt down. Once it had been a woman, but the -mysterious spectre which had laid hold of Bjura had laid hold of her and -twisted her out of human semblance. A child lay under her side, -round-limbed, smooth-cheeked, as sweet as the lotus-flower growing out -of the poisoned waters of the pool. The bloated, shapeless horror -slobbered and whispered over it. - -"Siva--my little son--have mercy!" - -Perhaps some knowledge of another, gentler faith had reached her that -she appealed for mercy to a power which knew none. Tristram bent over -her and drew the child away from her clawing, swollen hands. - -"I am not Siva. I am the Dakktar Sahib come to help you. Do not be -afraid!" - -"Have mercy, Sahib!" She lay on her back staring up at him through the -gathering gloom with terrible eyes. "Have mercy!" - -"Give me your child. I will take care of it. It shall come to no -harm--I promise you. Trust me!" - -She gaped at him with the chill non-comprehension of gathering -insensibility. Only the piteous appeal hung perpetually on her lips -like a maddening refrain. He took the child and freed it from its -filthy rags, and gave it to Ayeshi standing near him, impassive and -watchful. - -"Take it back to the camp and do the best you can," he ordered. - -"And you, Sahib?" - -"I shall go on--presently." - -He went back to the woman and knelt down beside her, taking the terrible -head upon his knee, and forcing a sedative between her lips. A -nauseating odour of disease rose up to him, but it did not nauseate him. -He knelt there and waited for the first sign of relief. And presently -the laboured, agonized breathing softened; she half turned, and her -palsied, distorted hand fumbled over his coat, groping its way down the -sleeve to his wrist. She took his hand and pressed it against her -burning cheek, against her lips. And he bore with her, holding her -closer as she neared the brink, whispering to her in her own tongue, a -medley of all the words of comfort that he knew. And all at once she -sighed deeply, and was quiet, with the quietness which was more than -sleep. - -He got up and straightened out her poor body and covered her with her -rags, and went on towards the village. - -It was night now. A smouldering fire from behind the first hut threw up -a sullen glow against which the low, ramshackle building stood out -spectrely. Tristram passed it, and a gust of foetid wind goaded the -flames to a sudden brilliance, so that he saw upon what it was they fed -themselves. A gaunt, naked figure crouched near the hideous embers, -and, turning as though to see whence the wind came, saw the Englishman, -and leapt up, wild-eyed, and fled, shrieking, into the black fastness of -the village. - -Now the silence was gone, and in its place there were whisperings and -the pattering of naked feet. A woman's scream came from afar off. -Tristram stumbled over a body which neither moved nor cried out. He -stood still, knowing that he was no longer alone. The eye of the -electric torch which he carried flashed through the pitch darkness and -rested upon distorted faces, turned to him in an agony of dread. And -behind them, through the yellow haze, he caught a glimpse of bodies -heaped together in the gutter, of cowering figures, faces hidden against -the mud walls, of gaping doors, blacker than the pervading gloom, and -threatening a nameless horror. He himself stood out in the dim light, -tall and white and spectral. He moved, and the faces bowed before him -like the heads of corn in the wind, and a voice went up wailing, -piteous: - -"Oh, Siva, it is the end--the end----" - -The man whom he had seen crouching by the fire leapt suddenly out at -him, and he felt the cold breath of steel against his cheek. He warded -off the blow, and the madman came on again and again, and each time he -defended himself patiently and without aggression. The circle of faces -closed in. His light was out, but he could feel how the air about him -grew hot and stifling. They waited--stupidly, hungrily, with a frenzied -lust of death. If he fell--though they believed him God--still it would -be the end. - -Even then he did not strike out. The last time, the delirious fanatic -stumbled and went crashing to the ground. Tristram bent over him, -turning his light on to the foam-flecked old face. - -"He'll come round all right," he said calmly. "But we've got to get him -shut up somewhere before he does damage. Help me, some of you." - -His voice sounded loud and clear amidst their low, formless whisperings, -but they did not move, and he picked the old man up as though he had -been a child. "Make way there!" he commanded. - -They let him pass, but on the threshold of the hut he came to a halt, -arrested by a stench which was like a blow, staggering his senses. With -his free hand, he sent the light darting about the corners of the hut, -and then turned and came quickly out. There was nothing to be done. -Death, most hideous, had leered at him in triumph from a dozen frozen -distortions of the human body. - -For one moment, as he stood there, choking down his physical sickness, -he may have known the agony of helplessness and isolation. But only for -a moment. He looked round, noting the gradual relaxation of the -fear-drawn faces about him. - -"It's a pretty bad go," he said cheerfully, "and what your headman was -doing not to let us know before I can't think. However, we'll make the -best of it. Two of you go and pile up that fire I saw as I came in. -And I want at least five who aren't stiff with funk to carry these poor -devils out. There's not got to be a body left in this village by -daybreak. We'll get the rest out into the air where they can breathe, -and I'll soak you and the place in carbolic." They still hesitated, and -deliberately he turned the light on to his own face. - -"Bless you, I'm not Siva. I'm the Dakktar Sahib--sent by the great -English Raj to put you all straight. But, by the Lord, if you don't do -what I tell you in a brace of shakes, Siva will be a joke by -comparison." - -The panic broke. The old headman crept out and cringed before him, -offering excuses. Tristram waved him on one side. - -"Get on with it!" he said, between his teeth. - -He went from hut to hut, directing, ordering, disinfecting, patient and -imperturbable, infinitely gentle. And all night soft-footed processions -with their grim burdens made their way out to the monstrous funeral pyre -which grew higher and higher. All that night and all through the -burning, blinding day to another night, and beyond that again, Tristram -drove Death back step by step from his mauled and helpless victims, -bringing peace into a hell of suffering. Three nights and three days. -And on the fourth night he reeled back to the encampment beneath the -trees and dropped down with his face in the long grass, and lay there -inert as death itself. - -And for three days and nights again Ayeshi sat beside him, tending him -and listening to the muttered reiteration of a woman's name. - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - *IN WHICH FORTUNE PLEASES TO JEST* - - -The Rajah Rasaldu was in his element. By sheer force of merit, he -occupied the stage to the almost complete exclusion of every other -player. Gaya hung on his movements, gasped--as much as Gaya ever -gasped--over the reckless twists and turns of his wonderful ponies, and -applauded the grace and apparent ease with which he broke the defence -and sent the ball spinning between the posts. For, strange to relate, -Rasaldu could play polo. Flabby and unheroic as he was on all other -occasions, once in the saddle, he developed into an iron-wristed, -cool-headed strategist. What was more, he played for his side and not -for himself. Men who went into the game disparaging his fatuous conceit -and equally fatuous humility, loved him after the first ten minutes of -brilliant, unselfish play, and the glow of affection usually lasted for -twenty-four hours after he had won for his side. Then they tolerated -him again until the next challenge came along. - -Rasaldu revelled like a child in Gaya's good graces. There was something -almost winning in his wide smile of pleasure, as after the first -_chukka_ he came over to the select group under the awning and received -feminine Gaya's congratulations. Had he not played such a daring game -he would have cut rather a comic figure. His riding-clothes, taken in -juxtaposition with his dark chubby face, were wonderfully and terribly -English, and his brown boots, very new and very brown, shone almost too -beautifully. Between him and the turbaned soldiery crowded against the -ropes there was a gulf of false Europeanism of which the latter seemed -curiously conscious. They alone had not applauded, him in his bold -assault on the enemy, and they stared at him now with an -expressionlessness which, translated, equalled distrust and contempt. - -Meantime, Rasaldu chatted with the volubility of success and -self-confidence. He chose to address himself chiefly to Mary Compton, -but from time to time his moist brown eyes shot an eager glance at -Sigrid Fersen, seeking her smile, a meed of well-earned admiration. He -was a little afraid of her. She was not in the least beautiful, and she -undoubtedly owed her position in Gaya to his generous patronage, facts -which of themselves should have sustained him in her presence. But the -quiet, imperious self-belief with which she had silenced alike criticism -and opposition and compelled rigid Gaya to accept her and her standards, -shook Rasaldu's self-complacency. It was for that very reason, and also -because Gaya had mysteriously collapsed before her, that Rasaldu hovered -about her with the helpless and protesting infatuation of a moth for a -naked light. - -And now today there was added to this emotion the heat and intoxication -of his own prowess, and the consciousness that, if she was not -beautiful, she possessed something much more vital than beauty--the -mysterious force of temperament which through all time has made plain -women more dangerous, more powerful in the destiny of nations than women -endowed with all physical perfection. Rasaldu had no talent for -analysing temperaments, but he could analyse certain obvious factors in -her charm--the pale gold hair, the perfect skin, unprotected by powder, -the svelte, tiger-like grace and strength of her reposing body. Above -all, he could analyse clothes. Gaya's women-folk, none too well blessed -with money, lived in London's last year's creations and the clumsy -imitations of the native tailors. But this simple white dress of some -clinging, shimmering material, unknown to Gaya, and this simple straw -hat almost unadorned, came from Paris. Rasaldu, who knew his Paris, -knew that much. And, as a man worships a token from his native soil, so -he worshipped Sigrid Fersen. - -And presently he ventured to address her directly. - -"Now you have seen what is best in India!" he said. - -"The Rajah Rasaldu playing polo?" she asked, smilingly. - -"You are unkind, Mademoiselle," he answered, with the hurt sensitiveness -of a snubbed child. - -"I did not mean to be unkind. There are so many wonderful things in -India, Rajah, that I hesitated a moment to endorse your opinion. -Still--yes, it was a fine sight. You should always play polo, Rajah. It -suits you better than feting prima ballerinas in London restaurants." - -He looked at her and saw that she was serious, and her seriousness -mitigated the dubiousness of her compliment. He would have preferred it -in the reversed sense, but he had to take what was offered him. - -"I was not really alluding to myself at all," he said, naively, "but to -the game. The game's the thing." - -"Yes--and the man who plays it," she answered. She was smiling faintly, -and he indulged in a flattered self-consciousness until he realized that -the smile was a reminiscent one, and that she was looking through him to -some invisible picture of her thoughts. Whereupon, Rasaldu hastily -reverted to Mrs. Compton, whom also he feared, but in a lesser degree. -Her tongue was sharp, but at least she did not attract him, and -consequently her powers of offence were of a less painful order. - -Sigrid Fersen did not notice his dejection. She was looking at -Meredith, who at that moment had entered the awning. He still wore his -clerical clothes, having come straight from the little chapel, where -every afternoon he held his service. It was rare that more than one -person should represent the congregation. Sometimes he managed to -collect a few convert school-children, but always Anne Boucicault was -there, devout and trembling, her brown eyes following his every movement -with the reverence of a passionate believer in the initiated and -anointed priest. That hour in the day was very dear to Owen Meredith. -He believed that it was a religious ecstasy which flooded him as he -listened to her low voice give the responses--or at least a pure joy in -their fellowship in the one faith. He had not realized how lifeless and -empty his own prayers could be without the inspiration of her presence. -Now a kind of fear oppressed him--a fear of himself, a doubt in his own -spiritual integrity. For this afternoon, she had failed him and he had -failed himself. He had held the service, according to the law which he -had made for himself, sparing no detail, but his heart had been dead. -Now, as he saw her, it started to life again, to the knowledge of pain. -She sat beside Colonel Boucicault, and there was that in her attitude -which reminded Meredith of a frightened animal cowering under the threat -of the lash. All the charm of youth had been twisted out of her by some -invisible, iron-handed suffering. And without that charm, she was a -drab, colourless little soul, almost ugly. But Meredith did not see -that she was ugly, only that she was ill and unhappy. He thought he -understood. As he came and sat beside her, she shot a quick, frightened -glance at him. - -"Father did not wish me to come," she said, in a hurried whisper. "He -was fearfully angry about some letter----" - -More she could not say. And even that much would have been dangerous, -had not the man beside her been sunk in a sullen, inattentive brooding. -She dared say nothing of the appalling scene which had followed on the -receipt of that ominous official document, and which had left them -stupefied and bruised and sick. In the final phase, Boucicault had -forbidden her chapel attendance, not because he disapproved, or cared, -but because he knew that she wanted to escape him. And all the -afternoon he kept at her side, taking an ugly delight in her wincing, -broken subservience, and in the knowledge that he held her with him in -his self-created atmosphere of fear and hatred. - -But Meredith believed he knew more of her pallor than she even hinted -at. - -"I met Ayeshi on the way here," he said. "He gave me the news. -Tristram is on his way back." - -"Yes--?" she queried, dully. - -"He has been very ill. Ayeshi has come on ahead to prepare quarters for -him." - -She was looking down at her hands. He could see how she fought to -control their trembling. - -"If only we could have put him up--but we can't--father wouldn't--oh, it -is terrible to be so helpless." - -"I told Ayeshi to bring him to my bungalow. I will let you know how he -is--and perhaps, later on, you could help. I know what a fine little -nurse you are----" - -"You are very, very good, Owen----" - -"I would be glad to do anything for him," he answered, without -significance. Then chancing to look up, he found that Sigrid Fersen's -eyes were fixed on him, and guessed that she had heard, or had wanted to -hear badly. For an instant, on behalf of Anne, he hated her again, and -the next he warmed towards her. She met his half-resentful stare as -frankly. - -"I am so thankful he is safe," she said. - -Mrs. Compton thereupon chimed in. - -"If anything happened to Major Tristram, I should die of a broken -heart," she said, "--even if Archie divorced me for it." - -She paid no attention to the laugh in which even Anne joined timidly. -She was looking at Colonel Boucicault, who had shifted his position like -a sleeper unpleasantly disturbed, but the remark which seemed on the -edge of her compressed lips was not destined to be uttered. - -At that moment a bell announced the next _chukka_; a stir passed round -the enclosure and Mrs. Compton, who, in spirit, played a magnificent -game for Gaya, forgot Boucicault and Tristram in her stern concentration -on the field. - -Rasaldu braced himself and turned with a smile to Sigrid. He felt more -confident. In a minute she would be forced to look at him, to admire -him, to acknowledge that he also "played the game." - -"Wish me luck!" he begged cheerily. - -"Return victorious!" she returned, in mock heroics. "For the victors, -Mrs. Compton and I have prepared a mighty feast in the gardens of the -dak-bungalow, and the vanquished shall sit afar off and partake only of -the crumbs of our graciousness. Be not among the vanquished, O Rajah!" - -"To win the place of honour, I will make a goal every five minutes, or -perish," he boasted elatedly. - -He swung himself on to the back of the pony which his groom held ready -for him, and with a flourish trotted to his place on the field. - -Boucicault awoke then completely from his black brooding. He bent -forward, staring straight into Sigrid Fersen's face, his clenched teeth -shown in a smile that had in its mirthless, contained fury the elements -of insanity. - -"You are a very great friend of Rajah Rasaldu, Miss Fersen," he said. - -She looked at him steadily, measuring the quality of the challenge which -he had thrown down. - -"Does friendship follow on acquaintance?" she questioned back. "In that -case, you and I should be friends, Colonel Boucicault, for I have met -you more often than the Rajah." - -"Then he has marked his joy in your acquaintanceship with remarkable -generosity," he retorted. - -"Is generosity your translation for hospitality, Colonel Boucicault?" - -"The Rajah's hospitality is well known. He gives liberally. He expects -a return. And he is impressionable. There is such a thing as love at -first sight, Miss Fersen." - -He was watching her with a hungry anticipation, but she neither winced -nor turned from him. Her calm gaze met his, and there was no change in -its rather sleepy placidity. But the enigmatic smile which he remembered -quivered at the corners of her mouth. - -"And there is also such a thing as contempt at first sight," she -remarked casually, "and that is much what I felt for you, Colonel -Boucicault." - -"You are an outspoken enemy," he answered, with a quick drawing in of -his breath. She looked down for an instant and saw that his big, -brutal-looking hands shook. - -"You have remarked on my outspokenness before." - -"Yes, and I even admire it. But my admiration, Miss Fersen, cannot -influence my sense of duty. I am chief in command in Gaya. The social -as well as the military authority rests in me. And where I see that a -certain individual is lessening our prestige, corrupting our morals, or -even upsetting the routine of our social life, then I have the power to -expel that individual--to make Gaya and India impossible----" - -"If, to speak clearly, you refer to me, Colonel Boucicault," she -interrupted, "then perhaps I shall have the pleasure of travelling in -the same boat with you to England." - -His bloodshot eyes remained blank and stupid-looking for an instant, -then lit up with an insensate fury of understanding. He stumbled to his -feet. - -"You--you----!" he muttered. She saw his clenched fists, and knew that, -for all his position and the crowd of witnesses, he had come within an -ace of striking her. She looked up at him over her shoulder and -laughed. - -"Keep that sort of thing for your family, Colonel Boucicault," she -advised lightly. - -Boucicault turned and pushed through the knot of spectators behind him. -He made his way across the paddock where the ponies were being rubbed -down, and out on to the high road. His orderly, seeing him, ran after -him, and he turned on the man with a curse. - -"Take the buggy back to the stables. I shall walk." - -"And the Mem-Sahib----?" - -"The Mem-Sahib can walk, too," he answered, grinning. - -The man saluted, his face hard-set, his eyes meeting Boucicault's with -military steadfastness. But for an instant the muscles about his mouth -had quivered, betraying that there was that beneath the surface which -even his native stoicism could not wholly master. And Boucicault saw -and understood. - -He strode on down the centre of the dusty, sun-baked road. He had drunk -heavily that day, but there was more than drink fomenting in his -inflamed brain. There was that letter with its bold, humbugging -politeness--after so many years of service--an inquiry--certain -charges--what charges?--by whom brought? He muttered aloud, dwelling on -a name with a sneering hatred. Well--they should inquire--he could -answer the lot. But then there was Anne cowering before him--why had -God cursed him with a cowardly girl----? and that man---- There had -been a time when, as a mere captain, his regiment would have followed -him through the gates of hell--and now--now--if he went into action -tomorrow--what then? He saw the soldier's face again and re-read its -significance. Strong men made enemies, and he had always had enemies, -but he had also had friends in the past. They had gone. The men who -had believed in him--adored him--gone. He felt himself haunted by -spectres of what was and what had been. They came out of the black -abyss of his soul, whirled up by ugly, incoherent passions--regret and -remorse, self-loathing and self-pity twisted out of recognition and -melted down to one vast, corroding hatred. Every other emotion came too -late. Only hatred remained to him--the last link between him and his -fellow-creatures--that and the power to hurt, to inflict suffering--as -he suffered. - -Thus carried forward and half-blinded by the glare which emanated more -from his brain than from the blazing roadway, he left Gaya behind him. -He came to a bend in the roadway where a thin belt of trees curved down -towards the plain, and there stood still, arrested by an unclear -recognition. At first he scarcely knew what had attracted his -attention; then little by little the red haze cleared, and something -within him started awake, some dormant desire as yet unnameable. - -Wickie lay on the fringe of shadow, his black snout between his paws, -his ears pricked, his brown eyes, showing the whites, expressive of -alert curiosity. A piece of broken cord attached to his collar -testified dumbly to a determined and skilful evasion of Mrs. Smithers's -coercive methods of adoption. - -For a moment or two the man and the would-be Aberdeen considered each -other. Probably in a spirit of good-natured triumph in his own prowess, -Wickie had greeted Boucicault's appearance by a tattoo executed by his -tail on the dusty road, and his eyes had twinkled an invitation to -participate in the joke. Now he lay motionless, watchful, distrustful. - -Boucicault called him. He did not know why he called him nor as yet -what he wanted with the dog. The tumult within his brain had died down. -He had become calm and deliberate. The letter, the menacing future, the -jumbled vision of failure which had been vouchsafed him in Anne's -cringing body and in the eyes of his orderly, had given place to a sense -of purpose, controlled, extraordinarily calculated, but as yet veiled -even to himself. He called the dog again, and showed no signs of -impatience when Wickie remained unresponsive. Underneath his own calm -he felt the stirring of a curious pleasure, of a fierce thirsty joy -which must be gratified only with an Epicurean restraint. And for that -he held it back, curbing it, spurring it to the limit of his control, -tasting its anguished appeal for freedom with a cruel delight in his own -mortification. Then, without hurry, without show of passion, he came -forward, and, catching hold of the trailing rope, dragged Wickie to his -feet. The dog struggled and growled ominously, and Boucicault smiled, -showing his set teeth. There was a broken stick of bamboo lying at the -roadside, and he picked it up and tested its suppleness leisurely -against his boot. The animal snapped at him, recognizing the enemy, and -perhaps the impending danger; but Boucicault continued calmly resolved. -He was like a morphia-maniac who, with the passionately desired drug in -his hand, prolongs the delicious agony of desire. He tied the end of -the cord round the stem of a young palm and stood back a moment looking -down at his captive. Wickie sprang at him, and then, suddenly, -terribly, he struck with his improvised weapon, bringing it down with a -sickening thud on the animal's long back. The scream that answered him -was half human. Boucicault drew in his breath. Like lava under a thin -crust of restraining earth, his murderous hatred welled up in him, -choking him. This cringing brute, its brown eyes turned on him in dumb -horror--was Anne, Anne who always cringed, always truckled to him, whom -he had so often wanted to strike down. And then Anne vanished from the -whirling circles of his thoughts, and it was Tristram and that -pale-haired woman--these two who, in their different ways, had thwarted -and defied him, brought him face to face with himself. It was his wife, -the officers of the regiment, the men--all with that smouldering, -unspoken loathing in their eyes. And he struck like a madman, blow after -blow, slaking his thirst for vengeance, making with each stroke a fresh -breach in the wall behind which men imprison their infamous insanities. -And sometimes the dog whined and sometimes, like a human being, set its -teeth in stoic fortitude, and sometimes, as the pliant stick fell across -its body, screamed uncontrollably. - -It was one such scream that Tristram heard as he rode up from the plain -towards Gaya. He hung in the saddle like a man whose backbone has been -snapped, and the reins trailed from Arabella's weary neck. It was -fortunate that the road was familiar to her, for Tristram neither knew -his destination nor cared about it. Some one had helped him into the -saddle, and there he had remained instinctively; but his mind was empty -of all purpose, even of knowledge of himself. The scream roused him a -little, but only for a second. There were so many strange sounds and -scenes in his brain that he trusted none of them. It was only when -Arabella jerked to a standstill and stood trembling with pricked ears, -that he began to believe in the substantiality of what was before him. -Even then he sat hunched together in the saddle, gaping stupidly. He had -begun to realize, but there seemed to be a hiatus in his mind--a gulf -between thought and action which he could not cross. Then Wickie -screamed again, and he rolled off Arabella's back and stood there -rocking like a drunken man. - -"Colonel Boucicault!" His own voice sounded like a shout in his own -ears, though in reality it was little more than a whisper, but it -reached Boucicault, who turned round. Tristram knew then that what he -saw was not a distortion of his fancy. "Colonel Boucicault!" he -repeated heavily. He found nothing more to say. His inability to think -coherently had become an acute suffering. He saw Wickie make a desperate -effort to reach him, and the sight roused him to another effort. "Let -my dog go!" he muttered. - -Boucicault passed his hand over his forehead and laughed. - -"You've just come back in time, Major Tristram," he said. "If you -really lay claim to this cur, you can stay here and see it thrashed -within an inch of its life. A dangerous brute----!" He kicked it, -yelping, back against the tree. He had made an excuse and was ashamed -of it. It spoilt his pleasure in his own untrammelled, inexcusable -cruelty. - -Tristram reeled forward, intercepting himself between Wickie and his -assailant in time to receive a blow across the arm. The sting of it was -like a tonic, driving the blood faster to his brain. - -"You've no right--let my dog go!" - -"Your dog--my dear Major! Stand out of the way. I am master in Gaya. -If I may offer advice, I should suggest a bath and a change of clothes. -You look--if I may say so--not quite worthy of your position. I doubt -if even your admirers would care to recognize you." - -"It would take more than a bath and a change to put me right," Tristram -managed to return, and then, with the dull obstinacy of a sick man: "Let -Wickie go!" - -Boucicault's momentary self-restraint broke down. He lashed out -savagely: - -"Take it yourself then, you sneaking cur----!" - -Tristram flung up his arm. Instinctively, for his sight failed him, he -warded off the blows which rained about him, but no more than that. His -mind was working now, very simply, in the two fundamentals of its -make-up--two vast forces fighting for supremacy, the one long dormant, -suppressed, scarcely recognized, at the throat of his soul---his faith. -So long as the blows fell on him, the latter remained triumphant. He -shielded Wickie--that was what he had meant to do. He felt as yet no -animosity towards the man whose discoloured face seemed to fill his -vision. He felt very little pain--only a queer, alarming tightening of -his muscles. Vague fragments of memory came to him--his passionate love -of all things living--even to this man, his simple conception of -duty--of life itself. They upheld him; they kept the vital part of him -quiet and peaceful in the face of a gathering force of sheer physical -revolt. His smarting body cried out for vengeance, but it had no power -to move him. He stood there, taking the punishment patiently, almost -listlessly. - -Boucicault drew back from him a moment. He was breathing noisily -between his teeth. In him the fundamentals had gone to pieces, and he -was being carried forward on a flood-tide of ungoverned, monstrous -passions. His mind, in the midst of its disruption, reasoned with the -swiftness of insanity. This hulking, stupid giant who had set out to -ruin him--who bore insult and pain with less spirit than his dog--he -could be ruined, too. An inquiry? Good--let there be one--a -court-martial--cashiered, both of them. But first this block had to be -roused. - -Possibly he was mad, but he had a madman's instinct and deep knowledge -of the secret madness in others. He stepped suddenly on one side. The -end of his stick was sharp and jagged. With the steel-wristed strength -practised on many a day's pig-sticking, he lunged forward, driving the -spike straight into Wickie's body. - -Tristram had seen too late. He heard the yelp, broken and ending -piteously in a child's whimper. Then it was done. Something in him -snapped. Mind and body, instinct and reason leapt together. He struck -out with all the terrible strength of his great shoulders, with all the -force of his outraged love of life, with all his pity--struck to kill. - -It grew very quiet. He had been battling in the midst of a titanic -natural eruption, and now suddenly the violently aroused elements had -dropped exhausted, leaving him standing in the midst of ruin. The tide -which had flowed through his veins receded, and he became oddly tired -and weak and helpless. The old blindness was creeping over him. Yet -some things he saw in a kind of vague bigness. He did not bend down, but -the man lying stretched in the dust seemed quite near to him--an -austere, sinister shadow floating on a grey mist which rose -higher--close to his face. - -A faint sound reached him--a dull, soft thudding. He found himself on -his knees, muttering incoherently. - -Wickie lay full length, his short, crooked paws stretched out, seeking -relief. There was blood on his brindle side. One brown eye looked out -of its corner, half-puzzled, half-reassuring, a little glint of the old -solemn humour showing through, as though the joke at Mrs. Smithers's -expense still lingered in the fading brain. The tail beat the dust -softly, and into that feeble movement there was compressed a love and -understanding, almost a pity which defied death and rose above all -language. - -Tristram took the head on his arm. He saw that his hand was wet and -knew that he was crying. Wickie turned a little, licking his hand -feebly. - -"Old fellow--dear old fellow--if I hadn't cared so much--if I'd been -able to drown a kitten--it wouldn't have happened----" He bent lower, -kissing the black snout. "My best pal!" - -He went on talking under his breath. He did not know that he talked. -Some one quite close whispered the words into his ear. He was not -conscious of thinking. It began to grow very dark. - -Presently Wickie sighed and stretched himself wearily, contentedly, as -though it were no more than sleep that were coming--sleep by the -camp-fire after a long day's march. Then lay still. - -Tristram dragged himself to his feet. Out of the deepening blackness of -things, an instinct asserted itself dimly. - -"Help--we've got to get help--somehow----" - -He said it aloud. It seemed to him that it had been shouted by the -invisible monitor at his side. He stumbled over the prostrate figure -lying so simple and still in the dust, reeling back from it, his face -turned from Gaya. Then he began to walk. He walked long after the -blackness had become impenetrable. He was no more than the one -instinct, tragically dominant over the body which had betrayed him. His -body was dead. He could not feel it. It was a machine that he willed -to go straight forward to some dim, vast punishment. - -He walked through hours and nights of darkness. At last there were -lights in front of him--great yellow balls of haloed flame, which danced -in ecstasy to a passionate rhythm. He heard voices--a sea of -whisperings which surged towards him on a great wave, breaking over him -in one hushed sound. He tried to cling to it through his fading -consciousness. It became a face, gazing down at him, serene, -triumphant, pitying--it became a hand which touched him, held him in its -iron gentleness. He could feel it holding to him surely, as all else -broke from him, flinging him down into a bottomless silence. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - *CROSSED SWORDS* - - -In reality, he had not gone more than half a mile. But things had -happened to him of which he had had no knowledge--twice he had retraced -his steps and once fallen to his knees and groped his way through the -dust in a blind circle. The eternities had been less than an hour, the -darkness no more than the clear nightfall, the lights a dozen lanterns -twinkling from the trees of the dak-bungalow. His consciousness had -been a dull, distorted thing, presenting the reality to him in shapeless -exaggerations. He had heard music. It had sounded to him like a huge, -throbbing symphony in which these nights and days in Bjura, the passions -which had swept him out of his path, were mercilessly reiterated -motives. In reality, it was just Carreno's unsophisticated little waltz -which Sigrid Fersen drew out lightly from a Steinway already much the -worse for its Indian sojourn. He heard voices. It was young Radcliffe -lounging in the shadow of the trees, making a gloomy assault on the -susceptibilities of the latest sweetest thing from England, the while -his real deeply embittered self was in the drawing-room scowling at -Rasaldu, who, still crowned with laurels, leant against the piano -staring at Sigrid unrestrainedly and with a very naked passion. - -The last voice that Tristram heard, the first and last face that he had -seen, had been Sigrid's, but that was because she had swamped all other -realization. It was Mrs. Smithers, roaming like a dutiful policeman -through the compound, who found him lying huddled together just inside -the gates. She made no sort of outcry. Having ascertained that he was -alive, she did not even hurry herself. She went and stood primly at -Sigrid's side, her mittened hands folded in front of her, her back to -Rasaldu, whom she openly detested. - -"He's there," she said, jerking her head towards the compound; "lying in -a dead faint, poor dear. I guess it's your fault--you'd better do -something, hadn't you?" - -After one swift glance at the grim face, and without a word either to -Smithers or Rasaldu, Sigrid had got up and gone down the steps into the -darkness where Tristram lay. She knelt down beside him and touched him -on his dry, burning forehead, on his throat, gliding down to his -powerless hand. She spoke to him, calling him by name, and she knew -that he heard, and recognized her. For a long minute she remained thus -motionless, tasting her power to probe beneath his physical -consciousness to the self in which he kept his dreams, his quaint -beliefs, his simple, world-embracing love of things. And she knew that -if he saw her, it was because her face lived in his inner vision, and -that if he felt her hand it was because the memory of her touch was -seared into his very flesh. - -She granted him and herself that moment, and then she called for help. -It came quickly, noisily. But though others intervened, she remained at -Tristram's side. Her instinct told her that he knew she was there, and -that she held him back from the abyss towards which he was drifting. -They laid him between the faintly scented sheets of her bed. It was her -order. The shaded lamp threw a subdued glow on the room's costly -loveliness, on the scattered, cunningly grouped treasures of five -continents, on fragmentary, priceless testimonies to a rare and varied -taste. They exercised a curious influence on the grieved and troubled -helpers. It was like a subtle intoxication, as though all that these -things represented crept into their blood and fought there for mastery. -And in silent, austere contrast was the man lying dimly outlined beneath -the white sheet, the rugged, unkempt head tilted slightly back against -the pillow, the thin, suffering features composed in a passing phase of -grave serenity. - -They knew whence he came and what he had accomplished, and the rarefied -atmosphere of exquisite Paganism jarred on them. It was a challenge, a -kind of sneer at his whole life. They did not reason about it, they -could scarcely define it. But it made Meredith's manner cold to the -point of antagonism as he turned presently to where Sigrid stood in the -shadow, her eyes fixed on the old Italian vase which she had picked up -casually. He hated her again--she was so calm, almost indifferent. He -came and stood beside her, hushing his full voice. - -"I think we've done all we can. He's pretty bad, I'm afraid. I'll have -a wire sent to the next best station for a doctor and a nurse. Of -course, he can't stay here--we'll try and move him tomorrow." - -"I prefer him to stay here," she said, without looking up. - -He frowned, wishing that Rasaldu had not been one of those to help carry -Tristram and to share in the unconventional intimacy of the scene. It -revolted him that he should stand there, watching and listening. The -old ugly suspicions which he had sternly repressed in himself awoke -again. They were not justly roused--it was only that he was human and -incensed. - -"I don't think Tristram would wish it," he said, and unconsciously his -voice took on its heaviest Anglicanism. "He would not wish you to be put -to any trouble. After all, he is almost a stranger to you." - -"I know him very well," she returned. "I think he has known me all his -life. He would leave the decision to me." - -"At least, he would not wish you to be burdened with -the--unconventionally----" He stammered, half expecting the vivid -contempt with which she turned to him, and conscious of deserving it. - -"Oh, you priest! You would rather your friend died than that your -fetish of Other People's Respectability should be insulted." She waved -him aside and flashed past him to the doorway, pulling the curtains -noiselessly aside. In the second room, half-boudoir, -half-dressing-room, she found Mary Compton and Anne. The rest of the -guests had discreetly evaporated, or at most hovered afar off waiting -news of the man whom, oddly enough, they loved without intimacy. He had -lived so much his own life, they had so often laughed at his oddities, -and it was something of a revelation to them that, now the inevitable -disaster had overtaken him, they were sick and afraid and dumbly -remorse-stricken. - -Captain Compton stood at the compound gates under the dying lights of -the lanterns with a couple of his brother officers, and smoked fiercely. - -"Poor old Tristram--good old Hermit. It was bound to happen. No human -being could go on like that and not crock up. Damn it, we oughtn't to -have allowed it. We took him too much for granted. It's always the -way. Good Lord, why doesn't some one come? What's Rasaldu doing in that -_galere_, I should like to know? And what the devil is that tearing -down the road----?" - -Rasaldu meantime, delightfully conscious of his utility, had followed -Sigrid and Meredith into the room where the two women waited. Mary -Compton had remained boldly. She sat upright in her chair under the lamp -with a rather bleak look of authority and ready-for-anything alertness, -which had made her an adored terror in the grim days at Chitral. Her -evening dress, an antiquity cunningly revised, fitted her badly, as -though it knew she hated it and meant to pay her out. She jerked her -shoulders as Sigrid entered, seemingly exasperated by the garment's -stiff, restraining influence. - -"Well?" she demanded. "How is he?" - -"I don't know yet," was the low answer. "But I think he is very ill. I -have only seen one person die--it was like that." She turned her fair, -smooth head towards Owen, but did not look at him. "Mr. Meredith wishes -him to be moved. He is afraid my reputation might suffer--or that there -might be a scandal in his parish." - -Mrs. Compton considered the young missionary with a cold curiosity, -giving him an almost ludicrous consciousness of the oft-denied but very -profound sex solidarity of women. - -"How idiotic! Men are just like babies in a crisis--always fussing -about the unessentials. Of course, Major Tristram must stay--at any -rate, until he is out of danger. And, Sigrid, as a sop to a hopeless -passion, let me help nurse him." - -"We'll pull him through together," Sigrid answered. - -"Mr. Meredith, don't you think with Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Smithers on -guard, the situation should pass muster?" - -He shrugged his broad shoulders. He was looking at Anne--Anne whose -white, tear-stained face peered out of the shadow like a pitiful, -frightened ghost's, and somehow the sight filled him with a cold anger. - -"My suggestion was well meant," he said. "I made it for Major -Tristram's sake as well as for yours. I thought he would prefer to find -himself among old friends." - -"He could have come to us," Anne said, in her thin, broken voice. "I -have nursed so much--and mother understands sickness, too----" - -Sigrid Fersen glanced at her. - -"I suppose Colonel Boucicault is an old friend," she said. "Colonel -Boucicault, who has helped to kill him----" - -There was a second of strained silence. Anne's face had changed from -white to red, and then to a deeper pallor. She dropped forward with a -little moan, her face hidden in her hands, crying helplessly. Meredith -took a step forward, as though to protect her. The veins on his low, -broad forehead were swollen. - -"Surely----" he began hoarsely. - -Sigrid made an imperative gesture. - -"I cannot be bothered with your loves and hates," she said. "I'm going -to save Major Tristram--that's all that matters to me. You can stay -here if you want to--both of you--but on my terms." - -It was like the cut of a whip across the face. Meredith found no answer -for a moment. He was sick with horror at the tide of anger which swept -over him. His primitive instinct was to strike back physically. He -knew now that all Anne's distrust was justified. The woman was -dangerous--dangerous, above all, to Anne's happiness. He had the right -now to combat her--to set himself squarely against her power in Gaya. -He wanted to assume the authority now, but it was too late. Moreover, -at the bottom, he knew he could not touch this enemy. She was of -another world, impervious to the penalties which his could inflict. - -And Compton stood on the threshold--Compton, whose face was a sufficient -warning--and behind him Ayeshi. Both men had reached the verandah steps -at the run, and now Compton had pulled up, meeting his wife's stare of -reproof with a hurried apology. - -"I'm sorry---I didn't mean to make a row or startle you. Ayeshi has -just come with bad news. Miss Boucicault--I think you ought to go home -at once. Your father has been badly hurt----" - -"My father!" She sprang to her feet, her eyes wide with an incredulous -fear. "My father--hurt----?" she echoed. - -"He was found half-an-hour ago, unconscious. Some one must have -attacked him. Of course, now Tristram's done there's no doctor. We'll -telegraph at once. Radcliffe's got his gig--I thought you might go with -him." - -He was now honestly conscience-stricken. What happened was only -terrible to him because of its significance. It was like a signal of the -first break of the storm--the thing for which he had waited. That any -one should care personally for the injured man--least of all the girl -whose youth he had trodden underfoot--seemed incredible. Yet she stood -there, white and shivering with shock. He tried to apologize again, but -she did not seem to hear; only, as Meredith came to her side, she turned -to him like a panic-stricken child. - -"Please take me home to him, Owen--please take me home." - -Compton made way for them both. He beckoned to Rasaldu, who obeyed the -summons reluctantly. - -"We'll clear out and leave you the field. Ayeshi can bring us the news -to the club. Suppose I shan't see you again for a bit, old girl." - -"Not till my job's done here. Get the ayah to bring round some -reasonable clothes." - -"Right-o! So long, old girl." - -He came up to his wife and kissed her shyly. She patted him. - -"So long. Not too many pegs." - -The room emptied. Neither Meredith nor Anne had said good-bye nor -looked at Sigrid. Rasaldu bowed over her hand, but even he realized -that she was not conscious of him. As his broad, fat back vanished down -the verandah, Mrs. Compton got up, shaking herself. - -"Now we can get to business. God defend me in my last hour from -sentimentalists of Anne's make. Can I borrow a dressing-gown, Sigrid?" - -"Do. Smithy will give you one." - -"Thanks. By the way, I expect Boucicault's not the last to go. It's -the first bubble on the water, and soon we shall all be in it, and -boiling nicely." She made her exit on this rather light-hearted -prophecy; but Sigrid, who had made a movement to follow her, lingered -for a moment. Her eyes were cast down as though in thought, but in -reality they were fixed on Ayeshi's hand. When she raised them -suddenly, she found that he too, was watching her. There was nothing -insolent, nothing inquisitive in his scrutiny. His expression was grave -and reticent. It made him seem much older. He was no longer the boy -who had cried on her doorstep. He looked at her with a man's eyes, with -a man's understanding and stern power of secrecy. - -"Was it you who found the Colonel?" she asked. - -"Yes, Mem-Sahib." - -"He is badly hurt?" - -"I think so. The blow was a terrible one. It seemed to me that he was -conscious. Once he looked at me, but he could not move or speak." - -"Do you think it was one of his men, Ayeshi?" - -"I do not know, Mem-Sahib." - -She turned away from him. - -"There is blood on your hand, Ayeshi." - -He salaamed imperturbably. - -"I will wash it away. It is a cut--a little thing." - -He followed her into the next room with the unobtrusive decision of one -whose right to enter could never be challenged. Mrs. Smithers had moved -the lamp behind a screen, but Ayeshi, standing at the foot of the bed, -looked down through the veil of shadow as though the sleeper's face was -an open book in which he read intently. Then he looked at Sigrid. She -had taken her place close to Tristram's pillow, and one hand rested -lightly on the coverlet. There was a caress in that touch. Her fair -head was bent in grave, pitying contemplation that was yet touched with -a curious detachment, as though she looked down from a great distance. -In the half-light, she seemed unreal, fanciful, the very spirit of that -beautiful aesthetic Paganism which the room breathed. - -Ayeshi shivered a little, and his slender, dark hands resting on the -carved wooden bed, tightened their grasp. - -"Mem-Sahib!" he said, softly. - -"Yes, Ayeshi?" - -"Mem-Sahib--I have seen so many die of late. Death at its best is -sleep. The Sahib sleeps deeply. Perhaps it is the will of his God that -death should come to him now that he has given so much for those he -loves. Is there not a saying in your Book, Mem-Sahib---'Greater love -hath no man than this, that he layeth down his life for his friend'?" - -Sigrid Fersen lifted her head. - -"Yes," she answered steadily. - -"Meredith Sahib taught it me. I have forgotten much, but not that. It -was true of him. Others--those who come here to teach us--preach to us, -but he lived. He did not believe--no, not as Sahib Meredith believed. -He believed in the flowers and the birds and the wind and the -mountains--he believed in us." He put his hands to his breast, and his -eyes glowed in the darkness. "I was his brother--his younger brother," -he said proudly. - -"And he loved you, Ayeshi." - -"He loved all men--even the worst." He came a step nearer to her. -"Mem-Sahib--a woman died out in Bjura--died horribly. He stayed with -her to the end. She was hideous, and he took her head on his knee and -comforted her as though she had been his mother. There was a little -child, and he took it and promised he would care for it. She died -happy." - -Her head was bent again. - -"That was like him, Ayeshi." - -"Mem-Sahib--if the end comes now it will trouble him that he cannot keep -his promise." - -"He shall keep his promise. I will keep it for him. And you, -Ayeshi--stay with me." - -But he drew back, and the light died out of his face. - -"This is the end, Mem-Sahib. His and mine. I loved him--I, too, would -have given my life--remember that of me, Mem-Sahib." - -She looked up at him, and the naked agony in his eyes was something that -she indeed remembered long afterwards. - -"I think he knows," she said. - -He salaamed deeply. - -"I will go and guard the door, Mem-Sahib." - -He was gone without a sound. A shadow seemed to have passed from the -room. His very voice had been so low, that now the silence flowed over -it as though it had never been. Yet what he had said lingered. - -Sigrid Fersen drew her chair close up to the bedside, and sat there chin -in hand watching. The dim light of the lamp threw the shadow of -Tristram's profile on to the white-washed wall beyond. Ugly enough--the -pointed beard thrust out under the broad, unshapely nose--the big -forehead made grotesque by the outline of disordered hair. But even the -shadow gave a hint of what the face itself revealed in its -unconsciousness. The mouth, tender and strong as a woman's may be, -passionate and austere, laughter and the joy and love of life in the -corners of the closed eyes, and over all, like a veil, pain. Quixote -with a grain of English humour--Quixote at the end, vanquished and -conquering. - -He stirred a little in the first uneasiness of coming delirium, and she -laid her hand on his and he grew still again. - -Mary Compton came in presently. With Mrs. Smithers, she had been -preparing a special fever antidote of her own, and there was an air of -resolve about her neat, kimono-clad figure which made death seem afar -off. She came lightly up to the bedside, stirring the contents of a -malicious-looking medicine glass. - -"Now, if we can only get him to take a few drops, they will help to keep -him quiet. Of course, we don't know what in the world's the matter with -him. It may be the ghastly thing they had in Bjura; but I don't think -so. He wouldn't have come back. Are you afraid?" She glanced down at -her companion, and Sigrid met her close scrutiny deliberately. - -"No." - -"Well, you've been crying, anyhow." - -"That's possible." - -"What for?" - -Sigrid's lips were twisted with a wry smile. - -"I don't know--I was touched about something, I suppose. I think it was -because I never thanked him for something he gave me--I never gave him -anything to take with him when he went out there--I've just remembered." - -"H'm! How many times have you two met?" - -"Twice--no, three times, and the first time counted most of all." - -"Are you in love with him, too?" - -"I've been trying to decide--yes, I think so." - -Mary Compton poured out the medicine into a tea-spoon. - -"Do you mean to marry him? Because, if you do, you will." - -"No, I'm not going to marry him." - -"Why not?" - -She made a gesture, brief, impatient. - -"My dear, can't you see? We live at the opposite poles of things--he, -the unbelieving Christian, I, the believing Pagan. Look at his -life--look at mine. Look at this room--these things. You have a -_flair_ for what is precious and beautiful--can't you see?" - -Mary Compton continued to balance the spoon. Her bright hazel eyes were -fixed thoughtfully on the other's face. - -"Yes, I see. And I love you, Sigrid, as Gaya does, without caring who -or what you are, or what you mean to do with us. But just sometimes I'm -afraid--sometimes I think it would have been more merciful to have let -us go on our own old, stodgy way." - -"You mean--him? He sought me out. I believe he brought me here. There -are more things in heaven and earth, Mary, than are dreamed of in your -philosophy. And even if that weren't true--he knew as well as I did what -I was--what I wanted---adventure, knowledge of the finest and the best -in life and in men--a last splendid hour--he would not have denied it -me." - -The last words had sunk below the whisper of their brief conversation, -and Mary Compton did not hear them. Very skilfully she forced the opiate -between the unconscious man's lips. - -"At any rate, we're a nice couple of nurses chattering over poor -Tristram's head. Will you watch for a little? Mrs. Smithers and I will -relieve you." - -"If you want him to live leave us alone. I shall not sleep tonight." - -"In those clothes?" - -She glanced down at her quaint, gold-brocaded dress. - -"Yes. He loves beautiful things." - -"He may think he is in Paradise and you an angel," rather satirically. - -"Or perhaps men so near death see clearer----" - -Mary Compton sighed and bent and kissed her. - -"Good night, then. If there is any change, send for us. Ayeshi is at -the door." - -"Goodnight." - -Now the last sound was gone. Even the man's shallow, irregular -breathing became for the moment quieter, as though peace had crept into -his troubled oblivion. Sigrid sat motionless at his side. The light -touched her with a dim brilliance; it dwelt on the smooth gold hair, on -the gold of her dress, on the rich living whiteness of her arms and -shoulders. She shone subduedly like an image on an altar-shrine--an -image of life and of life's splendour faced with the shadow of death. - -Presently Tristram stirred and muttered to himself. The words were at -first thick, indistinguishable, but suddenly he roused himself. She -caught sentences, rapid, fever-stricken--the incoherent risings from the -depths of the man's soul. It was his credo--a fragment of that faith of -which Ayeshi had spoken, perhaps never before formulated, now poured in -a molten stream of delirious sincerity. - -"I believe in all things living--I believe in beauty--I believe in the -goodness of men and in their immortality. I believe in the immortality -of the flowers, of the trees, of the grass in the wind--I believe in God -who is all things, who is myself and her. I believe in the sacredness -of all life----" An intolerable agony crept into his voice. He -repeated the last phrase on a rising inflection. "Oh, God, I believe in -the sacredness of life----" - -She bent over him. She laid her hand on his forehead and suddenly his -eyes opened. They rested full on her face, but she knew, for all their -extraordinary brilliance, that they did not see her. It was not to her -that he spoke, but to the vision of her. "You must go, you -too--everything. A man who has broken faith--there is a curse on us--an -awful curse. We kill what we love--we kill what is holy, -unfathomable--every day of our lives--for pleasure, because we must. -We're doomed to destroy. We try not to--we try to save--but the curse -is on us--the curse of Cain----" His voice had dropped; it broke now -with a groan and the brief glimpse of coherent thought was over. He -began to mutter again--isolated words, a name, constantly a name. Still -she remained bent over him. Her small face had lost colour, and -something of its aloof pity. She was breathing quickly, through parted -lips. - -"Tristram!" she whispered. - -He raised one burning hand and pushed her back. - -"No--not now--you must go--for pity's sake. I've carried you -here--here--so long--through the burning days--since that night. You -don't know--no other woman--there had been fancies--the flowers by the -waterside--the lotus there in the shadows---the lizard in the long -grass--you were the golden corn swaying in the wind, the flowers--the -stars, the mountains, the slender trees in the storm--great ships sailed -down the river--you came in and out of their ghosts flying over the -water--I watched you till dawn--you were the dawn--dancing over the -world's grey roofs--you were nature, life, God----" He raised himself -on his elbow in a frenzied ecstasy. She put her arm round his shoulders -trying to force him back. In a minute his voice had changed--grew dry -and harsh and imperative. "Separate the living from the dead--no -flinching--it's a miracle, this life--a mystery--sacred--fan the -flames--the dead, too, are sacred--fire is pure--now it is -over--finished--I can sleep--" He sat upright, head thrown back as one -awaiting thirstily release, then lifted his arms high up in a gesture of -despair. "The colours--down--down in the dust--a blow straight in the -face of God--the goal missed--in a minute--oh! God!--if I cared -less----" - -He fell back exhausted, broken, his breathing so hushed that for a -moment she believed that it had ceased for ever. She still held him, her -arm crushed under his great shoulders, and she called him by name, -recklessly. He turned over a little on his side. - -"Wickie understood," he whispered. "Wickie knew I couldn't help it--but -my mother--don't let her know--not yet. She's old--so old--one long -sacrifice--and now to have failed----" - -"She shan't know--I promise--I promise----" - -He did not, could not have heard. His head tossed restlessly on the -pillow. The collar of his shirt was open, and she caught a glimpse of a -red swollen line across his chest. She drew her breath quickly--staring -at it. - -"You must go back, Sigrid--you must. You are not a dream--not now. -Back up on to the mountain-top--to your golden palaces--where there is -no meanness--no poverty--no sin--you could not go with me where I am -going----" - -She knelt beside him, holding, him with all her strength, his head -pressed against her bare shoulder. - -"I am going with you, Tristram Sahib--tonight at least I'll go with you -wherever you go--tonight. I'll try your way of loving and dying--just -this one night, Tristram." - -There was a blue, unfamiliar shadow about her lips. The room with its -dim treasures was no longer part of her. She had lost her serenity, her -easy detachment. Not the triumphant quality of her power. This man was -dying--not of the body, but of the soul. She could feel him sinking, -and she went down with him--down into the vortex of his unknown -struggle, fighting as she had danced and lived, with her whole will, -with all the splendid vitalness of her being. - -And his eyes, glazing already, were turned to her and saw her. They -became peaceful--content. Whatever message she had willed to pierce the -dense cloud of delirium had reached him. He sighed, and lay still in -her arms. - -Presently she saw that his eyes were closed. A faint moisture glistened -on his smooth forehead, and the wild muttering passed into the quiet of -an exhausted slumber. - -Still she did not move. - -The night sank into deeper darkness and stillness. The hours crept on -their way, monstrous, heavy-footed. She measured her breathing to his, -she held him in arms that had lost all feeling. The shadow about her -lips crept over her whole face, blotting out its youth. - -The dawn came at last, creeping in between the parted curtains, mixing -pallidly with the dying lamplight. The rich embroideries and the -glittering curios faded, the high carved chair by the dressing-table -became spectral, unreal. - -Ayeshi entered noiselessly, passing like a ghost to the quiet bedside. -Tristram had turned over, his face to the coming day, his head resting -in the curve of his arm. So Ayeshi had often seen him--by the -camp-fire, after the day's work. - -And beneath, on the great tiger-skin, huddled and still, a golden-clad, -incongruous figure, which even in that moment retained something -imperious, conquering, exultant. - -Ayeshi bent down and touched the pale, disordered hair. He leant across -and kissed the man's unconscious hand--lightly, as if it had been a -sleeping child's. - -Then, noiselessly as he had come, glided across the room to the open -window and thence out into the morning. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - *TRISTRAM CHOOSES HIS ROAD* - - -Dr. Martin from Lucknow had made his examination, and now he sat -opposite to the woman on whose husband he was about to pass sentence, -and told her the truth with all the delicacy at his command. He was a -civilian with a considerable practice among women, and a corresponding -belief in his understanding of the sex. But he did not understand Mrs. -Boucicault. Possibly the long journey, partly on horse-back, partly on -a bone-racking bullock-wagon, had upset his nerve and that nice balance -of mind which made a correct analysis possible. He had felt oddly and -ridiculously sickened by the man whose bedside he had just left. There -was something revolting in that great hulk of over-developed, -ill-conditioned strength, inert and helpless, without power of speech or -motion, with nothing living in it but the eyes. Dr. Martin had seen a -great many ugly sights in his career, but nothing uglier than those -desperately living eyes in the dead body. - -Now the wife sat opposite him and smiled at him--a slow, unending smile -which might have pointed to a mind deranged by grief if she had not been -so eminently practical and calm. She was dressed girlishly in white, -with a red rose stuck gaily in her belt. The grey fluffy hair had been -carefully yet loosely dressed, and there was a faint tinge of artificial -colour on her cheeks. Her restless fingers glittered with valuable -rings. It was still early in the day, and Dr. Martin had pronounced a -sentence which was practically one of death, and he felt that the whole -situation was horrid--a kind of _danse macabre_. The only person who -gave him the remotest sensation of preserved decency was the daughter. -She sat apart from her mother with her head bowed, her hands tight -clasped in her lap, and he had seen a tear fall. He thought her rather -pretty and feminine. With the rapid, constructive reasoning of his sex, -he placed her in the catalogue of good daughters of adoring fathers and -heartless mothers. - -"And so," said Mrs. Boucicault, summing up, "you don't think that there -is much hope. He may live a long time of course--but like that--quite -conscious, but helpless. On the other hand, the end might come -suddenly. Isn't that what you mean?" - -Dr. Martin fidgeted. He felt tact was wasted on her. - -"Those are the two extremes of the case," he admitted. "But there are -intermediary possibilities. He might get back a certain amount of -activity--speech, for instance. It all depends on the treatment. All -that I can advise for the present is that he should not be worried or -alarmed. Get him a long leave--don't talk of retirement--keep him here, -at any rate, for the present. That's the best you can do." - -"It is what I intended," Mrs. Boucicault returned deliberately. - -Again the little doctor felt himself vaguely upset. It was as though -just as he was bowling smoothly along a familiar road, some one came and -madly jolted him into an uncomfortable rut. He clung obstinately to his -course. - -"I can't say how I sympathize with you," he said. "No one can -appreciate more than I do the courage of our women here in India. -Literally we all go more or less with our lives in our hands. Of -course, the vast majority of the natives are loyal, but in so many -millions there are bound to be one or two degenerate fanatics with a -grievance. I understand there has been some question of sedition in the -native regiment--at least, a good deal of discontent. We had rumours of -it even in Lucknow." - -Anne Boucicault looked up. She had certainly been crying, but now her -brown eyes were bright, and her lips straight and firm. - -"It wasn't any of father's men," she said on a low note of defiance. -"I'm sure it wasn't. Father is a fine soldier. When he was captain they -used to call him the Bagh Sahib because of his fearlessness. They -worshipped him. One of the older men told me--I know they wouldn't have -touched him." - -Dr. Martin smiled. He felt relieved and pleasantly moved by the quick -and passionate championship of the hulk he had just condemned. He had, -moreover, heard something of Colonel Boucicault's past and something of -his present. For the latter he was prepared to find some explanation in -the grey-haired, bedizened figure of indifference opposite him. - -"One would be glad to believe that you are right, Miss Boucicault," he -said courteously. "If only the dastardly coward could be got hold -of----" - -"I believe I know who he is," she interrupted in a hard quick way, which -was new to her. "Ayeshi, Major Tristram's servant, has disappeared. He -had some money which the Rajah gave him for his education, and he has -stolen it and gone. I saw him that night when he came and told us that -father had been found. I saw blood on his hand." - -Dr. Martin hesitated an instant, as though in two minds as to his -answer. Finally he looked up with a professional twinkle. - -"Feminine intuition again! Well, since you've got so far on your own, -Miss Boucicault, I might as well tell you that your surmise is shared by -others. I met Captain Compton at the dak-bungalow, and he told me -there's a hue and cry after this said Ayeshi. Only it's to be kept -quiet. I understand the boy was a sort of protege of Major Tristram's, -and there's a general opinion that, unless it's necessary, the latter is -not to be told. He's pretty weak still, and it's something of a shock -to get one of your pet theories bowled over in that way." - -Anne's eyes sank to her clasped hands. - -"Is Major Tristram better?" she asked. - -"Fine. Well round the corner. But I fancy it must have been touch and -go with him. That fair-haired woman--Miss Fersen, isn't that the -name?--seems to have fought every inch of the ground." He reflected -pleasurably for a minute. "Well, that's the sort of nurse a man wants -on his death-bed--a real fighter and worth looking at to boot--something -to make life worth struggling for. Great dancer, isn't she? Well, I'm -a sort of back-number that never catches up, and there's always a -different star on the horizon when I get home on leave, and even then I -only get a glimpse. My people hang out in a God-forsaken spot in -Yorkshire." He rambled on for a time with a man's affable, crushing -indifference as to whether his listeners are bored or otherwise, but -finally, chilled by Mrs. Boucicault's enigmatic smile and Anne's white -silence, he got up. - -"Well, I'll be getting along to the club----" - -Mrs. Boucicault remained seated. - -"Would you spare me a minute, Dr. Martin? A little trouble of my own--a -bruise, a mere nothing, still perhaps you would look at it. Anne, run -away, would you?" - -Dr. Martin, a little irritated by this fresh and probably petty call on -his services, wondered at the girl's dignity. It must be galling at her -age to be told to "run away." He scented tragedy, and sized it up and -turned to its creator with professionalism and small sympathy. - -"Now, Mrs. Boucicault, if you could just tell me----" - -Anne heard the last words and smiled bitterly to herself. She went out -on to the verandah and stood there looking down into the sunlit garden -with eyes that were blind with misery and anger and contempt. In that -quiet room, listening to the doctor's pleasantly modulated voice, she -had been through purgatory. She knew that the ways of God were -inscrutable--it was the all-covering explanation of her creed--but they -were sometimes hard to tread. Why had He given a bad woman the power to -save the life of a good man? Why had He allowed Evil to creep in and -take possession of peaceful Gaya? Was it perhaps a trial, a test of -their strength? That seemed possible. At least she did not doubt the -working of God's hand. She had seen it strike--strike terribly. In a -few hours it had brought a miracle of change in her little cosmos. The -figure of terror had gone down like some monstrous clay-footed idol, and -become pitiful and pitiable. She no longer feared it--no longer hated. -She yearned towards it as towards a sinner whose punishment has been -meted out with an implacable justice. He was a symbol of Divine wrath, -an awful admonition, but beyond man's hate or censure. He had become -almost sacred to her. But her mother had drifted from her, had wilfully -stood apart in that solemn moment, with that hateful smile on her lips -had seemed to deny the very existence of God Himself. Anne shuddered. -It was as though a mask had fallen from the grey-tinted, childish, -wrinkled face, and that Anne saw her as she was, petty, cruel, -mean-souled--a hard, unlovable woman who had perhaps driven her father -to his destruction. Her father had been a great man--a fine soldier, -brave, daring, much beloved. She thought of him with a dim, uncertain -pride which grew stronger and clearer. But her mother sank into a -shadow. She was little and selfish. In this awful hour when Death hung -over them, she thought of her own petty ailments--of a trivial bruise, -keeping Dr. Martin back to discuss herself with a nauseating self-pity. - -In that moment Anne's heart turned towards her father with an -overpowering tenderness, a kind of comradeship of understanding. - -How long they were! Presently she heard her mother's voice, -high-pitched and steady. Mrs. Boucicault led the way out on to the -balcony. She was toying with the red rose, smelling it with a -deliberate epicureanism. - -"I am so glad you are able to stay on a few days, Dr. Martin. I am -giving a dinner and a little dance to the Station next week, and of -course Miss Fersen will be of the party. She is rather a friend of -mine. You will meet her then. Good-bye for the present, and ever so -many thanks." - -Dr. Martin muttered something. Even then Anne wondered at him. He took -no notice of her, and went stumbling awkwardly down the steps like a man -shaken out of his composure. His face was white and rather sickly -looking. - -The two women stood side by side, and watched him clamber up into the -dog-cart and drive off. Even after he had disappeared they remained -motionless as though both feared the first move, the first break in the -long silence between them. Or perhaps it was only Anne who was afraid, -for when she turned suddenly she found her mother's gaze fixed absently -on the distance, her smile lingering at the corners of her mouth like -the forgotten grimace of an actor who has suddenly ceased to act. - -"Mother--you didn't mean it--it was a mistake--I didn't understand you, -of course--it isn't true about the dinner----" - -"Why not?" Mrs. Boucicault turned her faded blue eyes to her daughter's -face. "Yes, it's perfectly true," she said. - -Anne was shivering with an almost physical sickness. - -"It isn't possible," she said breathlessly. "You can't realize--with -father so ill--so terribly ill. How can you think of such a thing? -It's wicked--cruel! What will people think?" - -"I don't really know. But they'll come. Sigrid Fersen will come, I -know. I wish she would dance--just once. I have never seen her." - -"That woman! You mean to have her--now?" - -"I thought you'd be glad. She seems to have saved Major Tristram's -life." - -"The Rajah's mistress!" - -Mrs. Boucicault laughed lightly. - -"My dear little daughter, how grown-up of you! Is that the sort of -thing your religion teaches you?" - -Anne made no answer. She was ashamed and sorry, but also full of a -bitter resentment, as good people are when they have been goaded into an -unjustifiable aggression, an ugly, unchristian outbreak. Yet she -recognized her share of the fault with contrition, and in penance sought -to retrace her steps, to bridge the widening gulf between her and the -woman who one short week ago had been her companion, her half-protected, -half-protecting comrade. She came and laid her hand gently on her -mother's. - -"It was horrid of me to say that--it was uncharitable. But I am so -unhappy----" - -"Unhappy--are you?" Mrs. Boucicault smiled vaguely down at the -caressing hand as though it amused her. - -"Why?" - -"Mother--isn't it obvious?--Isn't it the most terrible thing that could -have happened?" - -"It doesn't seem to me terrible at all." - -Anne held her ground. She was trembling with a kind of painful -excitement. In her own mind there was a picture of herself fighting to -bring this shallow little soul up to the heights of realization, to some -dim perception of the real tragedy. - -"It is terrible," she affirmed patiently. "Even if you don't love -father any more you must see how awful it is to be struck down like that -in a minute, without time to make his peace with any of us--and now to -lie there dumb and helpless, never able to tell us things--never able to -make up for anything. Isn't that pitiable? It's the very coldest way -one can look at it. But you must feel more than that. After all, you -did love him once. Of course he was different then, but you must try -and remember him as he was in those days----" - -Mrs. Boucicault patted the hand on her arm. - -"That sounds quite pretty and nice, Anne. But I haven't time for -remembering." - -"Not time? You've got all your life. You must try and make a new -picture of him. I shall. I shall think of him as the handsome, brave -Tiger Sahib and learn to love him. We've got to hold together, mother, -and make this awful trial bearable for him. After all, we can't -tell--it may be a kind of test of us all--it may be the saving of -him--of us----" - -Mrs. Boucicault shook her head like a playful, obstinate child. - -"I don't look at it like that at all. I'm free. I'm going to have a -rattling good time." - -"Mother!" She still retained her affectionate attitude, but it had -become official, perfunctory. All the warmth in her died out, leaving a -chill horror. "Mother--you can't mean what you say! If you do you must -be mad or very wicked." - -"I daresay both, my dear. I really don't care. I'm free--that's how I -feel about it. I'm going to make up for lost time----" - -Anne shrank away from her. - -"It's awful--horrible----" - -Mrs. Boucicault threw her rose petulantly into the garden. She had only -worn it a short time, and it had already withered. - -"I guessed you would feel like that. If you don't like it you could go -down to Trichy and stay with the Osbornes. They are your father's -relations, and they always hated me, so you'll get on. Of course I -don't want to persuade you. I'm very fond of you, Anne. I should like -you to stay." - -"And watch you make a mock of my father's misery?" - -"No, Anne--only having a good time." - -"It would make me sick to see you." - -"Well, then--of course you must go." - -The two women considered each other for a moment. There was no pity, no -relenting to be read on the older face, only an inflexible purpose -softened by a childlike look of gay anticipation. Anne turned away. - -"I couldn't bear it--I couldn't bear to live with you----" - -She ran down the verandah steps into the garden as though flying from a -revelation of evil. - -Mrs. Boucicault looked after her, watching till the light-clad figure -had disappeared among the trees. Then, plucking a fresh rose from the -trellis-work, went back into her boudoir. A few minutes later she -entered her husband's sick-room and motioned the nurse to leave them. -In that simple action there was an authority, an easy self-assurance -that seemed, to change even her appearance. She held herself well, with -lifted head as a prisoner does who breathes the free air after many -years. - -Boucicault saw her. He could not turn his head, but she stood well -within the range of his roving eyes. He stared at her, and she too -studied him, the while scenting her rose delicately. He had changed -almost beyond belief. The muscles of his face were withered so that it -looked much smaller and weaker. The consuming, unappeasable temper was -still marked about the mouth, in the black puckered brow, but now it was -merely pitiable. It could never make another man or woman cower. It -could never make _her_ cower again. Perhaps some such reflection passed -through both their minds. Boucicault turned his eyes away like a sick -animal. It was almost the first sign he had given of understanding. -Hitherto, though obviously conscious, he had refused all response to the -code of signals which Dr. Martin had planned for him, in his bitter -humiliation of body seeming to cling to the utter isolation of his mind. -Now, though he could not move, he appeared to shrink into himself, to -cringe before an encroachment which he could no longer avert. His wife -came and stood close beside him. She was playing idly with her rose, -twisting the stem between her fingers. Her eyes were bright, wide open, -with two sharp points of light in them which seemed to dance. There was -real colour in her cheeks. She was not smiling now, and yet her face, -her whole body, radiated a fierce vivid amusement. - -"I've just seen Dr. Martin, Richard," she said. "You'd rather I told -you the truth, wouldn't you? He says there's no hope of your getting -well--not really well. Perhaps, after a long time, you may be able to -move a little, but you might also die suddenly. No one can do anything -for you. You'll just lie there. I thought I'd tell you. I'm going to -have a good time. Anne doesn't think it quite proper, but I'm sure -you'll understand. I haven't had much fun in the last few years, have -I? And I was awfully gay before I married you. You don't object, do -you, Richard? Do say so if you do." - -She grew bigger--taller, like a bird of prey spreading itself over its -maimed and helpless victim. The soldier's whitewashed room, blank of -all beauty, made a simple frame for the artificial brilliancy of her. -The man whose dead body outlined itself massively under the thin -covering, burned and withered in it. His eyes met hers for an instant -in understanding and mad defiance. - -"Of course we'll do all we can, Richard. We shall stay in Gaya. Dr. -Martin advises it, and I want to. It will be nicer for you too, because -if we went to a new place--or to Cheltenham or something of that -sort-nobody would bother about you. Here, of course, people are bound -to take notice of you. They'll drop in and tell you about the regiment -and all that. I shall come in every day, so that you shall hear all I -am doing. I expect I shall be very busy." - -She paused deliberately, assuming an attitude of closer interest. "Have -you tried to tell any one who killed you? I wonder. Perhaps you don't -want to. I expect it was something discreditable. Besides, even if he -or they were caught and hanged it wouldn't help you much, would it? You -couldn't see it done--unless we dragged you out in a long chair or -something----" She laughed, and bent over him--a pale-tinted, delicate, -very sinister figure. "Am I tiring you? You look tired. Smell that -rose--isn't it beautiful?--you can smell still, can't you? But I -forgot; you don't care for flowers. You wouldn't let me have any in the -house. Well, perhaps you will grow to care for them. I will tell nurse -to put some in a vase for you." She touched his cheek lightly with the -flower and laughed again. "Well, good-bye for today, Richard." - -She pirouetted on her heel like a girl, and went to the door. He could -not see her, but he heard her give a little gasp and then utter a name. -His eyes opened to the full--he began to breathe quickly and -laboriously. The veins on his dark, wizened-looking forehead stood out -in the frightful effort to break through, to move, to speak---- - -"Major Tristram--what a shock you gave me! I thought you were at -death's door. You oughtn't to be here, I'm sure. I hardly recognized -you." - -"Yes--I am a sight, aren't I? Still, I'm not dead--not by some lengths. -May I speak to your husband?" - -"Oh, yes, you may speak to him. You won't mind a monologue, will you? -You've heard about it, I expect--spinal column affected or -something--but I'm so stupid about these things. Do come and talk to me -afterwards, won't you, Major? I should like to hear all your news." - -The door closed. Boucicault lifted his eyes. They were sunken--so -black, so lightless that their expression could not be guessed at. It -might have been an appalling hatred--anything. - -Tristram did not return the gaze. He stood at the sick man's side, -rocking on his heels, fighting a purely physical battle, then suddenly -crumbled up on the edge of the bed, his shaking hands to his face. Thus -he remained for a minute whilst Boucicault's eyes rested on him with -mute, unfathomable intensity. - -Presently Tristram raised himself, and the encounter had taken place, -almost actual in the poignancy and force of the memory which flared up -behind the mutual scrutiny. Neither man flinched. - -"I had the deuce of a business to get here," Tristram said at last quite -simply. "I had to humbug and dodge any number of people, and get my own -legs to crawl which wasn't easy. But I had to come. I've got to speak -to you, Boucicault. I'd have come sooner, but I've been a raving -lunatic most of the time and this was my first chance. You may think it -damnable of me to hound you down when you can't hit back, as it were, -but I can't help that, I've got to have it out." He paused a moment, -running his hand over his close-cropped head. He seemed to be -struggling for coherency. Boucicault's stare never wavered. "It's not -very much I've got to say. I won't waste time and breath telling you -what I feel--I've done something worse than murder you. I smashed you -up when I ought to have realized that you were a man with a sick brain. -I was a sick man myself and--and couldn't think clearly. I just heard -poor old Wickie scream--well, we won't go into that--it's too beastly. -But I've just come to tell you that I'm not going to give myself up to -what some people would call justice. That's what I meant to do at -first--but I see now that it was sentimentality and cowardice--the sort -of thing that drives some people to confess--a kind of shaking off one's -burden of responsibility on to some one else. I'm rambling--it's so -infernally difficult to keep one's thoughts clear." He passed his -tongue over his cracked lips. Boucicault's eyes closed for an instant. -"Can you understand what I'm saying?" The eyes opened again to their -full stare and Tristram went on more clearly. "Of course, it's possible -you may get all right or even be able to denounce me without that. I -shan't deny anything. I shall be jolly glad, I daresay. But until then -I'm going on with my work. We're men, Boucicault--and I won't mince -matters--you've smashed up a good many lives in your time--men in the -regiment, your wife, Anne--and you and I have smashed each other but -that's the end of it. You may or you may not believe me--but I'm not -going to be dragged into disgrace if I can help it--for my mother's -sake. She's old--very old--she can't last long---she's had a rotten -time, and the last year or two--well, I shall protect them with all my -strength." He straightened his shoulders as a man does who, groping -through darkness, suddenly sees his way clear. "That's what I conceive -to be my duty. You hate me, of course, but you're clever enough to know -the sort of man I am and you know quite well that whether I'm punished -or not, I've done for myself. That ought to satisfy you for the -present." He got up. "So I'm going back to my work. I don't know -whether you'll understand what I mean when I say that I'm going to try -and balance the misery you and I have brought into this world--I've got -your responsibilities as well as my own to shoulder because I've smashed -your chance of making good. And there's something else--if it lies in -human power I'll set you on your feet again. If I succeed I shall tell -my mother the truth, and I think somehow that then she will feel -differently about it--it won't be quite the same sort of failure. Of -course you'll want other doctors--you mayn't trust me--but no one else -will fight for you as I shall. Give me some sign. If you trust me -close your eyes once. I shall understand." - -In the long silence which followed the two men held each other in a gaze -so ardent, so penetrating that it was like the physical grappling of -wrestlers, one of whom at least knew no pity. The sweat of weakness and -recent effort showed itself on Tristram's forehead, but his features -wore a weary serenity. - -Presently a change showed itself on Boucicault's face. There was a -shadow at the corners of his stiff, powerless lips--a kind of smile, -malicious, calculating, ironic. His eyes closed once. - -Tristram nodded. - -"That's all I have to say, then." - -He made his way from the bungalow, circuiting the front verandah where -he guessed Mrs. Boucicault would wait for him, to the compound gates. -There Sigrid Fersen with the Rajah's dog-cart awaited him. She bent -towards him, her face white with anger. - -"How could you, Major Tristram! I guessed somehow you had come here and -followed you. How could you do it?" - -"I had to," he answered. He came up to the step of the cart, trying to -support himself against the shaft unseen by her. "I had to," he -repeated. - -"A professional visit, I suppose?" she flashed scornfully. - -"In a sort of way--yes." - -"Well, anyhow--try and climb if you've the strength. I'll drive you back -to bed." - -He looked up at her and she frowned and bit her under lip to keep back -an exclamation. - -"Please--will you do something for me?" - -"What is it, you madman?" - -"Drive me to Heerut." - -"Heerut--are you really insane? Do you want to die?" - -He smiled wistfully. - -"Oh, Lord, no--I've jolly well got to live. But I'm going back to -work." - -"You can't--it's absurd--I won't be responsible." - -"You wouldn't be responsible," he interrupted earnestly. "Listen--I've -got to go--there are my poor beggars in quarantine--all sorts of -things--believe me, it's urgent, it must be--if you don't help me, I -shall walk or get some one else." - -"You know that Ayeshi has gone--gone to Calcutta." - -He averted his face. - -"Yes--Compton told me." - -"And Wickie--disappeared. You'll be all alone." - -"Yes," he agreed simply. - -She bent a little lower. She was smiling as one does at an obstinate, -unhappy child. - -"In a few weeks I may have to leave Gaya. My time is almost up. Are -you flying from me?" - -He remained patiently, doggedly silent, and she sighed and drew back. - -"_Kismet_! So you make Fate for us both. I won't try to thwart you. I -will take you to Heerut. But I make one stipulation." - -"Yes?" - -"It is that before I leave Gaya we spend one day together--a kind of -farewell picnic--a high and solemn feast to the end of all things. It -is to be where and when I want it. Do you promise?" - -He did not answer. He was still looking away from her--down the white -line of dusty road which wound past the clustered barracks. A far-off, -long-drawn-out bugle-call fluttered out on to the hot stillness. She -looked down and saw his hand clenched on the splashboard, and the -impatient mockery faded from her lips. - -"I won't make any stipulation. You are too ill to be bargained with. -And, after all, it lies in my power to seek you out when I choose--as I -have done before"--her eyes became veiled and intent--"in and out of the -ship's ghosts over the water--dancing over the grey roofs of the -world----" - -He frowned perplexedly, following her words through a labyrinth of -memory and fancy and finding no end. - -"Is that a quotation?" - -"A sort of one----" - -"It seems to express something----" He paused, meditating. The bugle -sounded again, louder and more metallic and now in answer came the -subdued hurrying of feet, the jangle of steel. Suddenly he faced her, -fiercely, almost violently, like a man throwing off an obsessing -weakness. There was a fire of energy in the throw-back of his great -shoulders, in the clear passionate desire of his regard. She faltered -under it. It swept her from her light fantastic dominion over him into -deep, fast-flowing waters which engulfed her, stupefied her, shook her -calm supremacy to its foundations. She did not know what had -happened--what had wrought the change in him. He who had fought grimly -and knowingly with the realism in the lives of others had somehow come -to grips with reality in his own. He had ceased to weave dreams. It -was not as a vision and a visionary that they faced each other, but as a -man and a woman. A flash of lightning had burst through the -unsubstantial mists of their relationship. And behind the figure of the -dreaming Stoic there loomed the stark, primeval human being, vital, -virile, armed with all the white, burning power of unsoiled, sternly -guarded passions. They flared in his blue eyes which held hers for the -first time with full recognition, with a daring, reckless revelation of -their own existence. And though inwardly she faltered, her gaze was as -steady as his own. She dared not turn from him. She felt that if she -did she would come face to face with herself--as fiercely, as terribly -awakened. - -They spoke very quietly, very naturally to one another. - -"I'll promise," he said. "A last day--no one could grudge it me?" - -"No one." She held out her hand to him and it did not tremble. "Come, -now I will drive you to Heerut." - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - *THE WEAVERS* - - -Barclay rode past the Boucicaults' bungalow on the afternoon when Mrs. -Boucicault gave her garden party in honour of the regiment's new -commander and his wife. It was a very grand function, and rather -gruesome if one stopped to think what lay inert and listening in a room -somewhere at the back, but to stop and think was a mental pastime in -which no one in Gaya indulged willingly. Mrs. Boucicault had been right. -Gaya was not in the least outraged. It was not even very upset when it -found that without a word of farewell Anne had gone south to Trichy to -pay her father's people a long visit. In its casual, easy-going way, -Gaya understood both points of view and sympathized. - -The regimental band was playing a waltz and Barclay drew in his -slender-limbed thoroughbred to listen. A little band of natives with a -saffron-robed Sadhu in their midst coming round a bend of the white -road, he drew out a gold case from his pocket and selected and lit a -cigarette with an exaggerated deliberation. The procession drew on one -side and the leader saluted the Sahib respectfully. Barclay took the -salute with a curt, indifferent nod, but something in the episode must -have changed the nature of his thoughts. He threw a glance towards the -garden, walled from his view by a circle of high palms, and his black -eyes were alight with a childish satisfaction. He heard voices -intermingle with the music and two young men in immaculate -tennis-clothes lounged out of the compound gates. They looked after the -procession, and one of them laughed. - -"It's nothing--you'll soon get fed up with that native stuff. When -you've seen the festival at Heerut next week you won't want another dose -for years--these sort of fellows with their humbugging old fakir will be -pouring in till the place is like an ant-heap. Talk about -self-governing India--oh, Lord!" - -Barclay, a notable figure enough on his beautiful mare stood not three -yards away from the speaker, yet he appeared to pass unnoticed. Neither -of the two looked at him. He drove his spurs into the animal's silken -sides, curbing her at the same instant with an iron hand, and set her at -a nervous, tortured canter down the road. His tight mouth under the -black moustache was curved with a deliberate pleasure as he felt her -sweat and tremble under his mastery. He kept her at the pace for a mile -through the blaze of sun which poured down upon the unsheltered plain -and then, satiated, allowed her to drop to a quivering, resentful walk. - -He reached the bridge-head half an hour before sunset. A D.P.W. man with -a party of assistants was taking soundings for the new traffic bridge -which was to link up Gaya and the administrative centre three hundred -miles away with the never-ending chain of villages of which Heerut was -the first and largest. He had had a bad afternoon of it with Mother -Ganges, and he stared savagely at Barclay, who drew rein. - -"Getting on?" the latter asked. - -"Damnably. The river's never the same two days running." - -Barclay showed his white teeth in a smile. - -"That's her speciality. You'll never build that bridge." - -"Won't I?" - -"The natives have a superstition against it. No white man will ever -bridge the Holy Place. This _is_ the Holy Place, you know--the spot -where the sacred serpents come down from the jungle and take -refreshment." He spoke with much the indolent amusement of the two -young men outside the Boucicaults' compound. He aped it deliberately, -not knowing whence came his smarting satisfaction. The Englishman mopped -a moist and irate forehead. - -"No, I didn't know," he snapped. "I'm not a native. I haven't got any -damned superstitions. Perhaps you'd like to have a shot at it." - -Barclay made no answer. The smile passed from his lips. He sat his -horse motionlessly, staring at the faintly swaying native bridge in -front of him. The Englishman, unconscious of his own success, stumped -off angrily towards a fresh point of vantage. - -Presently Barclay crossed to the farther side of the river, turning his -horse from the path, rode through the long grasses to the temple, and -here, within a few feet of the carved gateway, he dismounted, and, -tossing the reins over the battered post which was all that marked the -old Path of Auspiciousness, he strolled through into the Manderpam. The -place was empty. Its usual inhabitant had vanished. Barclay stood a -moment, looking about him with the detached, unfeeling interest of a -tourist. The attitude was deliberate, as were all his actions. He was -setting the gulf of race and tradition between himself and this -austerely sensuous beauty. He held himself an alien, walking idly, but -with loud steps over the grass-grown stones, humming to himself, and -beating time with his crop against his riding-boots. But the silence, -heavy with old dreams and drowsy, bygone meditations, the stately avenue -of roofless pillars, daunted him. He came to a halt in the entrance to -the _antarila_ and stared round furtively, peering into the -purple-tinted shadows, listening as to a sound which troubled and -escaped him. A little red-cheeked bulbul fluttered from its nest high -overhead on the summit of the crumbling walls, and he watched its flight -through the oblique bars of alternate light and shadow with a curious -anxiety. It was as though he sought to rivet his attention on something -trivial, so that he should not have to face whatever lay beneath the -surface. The bulbul came to rest in some hidden rock among the -deep-cut, fantastic reliefs of the frieze, and the soft, tender beating -of its wings, like the last throb of a dying pulse, passed under the -weight of a brooding, deathlike silence. Barclay turned and went -noisily into the _antarila_. But here his footsteps rang with a -different and startling resonance. They echoed among the broad, stunted -pillars and died sullenly in a gloom which shrouded the place in -unfathomable dimensions. Barclay, raising his hand instinctively, -touched the roof, but its dank solidity could not remove the impression -of a monstrous nightfall, of a sky black and unlit, stretching up into -infinity. On either hand, his knowledge might have told him, were thick -walls, but they too carried no conviction, and the darkness went on and -on in narrow, endless passages leading down into the bowels of an unholy -mystery. The faint gleam of light in front of him, the soft gold of the -courtyard behind, were like ghosts, painted luminously on the solid -blackness, themselves bringing no light, no relief. - -Barclay stopped, and, with his insolent deliberation, lit a cigarette, -afterwards holding the match overhead. He saw that his hand shook and -the tiny flame quivered an instant and went out as though a secret -breath had blown against it. Barclay cursed and bit his teeth together -as the echo gibed at him from its invisible lurking-place, and then went -on, hushing his footsteps so that they should not follow him. In the -Holy of Holies there was neither light nor darkness, but a haze which at -once hid and revealed all things. It was like a pall shrouding the sun, -or a gauzy, luminous veil of sunshine thrown over nightfall. It came -filtering down from the great sun-window which, high overhead in the -slender _sikhara_, looked out eastwards whence at daybreak Laksmi, -surrounded with the golden-haired divas of morning, rises up to meet -Vishnu, who watches for her. It fell softly on the gigantic, monstrous -effigy of Vishnu himself, cross-legged on his altar, in either hand a -writhing serpent, his black eyes fixed in cruel, aloof contemplation on -an existence which knew neither joy nor sorrow, neither humanity nor its -desires and prayers. As in the old days when men and women had passed -worshipping through his temple, so now that the worshippers were still -and the courtyard empty and his altar bare of offerings, he remained -indifferent and omnipotent. Men, generations, and religions pass, the -temple crumbles. But so long as death remains, so long are the gods -immortal. The knowledge of its immortality was graven into the image's -mocking mouth, into the sightless, all-seeing eyes. - -Barclay stood with one foot on the altar steps, and stared up into the -frigid face and blew rings of smoke into the wide, cruel nostrils. -There was more than a sightseer's insolent disregard in the action. It -was a sneer and a defiance. He spat on the altar-step. But when a hand -striking invisibly out of the darkness sent him staggering to the wall -he screamed like a child whose nerve has snapped suddenly under a long, -agonizing tension. His mouth was open, changing the character of his -whole face. The cigarette had fallen and lay like a tiny burning eye on -the stone flags. Vahana, the Sadhu, ground his heel upon it. Whether -he had been kneeling in the shadow or whether he had crept after the -interloper could not be told. Gaunt and naked, the bones of his chest -and ribs starting out under the straining flesh, the wild grey hair -tossed back from his face, he sprang up before the idol, protecting it -with outstretched arms whose long, attenuated lines flung the shadow of -a huge cross on the wall beyond. - -Neither man spoke. Barclay bent down and picked up his helmet, which -had been knocked off, and, obeying the Fakir's imperative gesture, went -out of the Holy of Holies through the priests' place into the columned, -sun-lit outer court. There he laughed. - -"You're a pretty custodian," he said loudly in English. "Enough to -frighten a harmless globe-trotter out of his five senses. What sort of -tip do you expect after that? Or does one pay extra for the thrill?" - -There was no answer. Vahana went past him and squatted down in his -accustomed place by the gateway. The fierce outburst was over, and he -seemed to have forgotten Barclay's presence. The latter stood beside -him, propping his shoulders against the lintel, and searched fumblingly -for his cigarette case. - -"I suppose it's allowed here, eh? You should put up a notice, 'No -smoking.' Oh, I forgot--a vow of eternal silence is your speciality, -isn't it? You needn't keep it up with me. I shan't tell." He laughed -again. "You old humbug! I _could_ tell a tale if I chose. What about -that evening I caught you sneaking out of Gaya? Been having a -compensating orgy, no doubt." - -The Fakir shot a rapid upward glance which Barclay caught with a grunt -of satisfaction. - -"Well, you understand English, anyhow, which is a good thing because I -want a word with you." - -He lit his cigarette deliberately, and, folding his arms, surveyed the -wide stretch of plain before him. Save for the high grass, it was -barren to the river edge, but beyond that broad, swift-flowing barrier -it became rich with pasture and golden harvest. Barclay's eyes narrowed -at the still ardent sunlight, but beneath the heavy, drooping lids there -was a gleam of some smouldering passion, triumph--resentment. - -"Not much of that crop that isn't mine," he said loudly. "They needn't -call me Sahib--not yet--if they don't want to--but I'm lord here, for -all that. I've got the whip hand, and that's what matters." - -The Fakir paid no heed to an outburst which was indeed not intended for -him. He bent forward from the hips and whistled softly, on one -monotonous note, the while swaying from left to right with rhythmic -precision. In a minute the tangled growth which, like the first low -waters of an incoming tide, spread out from the jungle and lapped the -temple walls, rustled, parted, and a black glistening body writhed out -into the sunshine. There it paused, listening, its arrow-shaped head -lifted out of the tight coils, and moving to the measure of its -enchanter. Barclay looked down and started and then laughed. - -"Practising for the great show, eh? I suppose it'll keep the old story -going--the jungle of serpents. Lord, how you must hate us, with our -education and uplifting of the masses. One of these days I'll clear the -jungle and build a factory, and you can go out of business. That old -trick----!" - -Still laughing, he crouched down on his heels and hissed gently, his -black eyes intent on the reptile's poised and swaying body. Vahana -continued to whistle. They had entered into a competition which to -Barclay was a mere jest. But the serpent had grown still, attentive, -its ugly head drawn back in an attitude of cold deliberation. From time -to time its lithe, evilly forked tongue shot out and then an expression -seemed to dawn on the flat face--a kind of satanic pleasure. Then, -suddenly, as though arrived at a decision, it uncoiled and came gliding -towards Barclay. Barclay no longer called to it. His eyes were clouded -and stupid-looking. He glanced up at Vahana and found that he was being -watched. Between the old man and the uncannily moving adder there had -developed an affinity. The Fakir's face seemed to have narrowed and -sharpened. From the wide cheek-bones down to the chin there were two -straight converging lines between which ran the cruel curve of the -mouth. The eyes were hard and dead as a basilisk's. But, like the -reptile's, they expressed something--a sinister amusement, a soulless, -ageless wisdom. - -Barclay made a fumbling gesture. - -"Look here, I didn't know--call the brute off--I never tried----" He -was stuttering. The defiant arrogance had gone out of him. He had -become curiously afraid. Vahana whistled again, and within a foot of -Barclay the adder recoiled, hissing resentfully, and swung to one side. -Vahana held out his wrist and the sinuous body twisted itself about him -in a monstrous bracelet. Barclay watched, with a sick fascination. His -fear had been neither physical nor passing. In some odd way the -incident had shattered his self-assurance, even his self-control. - -"I didn't know----" he began again. "It must just have been chance. I -had never tried----" - -His voice failed, and died into a shaken silence. The reptile, lying -with its head on the back of Vahana's fleshless hand, held the Eurasian -in the malevolent circle of its watchfulness. Its beady, unflinching -eyes neither appeared to move nor to be fixed on any definite object, -yet when Barclay shifted his position they did not leave his face. Thus -they remained, staring at each other. Vahana had sunk into an apparent -apathy of meditation. But it was no more than an appearance. Between -the three there was now a living, feverish communication. - -Barclay roused himself at last. - -"Look here--I didn't come here for this tomfoolery. Look at this. It -was my mother's. Some one--Lalloo the Kara--told me a tale about it. -Said it belonged to--to your wife. I want to know. I want to know who -the devil I am. If it's true then I shall know." - -Vahana glanced at the gold circlet held out towards him. The adder -hissed furiously and he whistled it back to its sluggish content. But -he had nodded in assent, Barclay drew his breath between his teeth. - -"So that much was true. I've got to think this out. I'm not your son. -I've good English blood in my veins, I've known that since I was a kid. -If it was Tristram, senior----" He stopped. Vahana had lifted his -head, and the change in him struck Barclay silent for a moment. Then, -gathering his determination, he added rapidly, scarcely above a -whisper--"whom you murdered." - -But it seemed that the Fakir had not heard, or that if he had heard the -words reached him only as an echo, a shadow of something terrible and -actual. The change in him was indefinable. He had scarcely moved. Yet -Barclay stared at him stupidly, and a moment looked round to follow the -gaze of the fierce expressionless eyes. Then he, too, became silent. - -A horseman rode along the river-bank. Evidently he had come some -distance, for the nose of his amazingly lean, steed grazed the ground -and he himself hung in the saddle. As he passed he turned his head -towards the temple, but either the sun, setting with long upward -striking rays behind the hills, blinded him, or the watchers were too -well hidden in the shadow of the gateway. He did not see them, and, -coaxing the dejected quadruped to a canter, disappeared presently in the -direction of Heerut. - -"Tristram Sahib by the grace of God!" Barclay muttered. "Tristram -Sahib!" He repeated the name, pressing into it a restrained bitterness -which suddenly burst from him in a wild incoherent deluge. -"Sahib--Sahib! Good God--and what am I--with blood as good as his--his -blood--Meester Barclay, eh?--damn him--damn them all. What right has he -got to treat me like dirt--or any of them? What right? Aren't I one of -them? Have I got to pay for their low, mean sins--their little, -back-door intrigues? I'm English too--it's their law--why don't they -keep to their laws, damn them----" - -His voice quivered. He broke down pitiably. It was as though a garment -which he held jealously about him had been torn from him and with it his -manhood, his mincing, insolent, yet timorous pride. As he crouched -there, the tears of mortification and rage on his cheeks he underwent a -mysterious change. The over-perfect English clothes no longer disguised -him. They had become grotesque. - -Vahana looked at him, looked long and intently, and then at the bracelet -lying between them. He touched Barclay on the arm, and with his -forefinger began to write in the thick dust. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - *A MEREDITH TO THE RESCUE* - - -In the belt of fertile land about Heerut the work of irrigation for the -_khareef_ had already begun. Half-naked men and women in gay-coloured -_chudders_ laboured in the slanting ruts which stretched down from the -river and criss-crossed over the wide fields in a maze of intricate -cunningly calculated lines. They worked in complete silence, like a -colony of ants, hurrying backwards and forwards, their lean, -fragile-looking bodies bent under crushing burdens of freshly turned -earth, their faces set in patient acceptance. So much depended on the -_khareef_--a meagre sufficiency or a dearth that was always complete--an -avalanche of famine sweeping whole communities from existence. Not that -life or death was of much significance. They fought for life half -instinctively, half because the Sahibs willed it so. It was a hard -business either way, and that much they realized dimly. - -Tristram drew rein to watch them. Beyond the river the white ungarnered -corn lay in its silver fields awaiting its long-delayed hour. He -remembered how in the winter months all Heerut had laboured at its -irrigation--even as they laboured now--thinking of the harvest. And now -the harvest was there and had begun to rot. Disease and the dreaded, -docilely accepted quarantine had stayed the hands which should have -gathered it. Now those who survived turned to the more pressing -task--to the crumbling canals which were to bring life to the summer -rice-crop. What was lost was lost. The past was past; but the grim, -forbidding shadow of the future remained always. - -Therein lay the tragedy of the unresting, patient figures--the labour -that was so often foredoomed to fruitlessness, the struggle against an -enemy who could never be wholly vanquished, the hope of a victory that -could never be more than a breathing-space, a mere margin of life. But -the greater tragedy was their patience, their passive acceptance of life -as suffering. - -It was that tragedy which Tristram saw as he watched them. For him it -blotted out what was lovely and full of promise in the scene--the gay -colours, the rich, deep sunlight on the fruitful fields, the semblance -of prosperity. It made his greeting to those who passed him somewhat -grim and less cheery than was its wont. The men and women nodded to him -and smiled gravely in return. There was no formal, deferential -salutation such as the Burra Sahib would have expected and received. He -was less and greater than any of the Sahibs who ruled their destinies, -and they merely smiled at him. No other man was to them what he had -become. Rough and ready of tongue, imperious sometimes, occasionally -ruthless, he yet was never the representative of a ruling race. Other -Sahibs they feared and worshipped--the great warriors, the myth figures -of the rulers beyond the unknown, but Tristram was the man of their -daily lives, of their great sorrows and little happinesses, the man who -sat under the council-tree at night and listened to the last village -scandal, or to some wonderful tale told by the village story-teller, who -tracked his way down the contaminated stream of their faith to its pure -source and drank with them. And they who had known little of pity and -less of love came through him to a dim, faltering knowledge. - -Through the busy stillness there sounded a shrill trumpeting and the -rustle and crack of the high grasses before swift and headlong passage -of an elephant. Tristram drew Arabella to one side. Already in the -distance he had seen the glitter and flash of the Rajah's gaudy howdah, -and was not unprepared for the procession which, now bore down towards -the river. There were five elephants in all, the first showily -caparisoned with a mahout in splendid livery, the others more seriously -equipped for the hunt. Rasaldu and his guest, the new Colonel, whose -face was overshadowed by his helmet, rode in the first, and, seeing -Tristram, nodded with a cheerful condescension and held up two fat -fingers to indicate the success of their expedition. Then the -procession rumbled past like a noisy, gorgeous carnival of life leaving -a cloud of sullen dust and the grey bed-rock of reality. - -An old man who had taken refuge under Arabella's lee put up a palsied -hand and pointed in fierce scorn after the disappearing Rajah. - -"His father--a cowherd----" he stammered. "His father served mine and -betrayed him to the English." - -Tristram nodded. - -"And the Rajah who then was?" - -"Dead, Sahib." - -"He left no heirs?" - -The sunken eyes were lifted for a moment. - -"Sahib, there are things we do not even whisper among ourselves." Then -his expression changed. It was as though a vizor had dropped over his -shrivelled features. With bowed head he shuffled towards a group of -villagers who had gathered farther off, and Tristram, becoming -uncomfortably aware of a third presence, turned in his saddle. He saw -then that, under cover of the procession's passing, he had been -overtaken by a second horseman whose delicately built Arab showed traces -of hard and recent galloping. The rider lifted his brown hand in formal -salutation. - -"I was loafing round the temple when I saw you pass, Major," he said -easily. "It occurred to me that our long-planned interview might take -place now and here. Are you agreeable?" - -"If you wish it." - -"May I ride with you?" - -"Are you going to Heerut?" - -Barclay showed his white teeth in a brief smile. - -"I hope so." - -There was a moment of uncertainty on Tristram's side. He stroked -Arabella's long neck thoughtfully. - -"Still, I think we'd better say what we want to say now. Your mare looks -pretty winded--mine's all in. It won't hurt to breathe them both." - -"As you like," Barclay answered. His manner was touched with a certain -tremulousness which might have resulted from his rash gallop through the -treacherous grass. But otherwise there was no trace of the man who had -broken down at the temple gateway. "Look here," he began abruptly, "do -you think you're playing the game, Major Tristram? What's your idea? -What have I done to you? We don't need to beat about the bush. I know -quite well whom I'm up against. I tell you straight--I've got a short -way with people who oppose me--I smash them. But I don't smash till -I've tried reason. Why don't you let my affairs alone?" - -Tristram stirred impatiently in his saddle. - -"I'm not interested in your affairs, Mr. Barclay, except in so far as -they concern my friends." - -"Friends!" Barclay laughed out with a forced good-humour. "And what -have I done to your friends, pray? Look around you. Look at these -rotten crops. Well, I've lent good money on these crops--lent it to -your precious proteges. When am I going to see my money back?" - -"When you want to," Tristram returned. "Next harvest, or as soon as the -poor devils get a cow they can call their own--and fifty per cent. into -the bargain." - -Barclay shrugged his shoulders. - -"Fifty per cent. covers the risks--no more." - -"Then it's a pity you bother yourself." - -"That's your idea of humour, no doubt, Major. But I'm dead serious. I -know what you've done. You've set these people against me. You've used -your influence to prevent my doing business with them. I've no doubt -you used your power to terrify them." - -Tristram laughed gaily. - -"I did that," he admitted. "I believe they think you're the devil -himself." - -"And you think that's fair? What right had you----?" - -"I don't care to see people paying fifty per cent. interest." - -"Very well. But what's going to happen? You're so damned thoughtful -for your friends--perhaps you'll tell me what's going to happen to them. -Those weavers--at Heerut and Bjura and all round--they're smashed. No -one will touch their stuff for a year at least. Are they going to -starve--or are you going to advance them money out of your screw?" - -Tristram looked up, his blue eyes resting calmly and even with a certain -amusement on the other's dark and bitter face. - -"In a sort of way--at least I'm getting the Government to take a hand." - -"You--you did that?" - -"I'm trying to. You're quite right. I've done all I can to keep you -and your agents out. I'm a doctor, and the material conditions of my -people concern me. I've seen some of your business methods, and I think -you're unhealthy, Mr. Barclay." - -Barclay contained himself with a desperate effort. - -"My word, that may be truer than you think. I'm unhealthy to people who -get in my way. Look here, Major Tristram--I don't want to use the -screw--after all, we're Englishmen in a foreign country, and it's our -infernal duty to hang together--but I won't be kicked out of things like -that. I give you fair warning to leave my preserves alone, and I'll -tell you why. I know things--I know something that would----" He -stopped short. Tristram's eyes were still on his face. They had -neither flickered nor lost their quizzical good-humour. - -"Well, what do you know? It's rather funny, but we both seem to have -found out something detrimental about each other. For instance, though -this is only our second meeting, I'm convinced that you're a -thorough-paced blackguard, Mr. Barclay." - -"That may be. My father was one." - -"I'm sorry." - -"You have good reason to be sorry." His lips were quivering. He burst -out ungovernably. "You have your share in him." - -"Mr. Barclay----" - -"Tristram--that's what my name should be. Your father was mine----" - -"Is that your attack, then?" - -Barclay put up his hand as though to hide his unsteady mouth. - -"No," he said. "It is not. But it is the truth. I can prove it. I -guessed it some time back, but I wasn't certain. Your--our father, -lived in my bungalow. It was there he was murdered--he and my mother by -her husband. How much you know----" - -"I didn't know that," Tristram put in quietly. He looked away from -Barclay, and the latter, watching him with a fevered anxiety, saw that -the fine hand lying on Arabella's neck had lost its absolute steadiness. -"You must prove it." - -"I can do so." - -"If it's true--then I'm sorry--sorry I spoke as I did. You've had the -beastliest luck--I beg your pardon." - -He lifted his head again. The white gravity of his face lent the rather -boyish words a sincerity which Barclay recognized with an inward -faltering of his anger. For a vivid instant the two men touched -spiritually, or met on some common ground of emotion--then broke apart. - -"I don't want pity," Barclay exclaimed childishly, bitterly. - -"I didn't offer you pity. Or if I did--I meant it for us both. It's -not as bad--but I was rather proud of my father. My mother--we'll leave -that out. And, anyhow--I suppose it's a small thing compared to what he -did to you. It was a pitiless thing to do." He hesitated, and then -added, with a shyness which sat quaintly enough on his big manhood: "I -suppose we're brothers, then?" - -Barclay drew back from the outstretched hand. A mad impulse had almost -driven him to grasp it and kiss it, but he crushed it under, shivering -from head to foot in the violence of the revulsion. - -"So you acknowledge the relationship?" - -"Why shouldn't I?" - -"We'd better look the thing in the face. I'm an Eurasian, and -illegitimate at that. Are you going to own me before your friends?" - -"Yes. I don't care what you are by circumstance. Illegitimacy and race -are nothing to me. A man's a man." - -"That's not the law," Barclay returned sneeringly. - -"And I don't care a fig for the law either," Tristram said with a faint -smile. - -Barclay was silent. A dull anger was kindling in him. It was a deeper, -more dangerous passion than that which had driven him to strike before -he had intended. It had its roots in their fundamental antagonism of -character as it revealed itself now, in Barclay's failure to strike -hatred out of a man he hated. For a moment whatever was fine in him had -flashed up in response to Tristram's simple humanity, but that was gone, -and there remained nothing but the galling recognition of an inferiority -which was not that of race or circumstance. And with that recognition -the little light he had within him went out. - -"That's all very well," he said at last, "but it's just talk. It won't -help me. If you did recognize me, neither of us would get anything out -of it. I should have to leave Gaya, and you'd get into trouble. That's -not my game. The only brotherly act I ask of you is to leave me alone." - -"I have told you already I don't want to interfere. I've got to." - -Barclay gnawed at his thick under-lip, holding himself in, calculating. - -"Look here," he began again, "I guess I've inherited something from my -mother besides my infernal colour--a sort of instinct--a knowledge of -people. That night I met you at Sigrid Fersen's I found out something -about you. I knew what was going on in you though you didn't know it -yourself. I know what's wrong with you now. Well, I'll do the -brotherly first. If you treat me fairly, you'll have nothing to fear -from me--and besides that, I'll give you the straight tip--I know -something of Sigrid Fersen. She wants the cream of life--it's a sort of -religion with her. In London there wasn't a man or woman who could stand -up to her in magnificence. There were the wildest stories told about -her, and they were truer than most stories. She wouldn't stand this -sort of thing--not if she were dying of love for you. Take my word for -it--you'll want money--any amount of it--then you'll stand a chance with -her----" - -Tristram, urged by a sudden disgust, and an intolerable unrest, turned -Arabella's head and touched her to a walk. But Barclay was beside him, -leaning towards him, talking rapidly. - -"Well, you can have money, Tristram"--and now he was using the Christian -name with a deliberate purpose--"you can have as much as you need. I -tell you this country is like an unworked mine. I'm going to work it. -I'm going to be as rich and powerful as the pioneers in South Africa. -These Anglo-Indian officials treat India as though it was a sort of -toy--a kind of game against heavy odds. There isn't a business man -among them. I'm a business man. And I'll take you into partnership--a -sleeping partner with a quarter share and nothing to do but to sleep -hard. I swear to you that in a year or two you can marry any one you -please--I tell you she's hard up----" - -Tristram pulled Arabella to a standstill. - -"Don't talk like that," he blazed out. "I don't want to think you a -scoundrel. If there is any blood common to us both I don't want to -loathe it. You've had rough luck--it doesn't need to make you a cad." - -"Doesn't it? I'm not so sure. What do you expect me to do?" - -"Throw up this slave-driving business. I'll stand by you. I'll see you -through, Barclay--whatever one man can do for another I will do----" - -"Will you? Will you come and live with me in Calcutta--with my -people--the only people who won't treat me as though I were a nasty -cross between a human being and an animal--blowsy, feckless, shiftless -outcasts--will you? Well, you might--you're credited with queer things -of that sort, but it would do for you. Your white blood wouldn't stand -it. Nor will mine. I've got to get away from them. It's our father in -me. But there's nowhere for me to go. I've got to make my world--make -it in blood and sweat if needs must. When I've money enough to buy up -Gaya, Gaya will accept me fast enough." - -Tristram shook his head. - -"You said just now that we behaved as though we were playing a big -game," he said. "You may be right. And good sportsmen can't be -bought." - -"Can't they? Well, we'll see. Meantime, if there's a word of sincerity -in all you've said, either come in with me or keep out of my way. I can -make you a rich man, Tristram; don't forget that." - -"You're asking me to visit the sins of your father and mine on to -thousands of these luckless people." - -"Put it that way if you like. I'm going forward, whatever you do." - -"Then I shall fight you with every atom of influence and power I have." - -Barclay tore at his horse's mouth, dragging the animal round on its -haunches so that he faced Tristram. Both men were breathing heavily as -though the struggle between them had become a physical one. Barclay -thrilled with a savage satisfaction as he saw that the man before him -was as shaken as himself, black-browed, hot-eyed, with a mouth set like -a vice behind the short beard. - -"Then I'll smash you, Tristram--I've got reason enough to hate you -without that--you've got everything--now I'll smash you--I can and I -will----" - -Suddenly Tristram's face relaxed. He broke into a big unaffected laugh. - -"We're like two villains out of old Adelphi melodrama," he said. "We've -made each other unacceptable offers and threatened each other, and now I -suppose it's to be a fight to the finish." - -Barclay nodded. The laugh had been more bitter than a blow. He turned -his head away so that Tristram should not see the treacherous weakness -of his mouth. Then with a muttered exclamation that was half a curse, -half a sob of ungovernable passion, he gave his trembling mare her head -and galloped recklessly back the way he had come. - -Tristram looked after him until Arabella, of her own accord, resumed her -patient amble towards Heerut. The darkness began its race over the -plain and swept up the little shadows of the field workers as a wave -sweeps up driftwood. They came together silently; in a weary, dejected -stream resumed their trudge along the rough tracts, bearing Tristram on -his gaunt steed in their midst like the high effigy of a god. Thus they -brought him to the doors of his hut and there left him, each man -creeping in the same ghostly silence to his own hovel. - -Owen Meredith was seated at Tristram's carved table, reading by the -light of an oil-lamp. Tristram had seen the reflection beneath the -ill-fitting doorway, but first had settled Arabella for the night, -talking cheerily to her and lingering over his task as though -deliberately avoiding the moment when he should meet his unknown -visitor. Now seeing Meredith, his face expressed something akin to -relief. The two men greeted each other quietly, sincerely, but without -effusion. They were men of equal moral rank but of a different -spiritual race. They respected each other, but real intimacy was not -possible between them. - -"I thought you wouldn't mind my dropping in on you like this," Meredith -said. "I've been doing a round of the villages, and it was too late to -go on. Besides, I was dog-tired. I daresay that's my real reason." He -closed his pocket Bible as he spoke and laid his hand on it. He had not -spoken the whole truth, but of that fact he was not even dimly -conscious. He told himself that it was only right to look in on this -lonely man. Tristram nodded absently. - -"I'm jolly glad to see you. I've got a shakedown for visitors. You -won't mind eating off one plate, will you?" - -"Thankful to eat anything." - -"That's good." He began to rummage in his little kitchen at the back of -the hut and returned presently with the plate and some preserves. "It's -not much," he apologized ruefully. "I always forget about food until -I'm hungry. And then I want to kick myself." - -"I expect we'll manage. You're all alone now." - -"Yes. No indoor patients. It's quite queer not having a paw or a wing -to bandage up." - -"You've never found poor Wickie." - -The man seemed to shrink a little. - -"No. I guess if the next life allows it, he's not far off, poor old -chap. He wouldn't be happy in Paradise without me." - -Meredith winced. It was the more painful to him because Tristram was -obviously quite serious. To Meredith he seemed like a big, -unconsciously blasphemous child. - -"And Ayeshi--you must miss him, too." - -"Yes." The answer sounded curt, but Meredith persisted. He had the -feeling that, though Gaya's suspicions had been kept quiet for -Tristram's sake, the latter knew more than he betrayed. - -"It was rather queer of him, the way he went off in the middle of your -illness. You thought he was so devoted." - -"He was." Tristram spread out an old newspaper over the table. "You -got the Rajah to subscribe for his education. Well, I suppose he's gone -to be educated. It's what you wanted." - -"I didn't expect him to go when he did." - -"He had good reason. I trust Ayeshi. But what your education will make -of him Heaven knows. A rotten, dissatisfied little clerk in a -Government office, I suppose. A hundred years ago he would have been a -king." - -Meredith sighed wearily. - -"I know you resented my interference. I've got to do what I can in my -own way, Tristram." - -"I know. But I wish you'd make Christians of our own people first. If -you did that thoroughly, you'd find my villagers would come of -themselves. They hear a lot about Christianity. They don't see much of -it." - -Meredith's eyes flashed in answer. He leant forward across the table -with his hand clenched on the black-bound Bible. - -"You are quite right, Tristram," he said, with restrained passion. "We -have failed badly hitherto. We have acted like cowards, whispering and -murmuring of our religion as though we were half-ashamed of it. Who can -believe in cowards? This people has got to see Christianity as the -Romans saw it, apparent weakness pitted against the majority and -triumphant. They have got to see what our faith means to us. Out here -we are the early Christians. We must pass through the same ordeals, we -must pay the same price. Therein lies our only hope of salvation, for -ourselves, for these, our brethren for whose souls we are responsible to -God." - -"I don't know much about their souls," Tristram returned quietly. "I'm -responsible for their bodies. It's quite enough. What do you mean to -do?" - -Meredith threw back his square head. There was something vivid and -dominating about his personality at that moment which lifted mere -fanatical rhetoric to real grandeur. In some such spirit Luther might -have flung down his immortal challenge. - -"Testify to my faith before Caesar, Tristram." - -"And who is Caesar?" - -"The people. When they go down to the river to worship their gods--at -the Feast of Siva----" - -Tristram got up, pushing his food from him. - -"You must be mad," he said hotly. "What should we do, civilized though -we are, if at Easter some Brahmin insulted Christ from our altar?" - -Meredith met him without flinching. - -"Yours is the wretched toleration of our age," he said. "There can be no -righteous toleration of lies and wickedness." - -"You know what will happen? There'll be rioting--bloodshed----" - -"Possibly. I believe it to be necessary. I don't shrink from it." - -"That's good of you." Tristram ruffled his shock of reddish hair in a -fit of angry humour. "What the rest of your victims feel about it -doesn't matter, of course. Martyrs you'd call them. They wouldn't be -martyrs. If a horde of infuriated fanatics descend on Gaya, it will be a -slaughter stage-managed and engineered by yourself. You and your like -would be chucked out of India, and serve you right. Gaya doesn't want -to testify to its faith. I doubt if it knows what its faith is." He -stalked over to the open door with his back to Meredith. "Well, I shall -warn the authorities," he finished. - -There was a silence. Meredith considered his companion with a gradual -relaxation of his intensity. He got up at last and laid his hand on -Tristram's broad shoulder. There was something shy and uncertain in his -manner, like a school-boy who has been caught in heroics. - -"You won't need to inform the authorities," he said. "I dare say I'm a -pompous idiot. There won't be any slaughter. We're miles from Gaya. -Their enthusiasm won't carry them that far. They'll duck me, and -that'll be about the extent of it." - -Tristram looked down at the dark eager face, and, catching the lurking -humour in Meredith's eyes, laughed. - -"Oh, well, if only you and I are going to be massacred, it's of no -consequence whatever," he said. "There, man, finish your supper!" - -But he himself left his food untouched. He went over to a little -roughly carved cabinet and produced a tobacco jar and an old -disreputable pipe. Meredith looked away from him, playing -absent-mindedly with the knife which formed Tristram's dinner-service. -His pulses had begun to beat faster. He was dimly aware now that he had -come to Heerut with a purpose that he had cherished secretly and -painfully for many months past. - -"I suppose you've not seen Boucicault lately?" he asked suddenly. - -Tristram did not answer at once. He seemed absorbed in the accurate -filling of his pipe-bowl. - -"Yes," he said, at last. "I saw him today." - -"Any change?" - -"None. I'm beginning to be afraid there never will be." - -"Poor Anne!" Meredith said, scarcely above a breath. - -Tristram came over to the table and sat down on the edge. He lit his -pipe, and Meredith, alert now for every guiding sign, saw that the hand -with the match shook. - -"Why 'poor Anne'? It's been ghastly, of course--but then, what was her -life like before? At least, there's no one to cow the spirit out of -her. She's free." - -"You don't understand Anne. I've known her so long. Perhaps, as a -clergyman, I had a deeper insight into her mind. Boucicault terrified -her, but she loved him. It seems odd, doesn't it, but at the bottom he -was a kind of hero to her. She thought of him as he once was--Tiger -Sahib--a daring, handsome leader of men. That's what's uppermost in her -now. Everything else is forgotten and forgiven. So you can see for -yourself what she is suffering. It's the pitiableness of the man's utter -helplessness in the face of her mother's amazing attitude----" - -Tristram swung himself off the table and began to pace the room with -long, impatient strides. Meredith watched him unceasingly. - -"I approve of Mrs. Boucicault's attitude," Tristram said, in angry -challenge. - -"A great many people do. They think she's well rid of a ruffian. But, -as I've told you, Anne loved him. She has a rare and wonderful spirit, -Tristram, and she has forgiven. Her mother's flaunted happiness and -frivolity were unbearable. She fled from it, and now she's longing for -her father. She hasn't a penny of her own. It's a ghastly situation. -The devil who did for Boucicault did for Anne." - -Tristram stopped short. He was staring down at his pipe, which had gone -out. - -"You're confoundedly sure of things," he said brutally. "You know her so -well. Why don't you marry her?" - -"I asked her to marry me two months ago," was the answer. Meredith's -hands were clasped on the table in an attitude which, but for his level -voice and composed features, would have suggested an almost intolerable -suffering. "She wouldn't have me, Tristram." - -"I don't wonder," with a rough laugh. "What woman would care to share -your life or mine?" - -"You don't understand--it wasn't that. She'd be glad and proud to go -into the desert with the man she loved. I wasn't the man. That's all." -He was breathing thickly, and suddenly he got up with a gesture that -even then Tristram recognized as poignant. "My God, man, why don't you -go in and win?" he burst out. - -They stared at each other through a long minute of silence. The pipe -slipped from Tristram's hand and fell with a crack on the hard floor. -He bent down and picked it up. The stem was broken. He tried to piece -it together with a sightless persistency. - -"Are you--you trying to be damned funny?" he stammered. - -"Do you think I should make a jest of a thing like that?" was the fierce -retort. "What I've done would be the action of a cad if you weren't the -man I know you to be. It hasn't been easy--you can guess that. But I -wasn't going to see Anne's happiness break up or want of a little -sincerity. I believed you cared. I've been watching you. I was almost -certain tonight. I understood your principles--you wouldn't ask a woman -to share your life--but I know what Anne feels--she'd stick by you, -Tristram----" He faltered, the thread of his argument lost in a sudden -ugly sense of uncertainty. He saw Tristram's face in the shadow, and -its sheer expressionlessness frightened him. "I suppose I've behaved -like a fool," he said. "A man who cares as I do is liable to become -obsessed with an idea. Forget it----" - -Tristram started a little, as though awakening from a deep mental -abstraction. He came and stood at Meredith's side, laying the fragments -of the old pipe on the table with a mechanical care. - -"That's the only foolish thing you've said," he remarked, gently. "I -don't believe any one ever forgets anything. It's just a sort of -comfortable phrase-- You did quite right--you clergymen have a kind of -insight into things--you--you see where the shoe pinches--don't -worry--I'm awfully grateful. Even now, I see what a fine thing you've -done--I shall realize it much better later on. You've lived up to your -faith--you've made me respect it. It's a case of the old Pagan and the -early Christian. No, I'm not jeering. I'm in deadly earnest. There, -turn in and go to sleep. I shan't want my bunk tonight. I've got to -think things out--get clear with myself. So many things have been -sprung on me--I've got to be alone. But don't worry. You've done the -right thing. Good night." - -He held out his hand, and now it was quite steady. Meredith took it and -wondered at the strength of it. In the dull, bitter reaction from -sacrifice, he visualized the fervour of Tristram's happiness. - -"Good night. Don't let Anne guess----" - -"Never--on my word." - -He went out. The night was dark and oppressive. A hush of exhaustion -hung over the village. Afar off a jackal howled dismally, and was -answered nearer by a prowling pariah dog. Tristram crossed the deep -gutter which lined the uneven roadway. Though he could see nothing, he -knew every stone, every turn; he could have named the invisible huts and -their owners as he passed them. The pariah dog came snuffing round his -heels, and he threw it a crust which it was his habit to carry in his -pocket for the starving strays of the village. He heard the snap of its -famished teeth, and a hurried scamper through the darkness. - -At the cross-roads a breeze came down from the west. It rustled through -the mysterious, never-silent leaves of the council-tree. It seemed to -him that their whisperings were the ghosts of familiar voices now still. -He stopped to listen. He could hear Ayeshi's voice, low-pitched and -meditative, the harsher notes of the headman: - -"Ah, those were the great days--the great days----" - -The headman had been swept away in the last epidemic. Ayeshi was gone. -He would never sit again by the red firelight and listen to the story of -the Rani Kurnavati. He would never lie and stare up through the -fret-work of peepul leaves and dream his boyish dreams of her. Gone--all -gone. - -He walked on rapidly. He had no consciousness of distance or any -purpose--only a desire to be always moving. But at last a sound broke -through to him--the dull, menacing roar of unseen water sliding past him -into the darkness. He knew then that he had reached the limit of his -respite. The menace was for him. This was the end of drifting--of all -dreams. Here was the reality--the whole future to be faced. - -He stood there listening--bracing himself.... - -It was close on daybreak when he returned. The lamp still burned dimly. -Meredith lay on the camp-bed, fully dressed, apparently asleep. -Tristram glanced at the composed face and then stumbled over to the -table against the wall and sat down. The struggle was over, but it had -left him exhausted, broken, his mind blank save for odd distortions of -memory. He thought he heard Wickie patter over the floor to meet -him--Ayeshi's soft and friendly foot-fall--a voice in his ear---"I could -make you a rich man--you could marry whom you pleased----" He heard a -woman speaking gently with a subdued triumph--"Is this your confession, -Major Tristram?" - -But Meredith was not asleep. He had spent the night in a bitter -conflict of uncertainties, in prayer, in alternating thankfulness and -dread. Up to now, his growing purpose had been a light in his path, -brightening as his eyes strengthened to the prospect it revealed. He -had hugged sacrifice to himself and grown peaceful in his surrender. -Now that his sacrifice and surrender had been made full and complete, he -had lost his vision. - -On Tristram's return, he had feigned sleep instinctively. Now the big, -powerful figure huddled by the table fascinated him. He watched through -half-opened eyes, painfully aware that he was eavesdropping, spying, but -unable to turn away. Something was to be shown, made clear to him. He -saw Tristram pick up a photograph which had stood hidden in the shadow -and hold it before him. He remained thus motionless for many minutes. -Meredith tried to speak to him, to hinder at all costs the self-betrayal -which was to come. But it was too late. Without a sound, Tristram had -dropped forward, hiding the portrait with his body, his face in his -arms. - -Thereafter Meredith lay still, with closed eyes, sick with an unformed -sense of disaster. - -By daybreak Tristram had disappeared. He left a brief note. He had -been called to the next village--a case of fever. He hoped that the -eggs would be all right for Meredith's breakfast. All very -matter-of-fact and natural. - -But the portrait on the table had vanished with him. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVII* - - *MRS. SMITHERS DOES ACCOUNTS* - - -As she would have been the first to admit, arithmetic was not one of -Mrs. Smithers's intellectual strongholds. Figures baulked her. They -were an inexhaustible enemy which, when aroused, flung themselves upon -her in serried legions and battalions, eluded pursuit, barricaded -themselves behind mysterious lines, multiplied themselves into -preposterous quantities, and utterly refused to "come out" and surrender -to Mrs. Smithers's somewhat individual laws of subtraction and addition. - -On this particular afternoon, she had determined on a grand assault, and -had armed herself with a large sheet of paper, a pencil sharpened to a -nicety, removed her mittens, straightened her wig, and figuratively -rolled up her sleeves. Having made these preparations, which were -probably intended more as a demonstration of impending "frightfulness" -than as an actual assistance in her task, she took up her position in -the dak-bungalow dining-room and opened fire. - -She had fought unflinchingly for an hour, when the curtains at the far -end of the room were pushed aside with an impatience which Mrs. Smithers -seemed to recognize. Before she even looked up, she turned the sheet of -paper, with its pattern of astonishing hieroglyphics on its face, and -set her mittens upon it with an air of fixing a tombstone over the body -of her enemy. - -"Why, lawks a-mercy, Sigrid, I thought you were sleeping!" she -exclaimed. - -"The punkah-coolie had a nap instead. It was so hot--oh, Smithy, what -an annoying person you can be! I've been hunting for you for the last -hour." - -"In which case," Mrs. Smithers commented, with a judicial flavour of -speech culled from the law reports, "you must have looked under all the -chairs and tables. I can't see how anybody could hunt for anything in -this nasty barn of a place without running into them in ten minutes. -Not a decent door, not a corner where you can get a moment to -yourself--let alone escape from those crawling black things----" - -Sigrid Fersen sighed. She had been standing in the doorway, one slender -arm, from which the sleeve of her pale green tea-gown had dropped back, -raised to hold aside the curtain. Now she came forward, moving -restlessly and noiselessly about the room, picking up one ornament after -another and putting it down without apparently having looked at it. - -"You never will let me wipe my boots on you, Smithy," she complained. -"I've trained you to be a doormat ever since I was an infant in arms, -and you still show not the slightest aptitude. One of these days, I -shall lose patience and send you flying." She caught the line of -contempt at the corner of Mrs. Smithers's prim mouth and came over and -pinched her ear with real severity. "I saw that sneer, you horrid, -disreputable old tyrant! You think I can't get on without you. I wish -I could, just to spite you----" - -She stopped short, as though losing interest in her train of thought, -and stood at Mrs. Smithers's side stroking the latter's withered cheek -with a light, absent-minded hand. Mrs. Smithers accepted the attention -much as a cat would have done, without gush or undignified gratitude, -but with sedate I-fully-deserve-it satisfaction. "Smithy, do you -realize that we shall have to pack up soon?" - -"And a very good thing, too. A nice sight you're getting to look in -this oven of a place." - -"Am I? I thought so myself this afternoon. It quite frightened me. -Smithy, make an effort and tell the truth. Am I showing signs of--of -wear and tear?" - -Mrs. Smithers unbent. She took the hand on her shoulder and kissed it -abruptly and shamefacedly. - -"Steel doesn't rust, Sigrid." - -"Doesn't it? That shows what you know about steel. Also it proves -you've been reading penny novelettes again. Still, there is such a thing -as poetic licence, and as a compliment it will pass. No, I shan't rust, -Smithy--I'd rather snap like the good blade of your metaphor----" She -drifted along the currents of her thoughts for a moment, and then added -abruptly, "So it's hey for England and the end of things." - -"The beginning, my dear." - -"I don't know. We're almost at the end of our tether." - -"Well, you knew that would happen." - -"Yes--I suppose I did. I remember making admirable, lucid plans to meet -the event. Nothing particular has happened to upset them." - -"Nothing at all, my dear." - -"By the way, the Rajah has asked me to marry him." - -Mrs. Smithers laughed. Her amusement was usually of a more restrained -kind, and the laugh had a rusty, disused sound. - -"That's a good joke." - -"Isn't it? I don't think he would have offered me anything so -respectable if he had had more pluck. He's terrified of me and of Gaya. -He imagines Gaya would make him impossible if he insulted me. I've -outgrown his original intentions altogether." - -"What did you say?" - -"I told him he wasn't rich enough. It was horribly vulgar, but it's the -sort of thing he understands. I've never seen a man more humiliated. -If I had told him he was a blackguard, he wouldn't have minded. It's -wonderful how he has assimilated our Western ideals." - -"Sigrid----" - -"Yes, I know--I'm in a detestable mood. I'm upset, Smithy. I've always -controlled my life, moulded it into the shape I wanted. I was so sure -that I could never be beaten by it. I thought there was only one real -catastrophe we human beings were afflicted with--ill-health--and that I -was prepared to master in my own way. But now----" - -Mrs. Smithers picked up her pencil and tapped the table with a judicial -air of summing up. - -"You're out of sorts, Sigrid. Look at things straight. Two years ago we -started off on a wild-goose chase. I knew it was a wild-goose chase, -but you had to be humoured and so I just let you run. Besides, you had -a grain of horse-sense in you. If you couldn't find what you wanted in -those two years, you'd take the next best thing. Well, you haven't -found it----" - -"How do you know? What about the Rajah?" - -"Sigrid--your mind wants a good spring-cleaning. It's full of cobwebs -and horrors----" - -"Or Major Tristram?" - -Mrs. Smithers seized upon her mittens and folded them up into a tight -ball and smacked them viciously down on the table. - -"Of course, you're in love with him, the poor benighted, footling ninny. -That's the whole trouble." - -"And you're dying for me to marry him. That's why you're always -insulting him." - -She moved away from Mrs. Smithers's side and stood at the open window -looking out on to the garden, her hand to her cheek in her favourite -attitude of meditation. "Yes, I am in love with him in a superficial -sort of way. It's his absurdity, his unreality, his utterly impossible -conception of life. And his love of me. Just as absurd as the rest of -him. A fantasia. Two years' worship of a woman he saw dancing for ten -minutes before a vulgar, gaping, unseeing mob! Think of it. It's sheer -worship, Smithy. He sees something miraculous--divine in me. That's the -wonderful part of him. He's right. He's gone right through me to what -is divine--my art. He saw me dance--he was just a country-bumpkin who -didn't know Beethoven from Bizet--and he didn't worry about my beauty or -the shape of my limbs, or wonder whether my pearls were real or who gave -them to me. He saw God in me. I knew that when I found my photograph -on his table. In a kind of flash. It wasn't a silly, stage-door -infatuation. It was real--a perfect understanding." She threw out her -arms with a gesture of freedom, of spiritual expansion. "Oh, it tasted -good, that understanding. I couldn't have done less than love him." She -seemed to sink into a deep, brooding contentment, and Mrs. Smithers did -not move or speak. "But I shan't marry him. I am not young any longer. -I have built my house and have lived in it too long. I need space and -splendour, magnificence. I should stifle in his hovel. I am no -sensualist. I belong to the best of the old Greeks. No vulgar display -of wealth, no ugliness of poverty--but absolute Beauty--that's my -religion--the most austere religion of the world. He understands, but -he cannot follow. He doesn't know it, but he has chosen the road of the -Galilean--not the Galilean of the Cross, but the simple man who loved -the sparrows and the lilies--and I follow Diana and Apollo----" She -broke off with a sigh and turned away. "So that's the end of that. We -shall pack our trunks, and one day it will be just an episode. But -today--don't let any one worry me today, Smithy. There's some one coming -up the drive now. Tell them I'm ill--anything--only don't let them -worry me----" - -She touched the old cheek with her lips, and then soundlessly, like a -flash of pale light, had vanished. - -Mrs. Smithers unfolded her mittens and put them on. Apparently unmoved, -she was about to resume her offensive against her enemy, when Mary -Compton made her appearance on the balcony. Whereupon Mrs. Smithers -postponed her attack in order to settle first with the intruder. Her -manner, however, was almost gracious. She liked Mrs. Compton. She -liked her especially this afternoon because she was wearing one of -Sigrid's frocks--by no means an old one--which Mrs. Smithers had altered -with her own hands. This detail formed an unbreakable link of affection -and fraternity. - -Mrs. Compton did not wait for an invitation. She dropped into the -nearest chair, discarded her garden hat, and flung her parasol on the -floor, proceeding thereafter to ruffle her grey-threaded curly hair with -an exasperated hand. - -"Oh, the heat! Smithy, for pity's sake, don't tell me I've faced it for -nothing. Sigrid's in?" - -"She's in, Mrs. Compton, but she's not at home." - -"Not even for me?" - -"Not for a living soul." - -"She's--she's not ill?" - -"Not that I know of." She shot a glance at Mrs. Compton's crestfallen -countenance, and relaxed her official attitude. "You can have a cup of -tea if you like." - -Mrs. Compton laughed. - -"Well, it's a poor substitute, but I'll take it. I should expire on -your doorstep if you didn't give me something to revive me. I met that -brute of a Barclay on the road and he offered me a lift. The mere -thought of it will keep me on the frazzle for days. I only hope he -isn't coming here." - -"He'd better not," Mrs. Smithers observed, with grim significance. -There was a moment's silence, and then she jerked her head in the -direction of the curtained doorway. "It's the heat," she explained. -"It's just wearing her to ribbons. The Lord be praised, we shall be -going back to civilization soon." - -Mrs. Compton sat bolt upright, red with consternation. - -"She's not going back to England?" - -"I hope so, I'm sure." - -"It's--it's an engagement, I suppose?" - -"H'm, a sort of one." - -"Smithy--and it's just as though she only arrived yesterday. What shall -I do? Everything will be nothing without her. What did she come for? -Just to make us all hate each other, just to show us what a silly, -colourless world we live in? Smithy, this means a divorce for me. I -shall desert Archie. I shall live at stage-doors and spend my fortune -on front seats in the pit. I shall see her dance at last----" - -The very poignant feeling which underlay her desperate humour touched -Mrs. Smithers to the quick. At all times she was inclined to treat -facetiousness seriously, most of life's jokes having been made at her -expense, and she saw more of Mary Compton's grief than the latter knew. - -"My dear, don't you do nothing silly. You wouldn't see her dance." - -"In London." - -"No." - -"In Paris, then----" - -"Not in Paris--nowhere." - -"But, Smithy----" - -"If she did, she'd----" Mrs. Smithers took her tongue between her -teeth. She leant across the table, her stiff old body quivering with -menace. "Don't you breathe a word--don't you let on--if you do, -I'll--I'll----" - -What Mrs. Smithers would or would not have done Mrs. Compton never knew. -In a state of uncomprehending consternation, she almost welcomed the -diversion created by the entry of a frightened-looking servant. - -"Mem-Sahib--if you please, Mem-Sahib----" - -His announcement was also lost. He was pushed roughly aside and James -Barclay entered. At sight of his tall, perfectly clad figure Mrs. -Smithers was on her feet, and for a moment Mrs. Compton believed she -intended a personal assault--a belief which Barclay himself appeared to -share, for his attitude became more deferential though not less -resolute. He bowed gravely to his opponent, including Mrs. Compton in -the greeting. Mrs. Compton ignored him. - -"I am sorry to be forced to intrude in this way," he began with a -certain dignity. "It seems to be fated that I should have to burgle my -entry. But I was practically certain that an ordinary appeal for -admission would be ignored. So I just followed on your butler's heels. -May I speak to Miss Fersen?" - -Mrs. Smithers drew a deep breath of indignation. - -"No, you may not. She's not seeing any one--much less you--you -blackguard----" - -Mrs. Compton jumped at the sheer vigour and audacity of the attack, and -then, as she saw Barclay's face, was conscious of a pang of the -half-angry pity which he had caused her once before. A peculiar pallor -showed under his olive skin. He was no longer smiling, and his eyes had -a sick, stricken look like that of an animal badly hurt. The next minute -he was himself again, cool, resolute, without that insolence which -stamped most of his actions as weak and fundamentally diffident. - -"I am sorry you think of me like that, Mrs. Smithers, but I won't argue -about it. I must see Miss Fersen----" - -"Do you want me to throw you out with my own hands?" - -"No, I don't," he returned, with perfect gravity. "All I ask of you is -to give Miss Fersen this letter. It was written in case she refused to -see me. It is a business matter." - -Mrs. Smithers wavered, obviously nonplussed by the man's quiet -resolution. In despair, she appealed to Mrs. Compton. - -"What shall I do with him?" - -Mrs. Compton stared out into the garden. - -"You'd better take the letter, hadn't you? It gives Sigrid a chance to -decide for herself." - -"Oh, very well." She snatched the letter from Barclay's hands and made -her exit with what sounded like the challenging snort of an old -war-horse. Barclay maintained his position quietly. He made no effort -to speak to Mrs. Compton, who continued to ignore him. But, without -knowing it, his restraint began to trouble her, and she resorted to the -mannerism of stage heroes when confronted by the villain and a painful -situation. She opened a silver case on the table beside her, selected a -cigarette, and began to smoke with an insulting satisfaction. Had -Barclay offered her the lighter which she was certain he possessed, she -felt that she would have infallibly struck him; but he stood stroking -his moustache, and apparently as unconscious of her as she pretended to -be of him. The silence became intolerable. Furiously conscious that he -had beaten her on her own ground, she got up and went out on to the -balcony, only to realize with increased annoyance that she had been -beaten by a second. Mrs. Smithers had returned. She did not look at -Barclay, and addressed her message to the opposite wall. - -"You can go in," she said. - -He bowed, showing no sign of elation or surprise, and the door closed -behind him. Mary Compton returned, and the two women busied themselves -with the tea-things which had been brought in, paying the function more -intent interest than was usual. They were both nervous. For all Mrs. -Smithers's excessive clatter, they could hear voices, muffled and -continuous, and something in the sound paralysed their initiative. -Neither wished to listen, but they found nothing with which to cover -their compulsory attention. When Mrs. Smithers spoke at last it was -with a breathless tremulousness. - -"I don't know what Sigrid did it for," she said. "She didn't want to -see any one, and now this creature comes along. Just because he met her -once at some reception he'd managed to wriggle himself into--she can be -so idiotically good-natured--it was a begging letter, I'm sure: the -nasty, cadging blackamoor." - -Mrs. Compton did not respond directly. She had what, for all men say, -is a quality equally rare in both sexes, a profound reverence for the -reticences and secrets of her friends, and she wished to avoid the -confidences which might be hovering on Mrs. Smithers's unsteady lips. - -"I hate meeting that man," she said, by way of an answer. "He frightens -me. I always think of him as an English sin come home to roost--a bird -of ill-omen, not necessarily bad, just foredoomed to evil. I wish he -hadn't come to Gaya." - -"I wish he'd leave Sigrid alone," Mrs. Smithers muttered. - -Mary Compton knew now that Barclay had been at the dak-bungalow before, -and wished she did not know. The knowledge troubled her, increasing an -inexplicable uneasiness. Something was going on in that next room. -Though she could not and would not have heard the words, the voices -persisted in attaining her consciousness. Their tone was neither angry -nor excited, but intensely earnest. Business? What business could James -Barclay have with a woman he scarcely knew? She could not avoid the -question. Then came a silence infinitely worse than the voices--it was -so sudden and prolonged. - -Mary Compton became almost panic-stricken in her effort to escape from -the fascination of that silence. She turned her attention to Mrs. -Smithers, who had deserted her tea and gone back to her figures. - -"Are you drawing patterns?" she asked hurriedly. Mrs. Smithers shook her -head. - -"Sums," she explained. "Never could do them even in me board-school -days, and that's some time ago. Are you any good?" - -"I wrestle with accounts once a week--not successfully. But that's not -the fault of my arithmetic. It's Archie's pay. Can I help?" - -Mrs. Smithers sat back and folded her hands. - -"What I'm trying to find out," she began, "is, what income would one -have if one had two thousand pounds?" - -"It depends on the rate of interest." - -"What rate of interest can one have?" - -"Well, three-and-a-half per cent. if you're rich, and five per cent. if -you're poor. If one hasn't much, it's a case of sink or swim." - -"Let's split the difference--say, four per cent. Here--you can have the -pencil----" - -Mrs. Compton laughed. - -"I can manage that in my head. Eighty pounds would be about your -income." - -"Lawks a-mercy!" said Mrs. Smithers under her breath. She brooded over -this information for a minute, in which her companion became aware that -Sigrid was speaking again--very quietly. If she had spoken angrily Mary -Compton would not have felt her heart beating against her ribs in an -absurd, horrible excitement. "It's amazing what a little a lot of money -is," Mrs. Smithers philosophized gloomily. "I've done a powerful lot of -saving, and two thousand pounds seems a powerful lot to have saved, but -what's eighty pounds a year? A mere drop in an ocean. One couldn't keep -oneself in boots and shoes with it." - -Mrs. Compton stared. Mrs. Smithers's elastic-sided foot-gear did not -suggest eighty pounds' expenditure, or anything like it. - -"No--I suppose not," she ventured. - -"And two thousand pounds, for that matter," Mrs. Smithers continued, -with increased contempt. "What's the good of that? One couldn't live -decently for six months on it." - -"I could," Mrs. Compton assured her with a smouldering twinkle in her -bright eyes; "but, of course, I'm different. I say, Smithy, are you -going on the bust--painting Gaya red and that sort of thing? Do include -me in the invitation if you are. I'd just love to do something -outrageous." But Mrs. Smithers remained coldly unresponsive, and she -got up with a sigh of discomfort. "Well, I'm off. I can't stand that -man's voice, and I don't want to see him again. Tell Sigrid I've been, -and implore her to come round to dinner. Archie and I are bored stiff -with each other." She paused on the edge of the verandah, driving the -point of her parasol in between the flags and becoming violently slangy. -"I say, Smithy dear, you know I look upon you as a sort of guardian -angel to Sigrid. I just wanted to say--if there's anything wrong--any -one who's in need of a kicking or--or anything of that kind--or, in -fact, if Sigrid wants a body-guard physically or otherwise--just drop us -the wink. Archie and I are on." - -She was blushing hotly. Mrs. Smithers cleared her throat. - -"I shall certainly drop you the wink," she said, in her best manner. - -Mrs. Compton nodded, opened her parasol, and set out to face the stretch -of hot road back to her own bungalow. - -Ten minutes later the door between the two rooms opened. Mrs. Smithers -did not so much as look at Barclay, her only intimation that she -recognized his passing being a sudden stiffening of her long back. -Barclay bowed to her, still very calm and unchallenging, and went out. - -Mrs. Smithers waited until she heard the crunch of wheels fade along the -drive, and then sailed indignantly into the next room. She was -trembling a little and desperately anxious to appear merely angry. - -"I can't think how you did it, Sigrid. There was Mrs. Compton wanting -to see you, and instead you talked and talked to that nasty half-caste. -I was ashamed--I was really--" - -She stopped, at the end of artificial fury, but still trembling. Sigrid -stood by her writing-table. A long beam of evening sunshine rested -lightly and lovingly on her. In her delicate shaded gown, her slender -body tensely still and living, she looked like a huge butterfly, wings -half-spread, poised for flight. Her head was bent a little, and she -still held Barclay's letter in her hands. - -"I'm sorry, Smithy. It was important. It seems there's a kind of -matrimonial epidemic in Gaya. He has asked me to marry him." - -Mrs. Smithers burst into loud and uncontrolled laughter. - -"I shouldn't have thought it would have taken you all that time to give -him his answer--the creature----" - -"I didn't give him an answer. I didn't know--I've got to think things -over." - -"Sigrid----" - -It grew very still. Mrs. Smithers's withered hands fluttered up to her -breast and rested there in a helpless weakness. Sigrid began to tear -the letter across and across. - -"Why are you so upset, Smithy? After all, it's just what we -planned--just what you wanted. He's rich--very rich. He was explaining -to me how rich. And I need money--a great deal of it--to live and die -beautifully----" - -"Sigrid!" The cry snapped the palsy which had laid itself on Mrs. -Smithers's tongue. She came out of her weakness strong and fierce and -outraged. It did not matter that her "h's" flew to the winds. There -was nothing comic in her as she stood there, stemming the disaster with -her utter disbelief. "You can't mean it--it would be a wicked, wicked -thing. It would be a crime--a dirty crime--you'd be selling -yourself--yes, I shall say it, Sigrid. I've stood by you through thick -and thin, I 'ave; I've been like a dog that's never questioned, never -thought if what you did was right or wrong--I've licked your hand -through everything--but you'd be no better than--than a woman on the -streets----" - -"Be silent!" - -"I won't. This isn't what we planned. It's different. I'll fight you, -Sigrid. I'll fight you every inch. I've got my share in you--I won't -'ave it spoiled and moiled. I won't." She paused an instant, drawing -her breath deep and strong. "I'd kill 'im first," she said, between her -teeth. - -Sigrid half turned. Her face looked small and white, as though -something withering had passed over it. The wry, unsteady smile at the -corners of her blue-shadowed lips was like light on something dead. - -"Not if I didn't wish it, Smithy. I daresay I shan't do it--I don't -know yet; but, in any case, you can't get away--you'll lick my hand, as -you call it, to the very end." - -They eyed each other like enemies, battling will against will. The old -woman wavered piteously. - -"Sigrid, my dear--'ave pity--just because it's true--because I can't -fight you--because I belong to you--'ave pity on yourself. Don't do it, -my dear, don't do it, Sigrid. I've got a bit of money saved. You can -'ave it--every penny of it. I don't want it. It's your money--what -you've given me. An old woman like me doesn't want much. Take it, -Sigrid; it'll keep you for a bit, until--until----" - -"It won't do, Smithy--I want money--a great deal of money. It costs so -much to live magnificently--" She spoke with great slowness and -deliberation. Suddenly she turned. There was a kind of panic in her -eyes. "Life's not got to be too strong for me--I've got to go on as I -will--stick to me!" - -A wave of delicate, youthful colour swept up into Mrs. Smithers's -cheeks. Her whole life, lived selflessly, loyally, in another's -splendour culminated in this moment--in this appeal. She held out her -arms, holding the half-yielding half-defiant figure in an embrace which -challenged heaven and earth. - -"As though I shouldn't" she muttered fiercely. "My dear, as though I -shouldn't----" - - - - - *CHAPTER XVIII* - - *THE FEAST OF SIVA* - - -They came, so it seemed, from all the corners of India--from the east -and west, north and south--thin streams of life trickling across the -fields and down the mountain sides, till they converged in a broad, -sluggish river which poured ceaselessly, irresistibly towards the place -of its dreams and prayers. They had appeared miraculously, as though at -a signal they had sprung up on the edge of the horizon and began their -pilgrimage, as a conquering army bears down from all sides on a helpless -citadel. But in reality they knew nothing of each other, and there was -no order in their advance. Some had come from the neighbouring -villages, some from villages hundreds of miles away. Some had packed up -with wife, child, and household gods the night before--some many months -ago. They had come over the mountains, down lonely passes, through wild -tracts of country where dangerous and desperate marauders, man and -beast, preyed on their defencelessness. They had borne hunger and thirst -and much sickness. Many of them had dropped by the way. But there had -been no lamentation, no turning back. They had no interest in each -other. Humanity, brotherhood, a common faith--these things were without -meaning for them. Yet, where danger threatened, little groups had -herded together, driven by fear and instinct rooted deep in the -trackless jungle of humanity's beginnings. They knew no pity. A pilgrim -died by the roadside, and they looked at him indifferently, as at a -commonplace, and he himself watched them pass with patient, unexpectant -resignation. Suffering and death were part of the scheme of things. -They lived under the shadow of a Juggernaut, and today it was this man's -turn to go under, tomorrow another's. They had no hope and no clear -faith. Their imaginations could not conjure up much to hope for--a -child perhaps, the fulfilment of a curse against a neighbour, sufficient -harvest--and there were so many gods. And yet they came, mile after -mile, footsore and hungry, gravely or passionately intent on a mystic -goal whose significance they could not formulate even to themselves. -The gods knew, and the priests perhaps; but the gods were silent in -these days, and the priests kept their counsel. - -Tristram stood on the outskirts of the village and watched them come -down through the glory of the sunrise. They rolled past him in a cloud -of dust and a blare of harsh-throated instruments and the rattle of -native drums. The bright morning rays picked out a hundred glints of -colour from among them--here, a gay woman's _chudder_, there a rich -_puggri_, or the glitter of gold ornaments, carried secretly and at -great risk through the long journey, or the saffron robe of a holy man. -All the stages of growth and decay were there--Youth restraining its -steps to the halting measure of age, rags and tatters and gaudy finery, -gentle, mysterious-eyed women, lithe-limbed boys and half-naked, -pot-bellied babies rolling bow-legged at their parents' side, comic as -young puppies. Last of all, grey-bearded and scarcely human, a fakir -crawling on hands and knees through the rising dust. So his oath bound -him. Years ago, he had started out on this pilgrimage. Now the end was -in sight. He glanced up as he passed, but his face was without -expression. Perhaps in those years he had reached his -goal--indifference, Nirvana, where there is neither desire nor hope, -pain nor happiness. - -An odd misery laid hold of Tristram as he watched them. It was a pageant -of life, all humanity struggling on through the heat and turmoil of -years, driven by a secret, fathomless impulse, obeying the behests of -self-created gods, seeking a self-created goal out of the desperate need -of their hearts. And tricksters and men of God, fanatics, -conventionalists, bread-and-butter priests, preying on each other, -trampling on each other, pushing always forward in pretended knowledge -of the Force that drives them. - -But, to the man standing at Tristram's side, it was just a tiresome -business. He was a captain in the native regiment, and was there with a -handful of men to keep order if order could be kept. - -"I daresay there'll be a shindy by nightfall," he remarked. "There -always is. Can't think why we put up with it. We shall have a Holy -Place on every inch of the river if we go on encouraging them like -this." - -"I suppose they've got to have a religion," Tristram observed absently. - -"Well, I wish they'd have a nice, quiet, Sunday-go-to-meeting one like -mine. Besides, it doesn't mean anything to them. It's just their way -of taking a summer holiday." - -Tristram laughed and turned away. - -"Oh, well, if there are any bones broken, you'll know where to find me. -And keep your eye on Meredith. His religion isn't the quiet, -unobtrusive kind you favour." - -"Good old Meredith!" the other man rejoined comfortably. - -Tristram made his way along the fringe of the procession back to his own -quarters. When he closed the door he shut out the light and dust, but -not the noise, and for that he was conscious of a vague thankfulness. -The quiet of the place had begun to haunt him. Rather than help him -forget, it reminded him of what was no longer there. He was always -looking round involuntarily for Wickie, peering into his favourite -hiding-place in the shadow, as though the bright brown eyes would have -to answer his appeal, with their solemn, impudent contemplation. Or he -would rap out an order to Ayeshi--and catch himself up only to realize -the heaviness of the silence which answered him. - -And there were other things that troubled him--the carved chair where -Sigrid Fersen had sat and looked at him with her disturbing eyes. At -the time, she had seemed unreal, a vivid day-dream, a white glowing -figure of his fancy, and now she was there always, dominating his -consciousness. The place where the picture of the dancer had stood was -empty, too, yet he saw her--the radiant head, with its crown of -vine-leaves, thrown back, the mouth a little open, as though even in -that moment of deliberate pose she breathed the ecstasy of living. That -was what mattered, what made her most wonderful, and the poise of her -body, stereotyped enough and within the compass of a ballet girl, a -thing of Supreme Art. - -He turned resolutely away from the empty place, allowing the tumult from -without to pour over his vision of her, and went to his day's work. A -subdivision of his little kitchen formed a combined laboratory and -chemist's shop, and he set about cleaning his instruments, tidying up -the bottles, noting failing supplies. That had been Ayeshi's job. He -thought of Ayeshi as he dipped the instruments into the sterilizer, -wondering vaguely what he was doing, what he thought. Ayeshi, he knew, -had found Boucicault and Wickie's body, and probably had buried the -latter out of sight. He had shielded Tristram. Probably, too, he now -sweated in the Calcutta University with bitter thoughts of a man who had -prated so much of life and half-killed a fellow-creature for the sake of -a dog. The idea did not hurt Tristram. He ached for the comradeship of -the mysterious, romantic boy, but he had no sentimental reverence for -himself. He had never realized that he had ever been so much as an -ideal--idealizing in his own life too ardently to consider himself at -all. - -He hummed as he worked. To others, the tune might have been -unrecognizable, for at the best of times his voice had an uneven -quality, and in singing it escaped control altogether. But in his brain -the melody ran smoothly and beautifully. In the midst of it, he heard -the latch of the door fall, and went out with his sleeves rolled up to -meet the newcomer. - -The door was wide open and framed her as she stood with her back to the -sun-flooded village street, smiling at him. - -"I heard you singing," she said, with subdued mockery. "It was -irresistible." - -He strove to answer her, denying the savage, joyous leap of his pulses. -A kind of stupid deliberation settled on his brain. He found himself -wondering whether she had removed her helmet because she knew the light -would be shining on her hair. - -"Did you come all the way from Gaya to listen?" he asked at last, with a -brief laugh. - -"No, I came for the fulfilment of a promise," she answered. "For my day -out." - -"It was a bad--an impossible day to choose." - -"It was my last day." - -He was silent for an instant. He had tried to adjust his tone to hers -and had failed. Now he ceased to try. He spoke roughly, rather -brutally. - -"Then you're leaving Gaya?" - -"I don't know--perhaps. It all depends. At any rate, this was my last -chance." - -"I don't know how on earth you got here." - -"On horseback. I've put my steed with Arabella. You don't mind?" - -"It's not safe for you here--on a day like this." - -She smiled again, and for the first time he realized something new in -her amusement--a kind of repressed earnestness. - -"I'm not afraid. Do you want me to go away?" - -"No--you don't know how glad----" He broke off painfully, but she did -not look at him or seem to notice that he had faltered. She bent down -and put something which she had been carrying to the ground. It was a -round yellow something which unrolled itself and developed four short -legs, a stumpy tail, a sharp little head peering out of a mass of -fluffiness, and a strenuous, defiant yap. - -"I don't know what it is," Sigrid said gravely. "Perhaps God does--I -don't think any one else could even guess. But I thought you'd like -it." - -"I don't understand," he said gently. He picked the little creature up -and rubbed its black nose against his cheek. Then, looking at it, he -burst into a big roar of real amusement. "My word, what an absurdity!" - -"Yes, isn't it? And utterly forsaken. Mr. Radcliffe found it somewhere -with a rope and a brickbat round its neck. That's why I thought you'd -like it. At first, I meant to get you something first-rate--a -thoroughbred with a pedigree--and then I thought you'd like this better. -You see, it's a sort of memorial to Wickie. You know what people do -when some one dies whom they love--they build something or endow -something--something the dead person would like. Well, I think Wickie -would like you to adopt that puppy." - -He looked at her. There was a real tenderness in her eyes as they met -his. He fancied that her lips were not quite steady. - -"If you say so, it must be so," he said. "Wickie loved you. You knew -all about him." - -"We knew all about each other." She hesitated and then asked, "You'll -keep my puppy?" - -"Rather! It's been horribly lonely--I've wanted someone to give my -scraps to----" - -"The best bits! Oh, I know you, Tristram Sahib!" - -They both laughed. And suddenly the constraint between them had gone. -He busied himself eagerly, preparing Wickie's old sleeping quarters, -filling the tin feeding-plate with recklessly collected puppy dainties. - -"Wickie'll be jolly glad," he said, in his boyish way. "He'd hate me to -be lonely. And it's been lonely without him." - -"Yes, I know." She went and stood by his table, playing idly with the -letters which lay heaped upon it. "And there's something I want to ask -in return--a sort of farewell gift. Make this a real day for us -both--give me a good time--humour me. Let us be real with each -other--sincere, just as we really are and feel. A sort of feast of -honesty and fellowship. Will you?" - -He stood beside her, looking down at her from his great height. - -"Our day of days?" - -"The day of our lives." - -He flushed deeply under his tan, but he met her eyes steadily. A subtle -change had come into his feeling for her. He could not have explained -it--it was an odd sense of quiet nearness, of understanding. And she, -too, seemed different. At other times she had been in earnest, but not -as now. There had always been that curious detachment in her, as though -she stood apart and laughed at life and herself. Now for a moment, at -least, she had ceased to be an onlooker. - -"Very well--we'll make each other a present," he said. "A day off from -the world--something we won't account for to anybody." All at once he -became recklessly happy. "I'll go and collect food," he said. "The pup -can stay here and play _locum tenens_." - -He came back presently from the kitchen. His sleeves were still rolled -up, but he carried a basket under one arm and wore his helmet rakishly -at the back of his head. Seeing him, the gravity passed like a mist from -her eyes. - -"Oh, you caricature of Hercules!" she jeered at him. "Tell me, have you -ever worn decent clothes in your life?" - -"Sometimes. I have to squeeze into regimentals on occasions--or into a -frock-coat. You wouldn't know me--I look a regular freak." - -"H'm! and what do you think you look like now?" - -"Ariel shouldn't mock at Caliban," he retorted gaily. - -"Even when Caliban throws Ariel's portrait out of the window." She -pointed to the empty place on the table. "Have I sunk so far below your -thought of me, Major Tristram?" - -He became serious in a moment, but without embarrassment. She had a -sudden pleasure in him as he came and stood beside her--in his bigness, -in his sheer unconsciousness of himself and his strength. She felt -oddly compassionate, too--the awestruck compassion of a Bruennhilde for -a young Siegfried. - -"No," he said. "But I was a boy, at least, in thought and feeling--and -you were a boy's dream. Now I am a man and you are a reality. It would -have been an impertinence of me to have kept you." - -She shook her head. - -"There's more in it than that, Tristram Sahib." - -"Yes," he assented gravely. "A great deal more." - -They remained together an instant, looking down at the empty place as -though it held a secret significance for them both; then Tristram turned -to the door and made a little grandiloquent bow of introduction. His -eyes had lost their seriousness and laughed at her. "Behold, the day -awaits us!" he said. - -They went out side by side into the glowing morning. The stream of -pilgrims had grown denser and filled the street, beating up against the -mud huts on either side and spilling over into the open doorways. And -there was a thrill and fever in the air which gathered force, as at the -cross-roads one stream poured into another and swirled and eddied in the -effort to break a passage. Shrieks and cries, the beating of drums, the -harsh calls of the mendicants, the tramping of thousands of feet, the -swirl of dust which could not rise for the pressure of the struggling -bodies--a mad whirl of sound and colour. Tristram turned to the woman -beside him. - -"Do you mind--can you face it?" - -She laughed a little, with a repressed exultation. - -"This is the tarantella as I danced it--the beginning before the madness -comes--the rising of the tide. Can't you feel it beating in your -blood?" - -A fresh band, headed by a swaying banner, pushed its way through the -leaderless crowd, and after that, carried on the shoulders of four -sweating, staggering men, the image of the Triumvirate. - -The sun poured down over the roofs and glittered fierily on the three -faces of the god. They had been gilded afresh for the occasion, and the -hand which had laboured at their features had not failed in its simple -craftsmanship. Benevolence, cruelty, and an unutterable serenity stared -over the heads of the tossing multitude. The idol swayed from side to -side in its passage, and, as it caught the rays of the sun, gleamed with -a living, sinister brightness. There were wreaths of faded flowers on -the base of the altar, and there was white dust everywhere. The crowd -surged closer, holding up its hands to it in greeting. Their lifted -faces showed neither reverence, nor fear, nor hope, but a kind of frenzy -seeking its outlet. - -Slowly, triumphantly, the image rocked on its way towards the river, a -spot of sullen fire on the breast of an ever-changing sea of colour. -Like a dangerous backwash, the mob closed in, sweeping it forward and -leaving behind a sudden relaxation--a breaking-up of the sea into a -hundred drifting particles. It was the passing of a mad dream. The sun -blazed on to the peaceful bustle. The note of frenzy died down. The -old fakir had crawled on his knees into the shade and held out his -wooden bowl, bleating monotonously. - -"Alakh! Alakh!" - -A merchant came out from his hiding-place in a cowshed and exhibited his -wares. The hovel opposite revealed itself as a cook-shop, where the -hungry could buy pulse-puffs and dough-cakes and sweets of a hundred -kinds. A sherbet-seller pitched his tent a few doors lower down and -clinked his coloured glasses alluringly. An ascetic, with the face of a -mediaeval saint, sold gilt-papered corks from champagne bottles as -sacred charms of marvellous efficacy. - -Sigrid Fersen looked up into her companion's face and they both laughed, -scarcely knowing why, but swept away by a childish pleasure in the -swiftness of the change, in the naive _volte face_ of these simple folk, -who a minute before had trampled upon each other in a paroxysm of -religious frenzy and now wandered wide-eyed and eager amidst all these -bewildering fascinations. - -And perhaps, as the deep secret source of their pleasure, was the -knowledge that the day was young and wholly theirs. - -"I want to buy something," she said gaily. "Why should we be superior? -It's our feast, too. And who knows if their values are not as good as -ours? if their faith in champagne corks isn't as effective as our -superstitious belief in the mysterious horrors compounded by an -honourable Dakktar Sahib!" She shot him a demure, malicious glance. -"Come, I am going to buy recklessly!" - -A bright-eyed boy beckoned them to the tray behind which he watched -cross-legged and eager, like a handsome, bewitching spider. It was not -in vain that he had bright eyes or that he sold wares dear to the hearts -of women. The merchant in cheap stuffs from Manchester, and even the -sherbet-seller, watched him sourly as the soft-footed, timid women -hovered about him pricing his coveted treasures. - -Now he looked up, showing his white teeth in a smile of innocent -welcome. - -"Gifts for the Mem-Sahib--and gifts for him whom Mem-Sahib loves." - -Sigrid knelt down in the dust beside his tray, and rummaged through the -medley of his stock. Ear-rings, bracelets, amulets, glass beads, vulgar -trophies of Western taste--paste diamond brooches stuck on cardboard and -labelled rolled gold--these last displayed with almost passionate pride, -and here and there a scornfully suppressed relic of days when Manchester -and Birmingham were not. Tristram stood beside her and watched her. He -had the feeling that all this had happened before, years ago, and that -this companionship of a day was just a link in a long, unbroken chain of -days. It was so simple, so natural. He felt no constraint, scarcely any -excitement, just an all-pervading peace. They had always known each -other, always shared their days, their thoughts, and desires. He did -not think about it. It filled his senses with a well-being, a rare and -exquisite content. - -She gave an exclamation and held up something in the palm of her little -hand. He took it from her. It was a bracelet made of seven threads of -seven different colours and bound with a silver clasp. The boy-merchant -shrugged scornfully. - -"It is nothing--nothing, Mem-Sahib." - -"Do you remember?" she asked. - -He nodded--not looking at her now. - -"The Rani Kurnavati----" - -"Yes--that night when we sat by the moonlight and Ayeshi told us her -story----" She laid an extravagant sum on the tray. "There, that is -all I want." - -The amazed merchant gasped his blessings after her. She walked on, -threading her way through the aimless crowd, inspecting her purchase -with a thoughtful pleasure. - -"I wanted to give it you," Tristram protested, aggrievedly. - -"And I didn't want you to," she retorted. "You have given me enough, -Major Tristram." - -Her solemn reversion to his title amused him. He watched her smilingly -as she snapped the bracelet about her wrist. - -"What have I given you?" - -"The cup. Have you forgotten? I was so miserable because I forgot to -thank you. I'd never been remorseful in my life before, but I was -remorseful about that." - -"I'm sorry. Remorse is ghastly. And I hadn't expected thanks." - -"You didn't expect to live. Ought I to give the cup back?" - -"No." - -"But your mother----?" - -"I have told her," he said gravely. - -They reached the confines of the village. The high grass had been -trampled down under the passing of a monstrous animal. Through the -dazzling blaze of sunlight they could see a black mass swarming along -the banks, a huge, writhing octopus whose tentacles groped towards the -temple with greedy, hurrying persistency. And in the midst of it, like -a restless, menacing eye, the Triumvirate flashed backwards and forwards -in evil, delirious triumph. - -"They're bringing up their offerings now," Tristram said, rather grimly. -"The Snake God and his retinue will have food enough for months to come. -It's a queer thing--no one has seen these serpents in the memory of man, -and yet it's true enough that native sceptics who have ventured inside -the jungle have either never returned or come out raving madmen. There -is madness connected with the whole thing--a kind of delirium which we -English don't understand. It's in their blood, just as it's in the -blood of some families to respond to supernatural influences which -others don't even feel. Anyhow, we'd better keep clear of them today." - -"I have made my plan," she answered, with sedate authority. - -He knew now where she was going. They made their way in silence down -the length of the river, touching the monster only there where its -tentacles reached up to the temple, and came at last to the -green-shadowed backwater. Tristram held aside the branches of the trees -for her to pass through, and their eyes met. - -"Isn't this a fitting place to celebrate our day?" she asked, "--here, -where a certain romantic Hermit beheld a vision and was not afraid?" - -"Visions are not terrifying," he answered. - -"But the reality----?" - -She did not seem to expect an answer. The boughs of the trees had swung -back into their place. They stood together at the edge of the water, -looking down into its tangled depths, listening to the silence. Nothing -had changed. It was as though time had fallen asleep, and they were -still living in that first day of their meeting. The dense foliage of -the trees walled them in from the heat and glare and tumult. The dull -murmur that came to them from time to time seemed no more than the -soughing of a rising wind. The peace of it laid itself upon their -senses like a cooling hand. - -They sat down in the fresh grass, talking softly and only a little, -fearing to disturb the sleeping spirit of the place. Tristram unpacked -his basket and produced the day's provisions, over which they laughed -subduedly. It appeared that he was cook as well as doctor, and she made -wry faces over the probable ingredients of his dough-cakes. For her -humour had lost its keenness and had become very young and a little -tremulous. He responded loyally and easily. There was no constraint -between them, no sense of trouble. They were comrades together, -responding light-heartedly to the appeal of the sunlight, and the -flowers burning brightly in the cool shadows. They did not know as yet -that their real life lay beneath the surface of that easy comradeship in -a great stillness where their own voices did not penetrate. - -But that stillness mastered them at last, flowing quietly and mightily -over their broken, careless talk. The sunlight, falling aslant through -the trees touched the green stem of a high palm and began its upward -journey. Tristram watched it. He had slipped lower down the bank, where -he could see his own bulk shadowed darkly in the water and the pale, -ghostly reflection of the woman behind him. At first, he had lain full -length on his elbow looking at her frankly, fearlessly, as she sat above -him, her hands clasped about her knees, her fair small head bent a -little from the light, so that her eyes seemed dark and more serious -than her lips. Now he had turned away from her and watched the passing -of the sunbeam. A kind of panic had gripped him. The time was passing. -He had begun to realize dimly that what they had set out to do was -impossible--a defiance of the law of life. A day cannot be set apart -from its fellows either for joy or sorrow. It is bound up with them by -whatever menace or promise they hold, and the menace of yesterday and -tomorrow touched him like the breath of a chill wind. - -He pointed out on to the water and saw that his hand shook. His pulses -had begun to beat heavily, thickly. - -"The lotus-flower has gone," he said. - -"It is dead. It's so long ago--it seems only yesterday to us. Do you -remember asking me if I wanted it? You were glad because I let it live -out its life." - -"How did you know that?" - -"I knew that you loved living things." - -"Isn't that a love common to us all?" - -She gave a short laugh out of which the joyful irresponsibility had -died. - -"Men love ideas--the fetishes of their intellects. Or they love their -cabbage-patch, or their country. Life and humanity are nothing to the -majority. But you cared--for everything." It was a long time before -she spoke again, and then her voice had changed. It sounded -languid--indifferent. "It must be terrible to kill," she said. - -He stirred, drawing himself up. - -"The unforgettable sin," he said. - -"Unforgettable? Have you ever known any one who had killed----?" - -"Yes. It was worse than killing. He smashed his man--crippled him for -life." - -"Perhaps he didn't care." - -"He cared desperately. He thought of life as I do----" - -She laughed again. - -"Another Tolstoyan! Well, he was punished, I suppose." - -"Oh, yes, he was punished. Not by the law. He had no belief in that -Fetish of Justice--an eye for an eye. His life was of value--to another. -Of what use would it have been to have smashed it with the rest? He -found the only way to make good the damage he had done--and he took it." - -He spoke firmly, as a man does who has fought through to a clear issue. -He heard her move--he fancied that she had held out her hand as though -to touch him, and that her hand had dropped. - -"Perhaps he was mistaken," she said. "Some one once said to me there is -a curse on us--that we are damned to destroy. Perhaps the life he took -was justly taken--perhaps it was a bad, valueless life----" - -He turned impetuously, with an intensity of feeling far removed from his -previous impersonal deliberation. - -"You can't tell," he said. "That's the ghastly part of it--you can't -tell. You find a piece of broken glass on your road. You grind it -under foot or throw it away and think you've done your fellow creatures -a service. And then a child comes along crying for its lost treasure. -It doesn't matter that you were justified. The thing had its value, -after all, and you smashed it. You hurt someone----" - -"Some one is always hurt," she interrupted. - -A mist of passionate introspection passed from his eyes, and he saw her -face--very pale, with a blue shadow about the lips. He started, almost -touching her. - -"You're ill--tired----!" he stammered. - -"A little--it was the heat and the crowd----" - -He looked at the light on the green stem of the palm, as though to a -warning hand. It had reached the end of its journey and had grown dim. -He got up, holding himself desperately erect. "It's the end of the -Feast," he said, "the end of our day." - -But she shook her head broodingly. - -"You can't tell that either--only the gods know the end, Tristram -Sahib." - - * * * * * - -Something had wrapped itself about their senses. They had talked of -impersonal things and--save for that one break of his--without emotion. -But the emotion had been there, below the surface, crushed out of sight -by an effort of the will which left them no physical consciousness. It -walled them within themselves as the trees and dense foliage walled them -in from the heat and tumult. - -Thus the storm broke on them without warning. It had risen little by -little with the dull boom of an angry sea. They had heard nothing. But -there had been a silence so tense, so prolonged that they looked at each -other, wondering, waiting, though they did not know it, for the scream -that ripped through, tearing down the barriers of their unconsciousness, -forcing a breach through which the full fury of the sound bore down upon -them. - -Sigrid had risen instantly to her feet. - -"Tarantella!" she breathed. "Tarantella!" - -He did not wait to speak. He pushed through the undergrowth, not -knowing that she had followed him. On the fringe of the coppice he -turned and found her at his elbow. - -"Something's happened," he said briefly. "We can't stay here--we've got -to get back to the village----" - -She nodded. A minute before she had looked ill, almost broken. Now the -colour burnt in her cheek, she held herself lightly, strongly, and her -eyes shone as they swept the scene before them. - -"Shall we get through?" - -"I don't know--I don't know what's happened. It may be nothing----" - -"You don't believe that yourself. It is something. Anyhow, we've got to -try for it----" - -The fear was in him, not in her. Even then, striding at her side, -bracing himself for whatever lay before them, he wondered at her, -thrilled at the joyous adventurousness in her. Her head was erect and -she was smiling faintly. The howling of the frantic, demented mob which -swept backwards and forwards across the plain did not seem to touch her. -He felt how, with the coolness of a general, she was measuring the -distances, their chances. He saw the tightening of her lips and that -she had measured rightly. - -"If it's us they're mad with, it will be a close finish," she said, with -a low laugh. - -He scarcely heard her. He was watching the men and women who overtook -them and ran past. Their faces were unknown to him. They looked back -at him---with the wild-eyed curiosity of animals. As yet it was only -curiosity. They were as ignorant as himself as to the passion which had -broken through the crust of restraint and now raged in a mad whirlpool -between the temple and the river. But the infection of frenzy was upon -them. They muttered as they ran past--broken sentences in a dialect -which he could not understand. They were pilgrims from distant -provinces. He knew that they were in the majority and that he could -have no hold over them. They would sweep the rest with them--even his -own people. - -The sprawling mass of life which had hugged the bank of the river turned -and rolled back. In an instant, it had blocked the narrow passage on -which he had based his hope of escape. He could see the golden effigy -swaying madly above the crowd like a bright, sinister barque on a black, -raging sea, now flung back, now forward, but still drawing steadily -nearer. Through the wild uproar of voices the dull thud of a drum -persisted. It was as though in that frenzied movement there was a -purpose--a blind, demented will to an end. - -He stopped short. - -"We can't go on--it's too late--we must make a dash back and try for the -bridge----" - -"It is too late," she answered simply. - -He saw then what she had seen. They were cut off. From left and right, -the streams of hurrying men and women converged upon them, sweeping them -forward as an Atlantic roller tosses driftwood on its crest. For an -instant they were separated. He fought his way savagely back to her -side, and caught her to him with the roughness of panic. - -She looked up at him, smiling tranquilly, inscrutably. "Afraid, -Tristram?" - -"Yes--horribly--hideously--if I had lost you----" - -"You didn't. I'm not afraid." - -"I can't forgive myself----" - -"Why should you? I am very happy." - -"We must keep together. Give me your hand." - -She gave it him. He remembered how it had lain in his once before, how -the splendid vitality and strength of it had thrilled him. It thrilled -him now, it burnt like fire through his nerves. They stood facing each -other, holding their ground, swept into a moment's oblivion of all else -but themselves. There was exultation in that grave, brief -contemplation. The panic had died out of the man's eyes. He no longer -pitied her or feared for her. He felt the joy of their new, fierce -comradeship. - -"If it were only myself--I could be glad----" - -"Be glad!" she cried back. "Isn't it worth it?" - -A wave of frantic humanity forced them forward. They held together. He -heard her laugh--the eager, triumphant laugh of men in the glory of -battle. "No one can separate us now!" she said. - -"No one!" he answered gladly. - -He knew it was true. Nothing, so it seemed to him, could break the -steel link of their hands. But he had grown calmer. He had got to save -her. The instinct which damns the weak acceptance of annihilation burnt -up clearly in him. He gave ground to the force behind him, keeping his -feet with the utmost exertion of his strength, striving to force a -passage towards the village. It was a vain effort. Faces were turned -to him. He read their expression. The mere curiosity had become -distrust--a furtive antagonism as yet unarmed with purpose. A fakir, -wild-eyed, bespattered with filth, his emaciated arms flung up in -imprecation, leered up at him. - -"Kill! Kill! Kill!" - -It was no more than a whisper. But it passed from lip to lip. They -were pushed on, the circle about them tightening in a strangling noose. -For all her courage, he knew that the woman beside him was weakening. -He heard her voice, strained and breathless. - -"Don't let me go under--don't let me go under----" - -He knew the horror that had forced the appeal from her--the terror which -can change a man's heart to water--the horror of those pitiless -trampling feet--of those mad mob rushes under which a human body can be -stamped out of recognition. He threw one arm about her. He no longer -resisted. It was better to go on--to be forgotten. But the stench of -those hot, dust-laden bodies sickened him. It was the smell of -hatred--of madness. It sapped his strength. It was like the breathing -in of a hideous poison. - -They swept on. They had reached the densest part of the crowd. Above -them he could see the golden image, swaying dangerously from the -shoulders of its staggering bearers. A ray of red light from the -sinking sun was on the face nearest to them. Its frozen cruelty seemed -to have drawn life into itself--to be sucking up a horrible vitality -from the very passions to which it had given birth. To Tristram's -blurred vision the eyes blazed--the mouth gaped with a grotesque lust of -hatred. - -It was then he saw Meredith with his shoulders to the base of the altar, -his arm raised, shielding his face. A half-naked fakir sprang at him -and dragged the arm down, and Tristram saw what had been done. The face -was blotted out with blood. The lips were moving. In one clenched hand -was an open Bible. Through the hellish pandemonium Tristram caught a -single sentence: - -"Father, forgive them----" - -Tristram flung the man in front of him aside. He had felt the tense -revival of strength in his companion like an electric current through -all his nerves. They had got to stand together--to go down with the man -of their race, for good or evil uphold him. - -"We're coming!" Tristram shouted. "Hold on!" - -Meredith turned his head in their direction. Perhaps he saw them -through the veil of blood. He made a gesture urging them back, and in -the same instant the man whom Tristram had flung aside revealed his -face. - -It was Lalloo, the money-lender. - -"Dakktar Sahib!" he said. - -"Damn you--let me go past----!" - -The old man smiled imperturbably, shrugging his shoulders. The whisper, -"The Dakktar Sahib," ran like an undercurrent of sound beneath the -screams and curses of the swaying, tossing multitude. A woman spat in -Meredith's disfigured face. Tristram lurched forward, but already they -had lost ground. Some new force had them in its grip. They were bound -in a revolving circle of which Lalloo had become the pivot. Tristram -looked about him. He recognized faces which seemed to have sprung from -nowhere. There was Mehr Singh, the corn-dealer, and Seetul the weaver, -Peru the village ne'er-do-well--men with whom he had lived and suffered. -He cursed at them in their dialect, and they regarded him stolidly. He -shook Lalloo fiercely with his free hand. - -"Let us get out of this--I've got to get back to my friend--do you hear. -I've got to help him--do you hear, you lying, grasping old man?" - -Lalloo shrugged his shoulders. - -The circle rolled on. Meredith and the shining figure of the -three-faced god had gone down in the black tumult. The roar of voices -began to fade like thunder, rolling faintly in the distance. A breath -of fresh air fanned their faces. The circle broke suddenly scattering -in all directions. - -Tristram still held Lalloo by the shoulder. - -"You--you saved us," he stammered thickly. "You saved us--didn't you -know me better than that----" - -Lalloo rubbed his thin dark hands and smiled vaguely. - -"What have I done, Sahib?" he said. "What have I done?" And with an -amazing facility freed himself and glided into the shadow of the -deserted village. - -They went on, not speaking, not looking at each other, sick with the -horror of that which they had left behind them. At the door of -Tristram's hut a man came running towards them. It was the captain of -the native regiment, cursing volubly. - -"Tristram--where the devil have you been? What's happened! What set -them off?" - -"Meredith--preaching the love of God to Siva." - -"Oh, damn the parsons!" He mopped his face in helpless exasperation. -"Well, I've had a nice time of it. Men vanished into thin air. They've -been queer for months--now they've gone. Anyhow, I shall have to stick -to it--overawe them with my presence and all that." Even in that -moment, his English good-humour prevailed. "Give us a hand, -Tristram--you've influence with them. What's happened to Meredith?" - -"I don't know----" - -"Well, we'll try and get him out. Miss Fersen, you stay quietly in -there. There's no getting away just yet. If neither of us get back, -there'll be relief from Gaya as soon as they get wind of this shindy. -Come on, Hermit!" - -Tristram held open the door for her. - -"You won't mind my going? I may be able to help----" - -"I want you to go. I am not afraid." - -"I know." - -They avoided each other's eyes. For one moment at least they had -expected death--perhaps willed to die--and in that moment had dared to -live. - -She went past him, closing the door after her. - -Night came on. It rose blackly out of the far corners of the hut, -creeping stealthily and soundlessly up the walls, as water rises in a -closed lock. She had sat and watched it and listened to the deep, -encircling silence beyond which was sound--indefinable, subdued, -continuous. Once it had come nearer and instinctively she had sprung -up, bracing herself--then rolled back again with a thwarted, muffled -murmur. - -She had fed the stray pup and put it to sleep on Wickie's old bed. A -disreputable, ill-bred-looking tabby had crept slyly in through the open -window and had eyed the intruder with disapproving curiosity, then -settled herself down as one accustomed to eccentricities. Sigrid had -laughed a little at the interlude. It had seemed grotesque and humdrum, -a kind of satire on that which the sound painted on the gathering -darkness. - -Presently it was quite dark. She got up and lit a candle, and held it -high above her head. The flame threw a pale circle of light down on the -surface of the still black waters which eddied round her. It gave life -to an eerie procession of formless, soft-footed shadows. She watched -them slide past, from darkness to darkness. Then she went back to the -table and sat there with her chin in her hand, her wide eyes fixed -broodingly on something far beyond the tiny pillar of light. - -An hour passed. She got up and moved restlessly about the room. In the -struggle, her helmet had been knocked off and her hair loosened. She -let it down and smoothed its fair softness with her hands. There was no -glass in the place. She took the candle to the carved table against the -wall, and knelt down so that she could see a faint reflection of herself -in the glass of the big photograph. She began to do her hair with -fastidious, delicate carefulness. When it was done she took the -photograph and held it to the light. There was a pile of letters on the -table. The envelopes bore the same handwriting--strong and clear, yet -not with the strength and clearness of youth. It had an indefinable -affinity with the old face that looked out at her with its serene, -smiling wisdom from the wooden photo-frame. She counted the letters, -lingering over them, as though their touch brought her secret knowledge. - -The cat, sleeping by the wall, lifted its head. A minute later, it got -up, arching its back, its fur bristling, its eyes blazing in the -darkness. She glanced towards it, aroused by its soft, menacing hiss of -anger and fear. Then suddenly the silence around her shivered and -broke. She turned and slipped into the second room. There was an old -hunting-knife lying among the debris of their hastily prepared picnic. -She snatched it up and ran back, placing herself against the wall with -the light between her and the door. - -The sound that rushed down upon her was a new thing--more terrible than -the roar which had beaten persistently against the outer wall of her -consciousness. It was like rain and wind and water tearing through a -narrow gully. It came on swiftly, gathering speed and violence. It came -with a rush down the village street--nearer and nearer--the patter of -countless running feet--the gasp and groan of hard-drawn breath, stifled -mutterings, the shrill scream of a woman breaking off into a choking -gurgle. Nearer--in a headlong torrent--right to the closed door. She -drew herself up, her lithe body tense and prepared--and it swept past. -It raced on in a ceaseless torrent. She heard the jolt of a heavy body -sent reeling against the walls of the hut--and a little whimpering sound -that was like a child's crying. Behind the deluge there was a fresh -sound--the clatter of horses' hoofs at the gallop. - -The door opened and closed. She had taken an involuntary step forward -to meet whatever was to come, the knife clenched in her right hand; but, -as she saw Tristram, she relaxed with a short, shuddering sigh and her -hand sank. He stood leaning with his shoulders against the door, staring -at her. His clothes were torn and blood-stained. There was something -wild and violent in his face which she had never seen before--the look -of a fighter straight from a struggle in which every nerve and sinew has -been put to a dire test--in which all the primitive passions of men have -risen like wolf-hounds tugging at the leash. The sleeve of his shirt had -been ripped to the elbow, and she saw the grand curving line of his -shoulder, expressive of an immense, tutored strength. - -The hot colour raced through her pallor. She looked back to his face. -His eyes had dropped to the knife which she still held--they met hers -now and blazed back her fierce and sombre admiration. They remained -thus watching each other through a moment of shaken silence. Then he -lurched forward, dropping down on the chair by the table, sprawling like -a man overtaken by a sudden exhaustion, his bleeding hands clenched -before him. - -"I am sick--sick of bloodshed!" he muttered. - -She laid the knife quietly on the table and stood looking down at his -bent head. - -"Meredith----" she began. - -He threw back his shoulders with a bitter laugh. - -"Did you ever know of any one who set out to sacrifice himself and who -didn't sacrifice everyone else first? Meredith's safe--but my people--my -poor people--they didn't mean any harm--they saved us--you and me. Even -though one of our kind had spat in the face of their religion--they -didn't forget. You don't know what it meant to them to be so calm and -loyal in all that frenzy. Then--then the troops came from Gaya. There -was a stampede--no one meant to hurt any one--but they went -under--dozens of them--stamped out of recognition--old Seetul and -Lalloo's little son, whom I nursed once----" He broke off with a harsh, -dry sob. She knelt down beside him. She drew his head down to her -shoulder, soothing him like a child. - -"Tristram--you mustn't mind so. Things happen like that. We don't mean -to harm each other--we don't realize or we can't help ourselves. Some -one has to go under. We're always trampling on some one. It can't be -helped. The crowd is too great--we have to fight for ourselves first. -We were made like that----" - -He made no answer. He leant against her with closed eyes. The -hurricane of galloping hoofs rolled past. She kissed him lightly, -tenderly--"Tristram----" - -His eyes opened. Their faces were quite close. Their gaze became -fixed, intoxicated, deepening in intensity till it seemed as though they -held each other, were drawn closer and closer in an embrace of fire -which burnt out every intervening thought and consciousness. Suddenly, -violently, he sprang up, pushing her from him, and lurched towards the -door. - -"I've got--to--see after things--there'll be an escort for you at the -bridge-head--later--I'll keep guard outside----" - -She also had risen as swift and soundless as a panther. She stood by the -table upright and exultant, a point of light shining in her eyes. - -"Stay here--here with me. If you go, it is because you're afraid----" - -"Afraid----?" He swung round, his hand still on the door. "Of whom?" - -"Of me--of yourself. You promised to be honest with me. This was to be -our day of days for which no one should demand reckoning. It is not -ended yet. You were honest once. That was when you thought we were -going to be killed. Then you dared to own to what I know already--that -you belonged to me--as I perhaps belong to you--to our fate--a fate -neither of us can escape, Tristram----" - -He remained motionless; she could see the rise and fall of his great -chest. - -"It isn't wise to be honest," he said thickly. "I'm afraid, if you -like--afraid of myself. You'd better let me go." - -"Back to your dreams? But they're gone. You were just a grown-up boy, -playing with a fancy. Now you are a man and I am a woman. We've got to -deal with the reality now." - -"That's true." He came slowly towards her, reeling a little in his -stride. "I want you--body and soul." - -"I know--you told me----" - -"When----?" - -"The night you lay unconscious in my arms." - -He put up his hand to his throat, as though something suffocated him. - -"You had better let me go," he repeated doggedly. "We're both thrown out -of our course. At my best, I'm not much--I've learnt that--if I -resist--things it's because I don't care. And tonight----" - -"You do care." - -"Yes," he said, between his teeth. - -"Why should we resist what is the most splendid thing in us?" - -"Splendid?" he echoed. "My--my dreams were splendid. As you -say--they've gone. And the reality--can there be any reality between -us--between a divinely gifted woman and the loutish fool who dreams -about her? If I'd thought so--I'd have gone away--but it seemed to me -that you were just kind and pitying--amused even--and I dared go on. -And it is impossible--we belong to different worlds--life isn't the same -thing to either of us." - -"We stand on different peaks of the same mountain range," she answered -wistfully. "There is the same sun and sky and stars for us both. It -seemed to me that we could have watched the sun rise together." - -He held out his hand as though to touch her, and then drew back, his -face drawn and hard with the bitterness of mastered passion. - -"You don't know what you're saying, Sigrid," he began harshly. "Nor -what you are offering me----" - -"Myself," she flung in, with joyful fearlessness. "My love for you." - -He began to pace the room backwards and forwards, in and out of the -light, his hands clenched at his sides. - -"I can't--oh, my dear--it's hideous, so hopeless." His voice shook with -rough suffering. "Even if things were different--if I were -cad--enough--you see, I am being desperately frank now--don't you -realize what it would mean--can't you realize what you'd have to pay?" - -She watched him patiently. Her first fierce energy had died down. The -colour had faded from her cheeks, leaving her with a look of pathetic -weariness. - -"I've never bothered about the price of things. It's been a curse in my -life, I daresay; I shall never be able to sink into a safe, comfortable -mediocrity. I've burnt my boats too thoroughly for that. But, instead, -I've had the highest and best in life. I've always dared to live to the -utmost, Tristram. I wanted to be perfect in my art, and I gave my soul -to it. I lived more austerely than a nun, more grandly than an empress. -Men wanted to love me, but I never thought of them. There was only one -thing for me then--it was like a mountain that I had sworn to climb. I -climbed it. And then--then it was over. You can't understand--but I -had paid the price to the last farthing. Now, before it's too late, I -want the greatest, most splendid thing that perhaps a human being can -pray for--the happiness of loving." - -Her voice had dropped gradually, as though she had forgotten him. He -stood still, frowning at her with a hopeless misery in his exhausted -eyes. - -"Sigrid--if I'd asked you a month ago would you have been my wife?" - -She started a little, seeming to shrink from what was to come. - -"No, Tristram--not then." - -"And now--if things were different--if it were possible----?" - -She shook her head. - -"No--now least of all." She heard the sharp, painful catch in his -breath. "It isn't possible--that's just it," she added wearily. - -He resumed his restless pacing backwards and forwards. - -"Then it was just a moment in your life you were offering me--I was to -be part of a new and splendid episode----" He strode up to her and -gripped her by the shoulders. "Oh--I'm not proud--you're a creature of -fire and air, and I'm one of the earth. You could have walked over me -and I'd have been content. And yet--I don't know. I might have cared -too much. Perhaps I do care too much--but there's something besides -that now. I'm not a moral or even a strong man, but there's only to be -one woman in my life---the woman I marry." - -"Yes," she said listlessly. - -"And Anne has promised to be my wife." - -She looked up at him for an instant. It grew very still. - -"I might have told you that before. But it was to have been our -day--with no one between us--no one to demand reckoning. I cheated -myself. I'm a rotten sentimentalist, dear--and I've ended by doing -something mean and low, like a thorough-paced cad. I deserve to -lose--all that I have lost." - -She shook her head. Something of her old detachment, a little of her -demure humour, tinged with satire, shone in her eyes. - -"It's almost funny--your blaming yourself. I hunted you down--and I am -going to marry Mr. Barclay." - -He swung round on his heel, white to the lips. - -"That man----!" he burst out. - -"That woman----!" she retorted cynically. - -He fought desperately for self-control. - -"Anne is a good woman----" - -"Is she? A better human being than Barclay? Have you started to lay -down the standard of values like the rest of us?" - -For an instant they confronted each other as antagonists, then he made a -gesture of despair, of fierce self-loathing. - -"No--you're quite right. I don't judge--I can't. I seem going down-hill -fast with my theories--my--my infernal humanity. I can't believe -it--everything seems to have gone at once--you didn't care--it wasn't -love you felt for me----" - -"Aren't you glad--doesn't that relieve you of all responsibility?" - -She watched him for a moment in silence. Then her face softened. He -was standing against the table, his hand pressed upon it as though he -held himself upright only by an effort of will. She laid her hand on -his, diffidently, pityingly. "Tristram, we're both mad with pain, but -don't let's hurt each other more than we must. It's no one's fault. We -pick up threads in our lives carelessly and without a thought, and from -day to day they weave themselves without our will into a pattern--into -tragedy. That's all there is to it, Tristram." He nodded silently, and -she turned away from him, sighing. "It's quite quiet now. I'll go back -to Gaya, Tristram." - -He went out beside her into the empty moonlit street. A black shadow lay -huddled against the wall, and involuntarily he bent and touched it. - -"Dead!" he muttered. - -"The feast of Siva!" she said. "He who destroys!" - -Her small pale face was lifted to the great silver disk above her. It -seemed to his aching eyes that she was no more than a frail white -ghost--a haunting spirit of the haunted moonlight. - -"Sigrid----!" he whispered. - -"Hush--it's no good. We've got to go on--Tristram Sahib----" - -He walked beside her as she rode out of Heerut. It was very still---no -sound but that of her horse's hoofs and the soft swish of the long Arab -tail. They went out across the plain. The conflagration of the day had -burnt itself out, leaving grey ash and a few stains on the white fields. -The temple lay sinister and watchful beneath the shadow of the jungle. -It was as though all life had been swept away in a deluge of -destruction. - -He looked up and saw how bravely she held herself. - -They came within a hundred yards of the bridge-head, and she drew rein. -They could hear voices and the jangle of steel. He stood close to her, -touching her, feeling the warmth of her, drinking in a faint elusive -perfume which was her own. His brain reeled. He was sick and faint at -the nearness of the end. - -Suddenly she bent down and took his hand. He felt something clasp -itself about his wrist. - -"I can't give you up--not altogether--I can't, Tristram. I want to keep -you in my life--the dream of you--to haunt you a little--to claim you a -little--in this world and the next--for good and evil--my -bracelet-brother----" - -She was gone. He stood there, listening to the thud of her horse's -hoofs. - - - - - _*BOOK II*_ - - - *CHAPTER I* - - *MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM* - - -"Among all the noble, disinterested, selfless things I've done--and my -life is full of them--this is the noblest, most disinterested, most -selfless." - -Mrs. Compton stood back and surveyed the dainty Dresden figure perched -on the shelf with the dignity of renunciation. Mrs. Bosanquet sniffed. -It was an uncorrected habit of hers when confronted with the -incomprehensible and absurd. - -"I don't see what you're so upset about," she commented from her large -and comfortable pose in the most accommodating chair of which the rather -shabby-looking room boasted. "Why, I've seen things just as pretty as -that in sixpenny bazaars. I'm sure Anne won't like it. Anne's my type. -We both have our spiritual homes in a London suburb--not a -garden-suburb, my dear, with nasty modern folk in sandals and -_djibba_--but in the old kind, with good old Victorian plush everywhere. -It's just a tragedy that we should have to live in India with queer -specimens like the Judge and Tristram." She chuckled. The serene -detachment with which she regarded her own weaknesses and the weaknesses -of her fellow-creatures had made her an institution in Gaya, and was a -good substitute for a talent. Mrs. Bosanquet could not make a joke or -tell a funny story without disaster, but she could hold up mirrors for -herself and her friends and grimace into them with most excellent -results, as far as the gaiety of the station was concerned. It was -whispered, however, that the Judge's somewhat halting progress towards -higher honours was not a little due to his wife's passion for showing -plain but superior people just what they looked like. - -Mary Compton continued to regard her treasure with wistful tenderness. - -"Tristram will like it, anyhow," she said. - -"H'm, poor Tristram!" - -"Why 'poor Tristram'?" - -"Oh, I don't know--a kind of inspiration. Anne did want him so badly, -and now she's got him. It's a real triumph of goodness. Now she can -pull long noses at dear, disgraceful Eleanor and be sentimental over -dear, disgraceful Richard. Also she can make the place too hot for--for -that woman. Altogether a wonderful strategic position for any one quite -so harmless as dear, respectable Anne." - -There was a distinct and unusual note of asperity in Mrs. Bosanquet's -review of the situation, and Mary Compton turned to her with apparent -puzzlement. But her eyes were bright and rather defiant, as though she -was preparing for a long-expected engagement. - -"Whom do you mean by 'that woman'?" she asked, not very steadily. - -"My dear, there's only one 'that woman' in Gaya as far as I know. The -rest of us are--what are we--ladies! or is that Victorian again?--in -fact, I mean 'that woman,' and you're just pretending not to know whom I -mean." - -"I won't pretend." Mrs. Compton steadied to the attack. "If you mean -Sigrid----" - -"I do, my dear." - -"Then I think it's mean and disloyal of you. You were one of the first -to kow-tow to her----" - -Mrs. Bosanquet settled herself back fatly and serenely unoffended. - -"I did--I don't deny it. I kow-towed. Figuratively, I licked her -boots. She could have walked over me if she'd had a fancy for -mountaineering. She could have done a high-kick under the Viceroy's -nose and I should have applauded to poor George's everlasting undoing. -She could have eloped with that puppy Radcliffe. She could have become -Rani of Gaya and worn a nose-ring. My ample bosom would still have -welcomed her. But that man! No. It's not only the man, but it's what -must be in her to be able to touch him with a fire-tongs. There's a -rotten streak in her--there must be. And even if one got over -that--well, it isn't feasible. One can't swallow her without him, and -it's too big a mouthful. Can you imagine sitting down to dinner with -him?" - -Mary Compton faced her visitor. She held herself very straight, and her -brown, alert face had a rigid look about it which boded trouble. - -"Yes, I can," she said quietly. "It's a possibility everybody will have -to face who comes here." - -"Mary!" - -She nodded confirmation. She lost her first rather tremulous -aggressiveness and became quiet and resolute, her hazel eyes sparkling -with the zest of battle. - -"Yes, Archie and I figured it out as soon as we heard. We don't -understand--we don't pretend to--and--and we hate it. Nobody can loathe -it more than I do. I've run counter to that man, and I can guess what -we're in for. But we're going to stick to her. We didn't become her -pals on the understanding that she was to marry one of our nice select -circle. She was just Sigrid. Well, as far as we're concerned, she's -Sigrid still. Her husband's her business." - -"Then," said Mrs. Bosanquet gravely, "you're in for a fight with the -whole station--and, what's more, with an unwritten law which is based on -sound principles. 'East is East and West is West and never the twain -shall meet.' But they do meet occasionally, and it's then the trouble -begins. We can do with a Rasaldu because we're not responsible for -him--it's like watching a foreigner eat peas with his knife--but -Barclay, no--he's a scandalous, illegitimate relation, and the more he -claims us the more uncomfortable we get. My dear, we shall fight to the -last ditch, and you'll be beaten, and badly beaten. You'll damage -yourselves, and that's about all." - -"Are you going to help beat us?" Mary asked quietly. - -Mrs. Bosanquet pursed up her fat, good-natured lips. - -"I can't help myself. I'm really sorry----" - -"Rubbish! If you were sorry, you wouldn't do it." - -"I've got to think of the Judge----" - -"Well, I've got Archie. He's got his career, too." - -"He'll get into trouble with the regiment." - -"It's more than likely. We're not going to--to behave like cads on that -account." - -Mrs. Bosanquet got up, leaning heavily on her gold-topped stick. She -had reddened slightly, but otherwise remained benignly unruffled. - -"Quite right, my dear. I applaud. The trouble is that the majority of -us are cads at the bottom--that is, we think of our own safety first. -I'm sure I do. The station will ostracize Sigrid--has begun to -ostracize her already. I can't stem the tide, and I shan't try." - -Mary Compton smiled bitterly. - -"How pleased Anne will be!" - -"Eh?" - -"How pleased Anne will be," she repeated. - -Mrs. Bosanquet paused on the threshold of the verandah. She had become -suddenly very angry. - -"You're a very annoying woman, Mary Compton. You said that just to -upset me. You know I can't bear Anne. In a previous existence, I -believe we were next-door neighbours in our suburb, and that she played -hymns on a pianola. Please don't mention Anne to me." - -"And you're fond of me, and you were fond of Sigrid," Mrs. Compton -persisted, not without malicious amusement. Mrs. Bosanquet turned round -as sharply as her bulk would allow. - -"She's driving up now," she said helplessly. "My dear, for goodness' -sake, get me out--I don't want to meet her--I haven't made up my -mind--I'm really not in a fit state--have pity on an old woman with a -weak heart and an Indian liver--let me out by the back--do, there's a -dear--I'll think it over--I will really----" - -"You can go out by the back," Mary Compton allowed coldly. "You'll -probably give the butler a fit, but that doesn't matter. By the way, -we're giving a dinner next week. We hope you and the Judge will honour -us." - -Mrs. Bosanquet glared from the doorway. - -"I dislike you intensely," she said, "and I won't be bullied." - -"Nor will I," Mrs. Compton retorted, and then with an uncontrollable -burst of venom. "You nasty old woman!" The curtains fell with a -furious rustle and Mary Compton returned to her Dresden shepherdess. -Her interest was either very intense or very artificial, for she did not -appear to hear the dog-cart which rattled up the drive, and started -guiltily when she was called by name. - -She turned and saw Sigrid standing on the threshold. The latter still -carried her lace parasol over her shoulder, as though she were not -certain of coming in, and the tinted shadow which veiled her head and -shoulders afforded a delicious contrast to the unrelieved whiteness of -her dress. Mrs. Compton, not given to poetic comparisons, was driven in -the first breath to the memory of the cool, intoxicating seductiveness -of a narcissus flowering in the fresh winds of an English spring-time. -But, in the second breath, she was realizing, not without a little -twinge of unreasonable disappointment, that the muslin dress was not -English but Parisian, and that the graceful lines of the unpretentious -garden hat represented an expenditure which would have covered the -greater part of Mrs. Compton's yearly outfit. - -"Can I come in, or are you not at home?" Sigrid asked. Her head was a -little on one side and her eyes and mouth were quizzical. Mary Compton -promptly kissed her and took charge of the parasol, which she handled -with an almost masculine awe of its amazing daintiness. - -"Sigrid, I'm just thankful. I didn't know it was you. I didn't -recognize the cart." - -"It wasn't mine." She hesitated for a second and her mouth was -uncontrollably wry. "Jim brought me in." - -"Oh!" For the life of her, Mrs. Compton could think of no better -answer. She drew her visitor to the chair which Mrs. Bosanquet had just -vacated. "Anyhow, you're just the person I was longing to see," she -added lightly. - -Sigrid's lips quivered. - -"Am I? Well, that's more than Mrs. Bosanquet would have said! Poor -lady, how she must have hurried. Which way did she go? Out through the -servants' compound?" - -"My dear Sigrid!" Mrs. Compton turned to her Dresden shepherdess to -hide the fact that her face was suffused with the red of sheer panic. -"Don't be so absurd! Mrs. Bosanquet and I have been 'having words,' as -Mary Ann would say. She was too cross to face anybody." - -The smile lingered about Sigrid's lips, as though some secret thought -amused her. Her eyes, dark shadowed and rather wistful, were fixed -absently ahead. Mary Compton trusted she had not noticed her own -confusion. Suddenly, though she did not look up, she held out her hand. - -"What have you got there, dear?" - -Mrs. Compton responded thankfully. She came like an eager child, -kneeling at Sigrid's feet, the Dresden shepherdess held up reverently -for inspection. - -"My pet shepherdess. I don't think you've seen her before, I've made up -my mind to part with her. I've been almost in tears over it." - -"Have you?" - -Mary nodded. She was convinced that her visitor was not listening, but -she rattled on determinedly, set on holding off an inevitable crisis. - -"Yes. You know, our little bits of china are just like children to us. -In fact, they're substitutes--only much nicer. They don't get the -measles, they don't become increasingly expensive and unsatisfactory, -they don't live to curse your grey hairs. On the contrary, they become -increasingly valuable and lovable. You see, when Archie and I married, -we were desperately in love, but we hadn't a single high-class interest. -We adored dancing and tennis and theatres and expensive food at -expensive restaurants. There were times when we felt we hadn't a soul -between us. You don't know how it worried us, because we do want to go -on existing and having good times together in the next world, and we -felt we never should if we didn't cultivate our higher selves or -something. We thought of children, but you know we don't like children a -bit, and we've forty cousins between us, so that there's no chance of -our families dying out. When we found we both loved beautiful china, we -almost wept for thankfulness. We knew then that there was something in -us above food and drink. And there's our most precious bit. Isn't she -a gem?" - -Sigrid took the shepherdess and considered it gravely. - -"Yes--a real find. Tell me, what were you and Mrs. Bosanquet -quarrelling about?" She waited a moment, and then, as Mrs. Compton, -very red and almost sullen in her aggrieved sense of thwarted diplomacy, -remained silent, she went on quietly: "You were quarrelling about me. -You were discussing whether to cut me or drop me gently; isn't that so?" - -Mrs. Compton looked up with a sudden resolution. "We were quarrelling -about you." - -"That's good. That's frank of you, Mary." She put the shepherdess on -the table and took the elder woman's hand tenderly between hers. "What -did you decide?" - -"There wasn't anything to decide where we're concerned. You can do what -you like, Sigrid. Archie and I are far too much in love with you----" - -Sigrid laughed. - -"Don't get me into worse trouble by making out that I'm a -husband-snatcher. So you're going to stick to me. And the others----?" - -"I don't know, dear." - -"And you--you're both awfully shocked and horrified." - -Mrs. Compton's mouth tightened with the struggle. She did not flinch -under the steady, penetrating eyes. - -"We don't understand--that's all." - -"You loyal soul!" She was thoughtfully silent for an instant, and then -went on: "But you must understand--at least a little. It's only fair, -since you're going to fight my battle. If you'd decided differently, I -shouldn't have told you. I'm an adventuress, Mary--I've never pretended -to be anything else--not in a bad sense. I've lived very straightly in -some ways, but I've always staked my all on a day. I've lived -fabulously--like a Roman empress, Mary. And one day there was nothing -left to stake. In ordinary language, I was bankrupt--or near it. So I -took what was left and set out round the world--husband-hunting----" - -"Sigrid!" - -"Yes, that doesn't sound very ideal, does it? But in reality it was -rather a wonderful quest. I was looking for a man who could give me all -that I conceived necessary for life--who would share it with me in -understanding and whom I could care for--deeply." She smiled in -self-mockery. "That sounds better, doesn't it? But, unfortunately, I -never found him." - -"Never?" - -There was significance in Mary Compton's eyes--a challenge. - -"No, never. And three months ago, when Mr. Barclay asked me to marry -him--I had one hundred pounds and my passage left me in the world." - -Mrs. Compton sprang to her feet, her hands clasped in consternation. - -"Why didn't you tell us--you could have come to us. Oh, no, I know -that's nonsense--we're poor as mice. But you could have gone back--you -could have danced again and in one night you would have made enough----" - -She stopped short, arrested by something that passed over the other's -face--a shadow, a wince of physical, deadly pain. "Sigrid, couldn't -you----" - -"Yes, I could have done that. And the money would have paid for a -gorgeous funeral." - -"Sigrid--don't joke--be serious----" - -"I am serious----" Her voice hardened. "Horribly serious. One night's -triumph, if you like--and then the end. That's what I came to tell you. -No one else knows except Smithy. It's my secret. It's yours now." - -Alary Compton stood transfixed. The colour had faded from her face, -leaving it sallow with fear and grief. She bit her lips, trying -desperately to hold back an overwhelming rush of tears. She hated -tears. Now they choked her. Through a mist, she saw Sigrid lay her -hand lightly on her side. "A little affair of the heart--_c'est tout_." - -Mrs. Compton dropped on her knees. Reckless of the expensive gown, she -buried her face on Sigrid's breast, clinging to her with a defiant -fierceness. - -"Oh, my dear, my dear--and we didn't know. I can't believe it--you so -strong--so perfect----" - -"Yes--almost perfect." She passed her hand caressingly over the -grey-flaked, curly head much as though the grief was not her own. -"Perfect in my Art--almost perfect in body. But the 'almost' was the -price I paid. Oh Mary, just once again to glide out into the lights, to -hear the music--to lose the sea of gaping faces--to rise right up on the -crest of living----" She drew herself erect, her eyes burning. "Oh, my -Art, the greatest Art of all! Scientists, musicians, painters--just so -many lopsided distortions! But I was the soul and the body, the perfect -union. I was music and poetry and speech. I was a miracle greater than -the dreams of science. I was the perfect human body with an inspired -soul----" Her voice failed. The life died out of her eyes. She sank -back, laughing brokenly. "Isn't that absurd--funny--for I am going to -marry Mr. Barclay." - -There was a long, heavy silence. Both women faced the tragedy, the one -with the bitter knowledge that her understanding could only be dim and -incomplete. She roused herself at last, disengaging herself gently from -the enfolding arm, rubbing the tears from her cheeks. - -"Sigrid--there were other men--good men--of one's own blood----" - -"Oh yes, I know. There was one in England. I meant--but things -happened. I can't explain. You've got to take that much on trust. Mr. -Barclay offered me more than money." - -"You mean----?" - -"Silence." - -Mary Compton rose slowly to her feet. She was quiet now and very grave. -She gazed at the woman in the chair and realized for the first time a -change in her. The old serenity, the laughing, godlike attitude towards -life had gone. She had the wan dignity of a fighter who, from a post of -easy vantage, has gone down into the arena. - -"I don't want to know any more. I do take you on trust." - -"And there was more in it than that," Sigrid went on, following the -train of her thoughts. "It was a bargain. I, too, had something to -offer. That suited my pride. I could do for him what I could not have -done for another man. I could give him what he desires, I believe, more -than life----" - -"Position----?" - -"Yes." - -Mrs. Compton shook her head. Her seriousness was now business-like, -scarcely touched with emotion. - -"And you think you are strong enough?" - -"I don't know. I must be. Everything that matters to me now depends on -it." - -"If you went away--to another part of India--oh, I don't want you to -go--I'm trying to think only of your good----" - -"It would be useless. I have won my position here. I have friends. -Anywhere else I should just be his wife." - -"His wife--you! Oh, it's hardly bearable! Just because we are your -friends it hurts worse." She ruffled her hair with an unhappy hand. -"Sigrid, you can count on us, of course. I believe you may count on -Mrs. Bosanquet, and the Judge follows automatically. She's furious just -now, but she has a regular schoolgirl rave on you and it will be too -strong for her. I daresay the other women will follow. Even Anne----" -She saw Sigrid move restlessly in her chair, and hastily swung off, -moved by she knew not what consciousness of pain. "It's the men who'll -be the hardest to fight. They'd forgive you most things--things we -wouldn't forgive--a vulgar intrigue, an elopement with somebody else's -husband--but this is against their code. Men are conventional, women -moral. It's the one vital difference between the sexes. And then there -are other troubles. Things are rocky in Gaya. We know that the -regiment is disaffected. The new Colonel makes no headway. -Boucicault's work was too thorough for that. Then there's Rasaldu. He -regards your engagement as a sort of insult--and, weak tool though he -is, we've got to keep him in hand. All that counts against you. Oh, it -will be a fight, though we shall have Tristram. He's always ready for a -lost cause----" - -She stopped again. Sigrid had risen to her feet. She seemed not to -have heard the last sentence. She picked up the Dresden shepherdess -with a light, reckless hand. - -"How pretty it is! Why are you parting with it? Who's the lucky -recipient----?" - -"It's a wedding present." She felt a sick misery creep over her. "For -Anne and Tristram----?" - -"Ah, yes--of course--for Anne and Tristram----" Her voice was very -level and matter-of-fact, rather indifferent, as though she were echoing -mechanically something that scarcely reached her intelligence. - -Then a shadow fell across the sunlight patch on the worn matting, and -both women looked up. James Barclay stood on the verandah. He raised -his hand in a military salute. - -"I've come for Sigrid, Mrs. Compton," he said. "She was such an -unconscionable time, and one is naturally impatient. Please forgive, if -you were discussing secrets." - -His dark eyes were on Mrs. Compton's face, intent, curious, vaguely -appealing. The thrill of loathing and contempt which had passed through -her gave place to a bitter amusement. He was so wonderfully, correctly -dressed, so desperately at ease. She stared back at him, burning with -her first instinctive revolt against his presence. Then she remembered. -She glanced at Sigrid, who was still toying idly with the Dresden -shepherdess. Something in the resolute submission of that proud, -self-reliant figure set fire to all the chivalry in Mrs. Compton's -blood. She turned again. She heard herself speaking: - -"We're very pleased--won't you both stay for tea? And--and I was just -saying--I'm giving a dinner next week--to celebrate--your engagement--if -it suits you----" - -It was done. She felt as though she had cut through a dam, and that the -torrent was on her. She saw Sigrid look up swiftly and then glance at -the man by the window. - -He bowed gravely, but she caught the triumphant flash in his eyes. - -"It is very kind. We shall be delighted--this afternoon we've an -engagement, haven't we, Sigrid?" - -It was all Mrs. Compton remembered clearly. Looking back on the scene, -she had a vague recollection of her own voice flowing on ceaselessly -over a seething inner conflict, of a pale face watching her, half in -pity, half in gratitude. Presently, when they had gone, she flung -herself down by Sigrid's empty chair and cried with misery and -humiliation. And, when the last tears had been shed, she picked up the -Dresden shepherdess and put her back in her place in the glass cabinet, -and turned the key with an air of locking up evil genii. Then she -thought of her husband for the first time. - -"Poor old Archie!" she muttered remorsefully. "Poor Archie!" - -Meantime, Barclay drove his showy cob towards the dak-bungalow. - -"So you've managed it," he said. "You've really managed. You're -wonderful--even more wonderful than I thought." - -She drew farther away from him. - -"I have kept my part of the bargain." - -He laughed. - -"Which is fortunate for everyone concerned." - -"Keep your part!" - -He made her a little bow, his face suddenly flushed and heavy-looking. - -"As much as it lies in human nature, dear lady," he answered. - - - - - *CHAPTER II* - - *A HOME-COMING* - - -Mrs. Boucicault welcomed her daughter with the affable irresponsibility -which had become her habitual mood. She bore no grudge--not more than a -steam-roller bears towards the stones it has ground into acquiescence. -She had got what she wanted and was quite pleased that Anne should have -been equally successful. No one witnessing the warm, rather -absent-minded embrace could have guessed at a very bitter parting or at -a wedding at which the bride's family was conspicuous by its absence. -As a matter of fact, the bitterness had been on Anne's side and the -wedding had been so recklessly hurried on that Mrs. Boucicault's excuse -that she could not leave poor Richard at such short notice sounded -acceptable. Gaya knew perfectly well that the Governor-General's visit -and its attendant gaieties was the real reason, but extended a -charitable sympathy, and endeavoured to keep Anne in happy ignorance, -guessing that her understanding would be altogether of a different kind. - -Mrs. Boucicault kissed Tristram on both cheeks, putting her hands on his -shoulder in order to pull herself up to the necessary altitude. - -"My dears, how well you both look! Really, I believe you got married -just for a month of the hills. How I did envy you! We've been -positively baked alive. I nearly bolted, but of course your poor father -could not have been moved. It was terrible." - -She began to wander about the newly furnished room in a restless, -over-excited way, giving neither the time to reply. "You must come and -admire everything. We all did our bit. I had some furniture sent from -Lucknow. Don't you like the chairs? They're a home product. Mrs. -Bosanquet gave such a lovely tea-service. My ayah smashed a cup in the -unpacking, but these accidents will happen. I hope the servants will be -all right. You both know how they steal." She led them through the -length and breadth of the bungalow, whose decoration had the charm of -haphazard good taste. As Mrs. Boucicault had said, everyone in Gaya had -taken a hand in Tristram's home and given of their best, attaining an -unconventional success. But Anne followed silently and without -expression of approval. Her natural composure of manner seemed to have -developed. She looked very well and much older. Her girlishness had -been completely swallowed up in a rather self-conscious womanhood, and -much that her girlhood had promised had been fulfilled. The line of her -mouth had stiffened. Her very clothes, well-made but severe, expressed -a character already set within definite and inelastic boundaries. Once -or twice she glanced back at her husband and her eyes were full of a -half-timorous, half-proprietary tenderness. - -"Do you like it all, Tris?" - -He nodded, smiling down at her. - -"It's first-rate. I don't know how they managed it." - -"Yes--it's quite nice. Of course, we shall have to rearrange things. -It's all so patchy, isn't it?" - -He did not answer. Mrs. Boucicault came back to the drawing-room and -gave them tea. It was then, seated, facing her with her back to the -light that Anne noticed the too-vivid red of her mother's lips, the -tinge of artificial colour on the grey cheeks. Her own eyes hardened a -little. - -"Is father better?" she asked coldly. "Is there any change? I asked -you to write to me, mother, but you never did." - -Mrs. Boucicault helped herself daintily to cake. - -"There's no change--at least, not for the better. He had Sir Gilbert -Foster here to see him. He happened to be in Lucknow, and, of course, -I've spared no effort--no expense. Sir Gilbert agreed that there was -very little hope. Sometimes I think it would be more merciful if the -end came. He is so utterly helpless. He just lies there and broods. -Even the official attempt to get at some clue with regard to the man who -attacked him doesn't seem to rouse him--and Richard was always so -anxious to get square with an enemy, wasn't he? Of course, I go and sit -with him every day and tell him our doings. It's very dull for me, but -one has to do all one can. Didn't I write? I'm so sorry. I meant to, -but we've been so busy----" - -"I've no doubt," Anne interposed, with contemptuous bitterness. "Gaya -has been quite gay, I hear." - -Mrs. Boucicault smiled happily. - -"Yes, quite gay. And very upset into the bargain. It's like living on -an eruption or a volcano or whatever it is I mean. I suppose you've -heard, Tristram? The regiment is just seething with sedition. Poor -Richard kept the lid on wonderfully, and now he's gone we're all waiting -for the lid to come off with a bang. Colonel Armstrong is a dear, but -he's got beautiful democratic ideas, and bullies and distrusts his -equals more than any one I ever knew. So we're all waiting. And things -have been made so deliciously worse by the advent of Mr. Barclay. You've -heard of that, too? He's going to marry Sigrid Fersen in two months. -Awful, isn't it?" - -Anne turned her eyes to her husband. - -"It's revolting," she said. "He's the kind of man a woman of her type -would choose. The least she can do is to leave Gaya." - -"She's not going to, though. The whole station is a divided camp and -armed to the teeth about it. Half of us want to cut her and half want -to swallow him for her sake. Mary Compton and Mrs. Bosanquet are for -swallowing--and so am I. I don't see why people shouldn't do as they -like." - -Anne's lips curled. - -"You would choose the easy way, mother." - -Mrs. Boucicault shot her a glance, which was not entirely free from -malice. - -"Hardly easy in this case. Think of the complications! Think of Rasaldu -going about like a comic thunder-storm! Think of our pet official snobs. -Oh, we shall live to see exciting times. More tea, Tristram?" - -He shook his head and placed a half-emptied cup on the table. -Throughout Mrs. Boucicault's garrulous chatter he had been watching her -narrowly and almost as though he were listening to something beneath her -words. Now he turned and met his wife's eyes with an unflinching -directness. It seemed to check an impulsive answer. She got up -sharply. - -"I'd better go and help the ayah unpack," she said. "I'll drive round -and see father tonight, mother. Let him know." - -"Of course, dear. He'll be so delighted. I'll go home now and leave -you two to settle down. Tell the syce to bring round the cart, will -you, Tristram?" - -On parting, she kissed them again with her new absent-minded -effusiveness and patted Anne's shoulder. "It's so nice to see you happy -at last, child. By the way, you've never asked after poor Owen--and -he's so devoted." - -A faint flush crept into Anne's cheeks. For an instant, at least, her -composure wavered. - -"I hadn't forgotten. How is he?" - -"Dreadfully disfigured, poor fellow--and his sight affected. But he -goes on with his work just the same--like a real martyr. It's such a -pity the natives don't appreciate it. They pretend he has the evil eye, -and run away from him. Terrible, isn't it?" - -"I shall have to look him up," Tristram observed. - -"Do--you're so clever." She took her place in the dog-cart with the -lightness and ease of a much younger woman. Then as the syce jerked the -reins, she bent down. "Tristram, will you be coming round, too, this -evening?" - -"Yes," he answered gravely. - -"Well--when you've seen Richard--will you have a talk with me--a -professional talk? I believe I'm getting an Indian liver, and the -natives seem to have such a holy terror of your concoctions that I'm -sure they're effective. Will you?" - -"Rather!" He laughed, though the blue eyes remained seriously intent. -"And I'll bring my deadliest blue pills with me," he promised. - -As the cart swung through the compound gates Mrs. Boucicault turned her -head and looked back. Tristram waved, but Anne gave no sign. Her face -was set and hard as Tristram turned to her. He slipped his arm with a -rather shy affection through hers. - -"Aren't you satisfied, dear?" - -She looked up at him smiling, but perfunctorily, as a grown-up smiles at -a child, concealing her real feeling. - -"Oh, so satisfied with you and the home, Tris. But I wish mother hadn't -welcomed us. She makes me sick to the heart the way she talks about -father. I don't want to hate her--and yet sometimes I can't help -myself. And I didn't want our first day here to be spoilt by hatred. -It's like a bad omen." - -He was silent for a moment. Had she been looking at him she might have -seen the faint change which passed over his features. It was a change -that had come to them more than once during these two months among the -hills--a kind of troubled perplexity--of uneasiness. - -"Anne, I'm not satisfied with your mother," he began suddenly. "I don't -like the look of her. I believe she's hiding something from us----" - -She interrupted him with an impatient, scornful gesture. - -"It's just her way. She's always imagining there's something the matter -with her. When father was almost dying, she worried the doctor about a -petty ailment of her own. I think she does it to cover the way she -behaves----" - -"Aren't you a wee bit hard on her?" - -"Hard? Tris, surely it's right to be hard sometimes? One can't be -lenient towards what's wrong. And it is wrong to be cruel, and our duty -is towards the sick and sorrowful, no matter what they've done. Don't -you think so?" - -"Yes," he answered thoughtfully. "Perhaps our only duty." - -She shook her head. - -"Our first duty is to God." Then, with a quick movement that was an -instant's reversion to her girlhood, she slipped her hand into his, -pressing it, and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Tris, that -sounded as though I were criticizing. I didn't mean it. You're so -good-natured and tender-hearted--perhaps too forgiving. But at the -bottom we think and feel the same about things, I know. Only you're too -good for me." - -"Don't let's talk about our respective goodness," he implored lightly. -"We shall quarrel. Let's go and prospect for your rose-garden instead." - -They went down the steps together, her hands linked over his arm, and -followed the path of sunlight through the wilderness of wild-growing -flowers and high luxuriant trees which Gaya perhaps deliberately had -left untouched. - -"We shall have to make it trim and neat," Anne said, sighing. "My roses -will never grow in all this shadow. Besides, it's so untidy. Those big -palms ought to be cut down, too, don't you think?" - -She always appealed to him differently, yet as though his agreement was -an assured thing. He looked up, catching a line of azure between the -foliage. It seemed to him that for an instant he breathed the scented -virgin air of the forests, that soon night would be creeping in -stealthily between the slender trunks of the trees and that he would lie -full length by the camp-fire and watch the distant beacons flame up in -the violet darkness. It was a picture flashed from his memory, perhaps -in contrast to those smooth, cool, civilized days among the hills. He -closed his eyes to it. - -"You must have things as you like them, dear," he said. "I want you to -have everything--everything that makes you happy." - -"Really? Do you mean it?" There was a breathless eagerness in her -voice, no mere acknowledgment. He paused an instant and looked down -into her earnest face. In a vague, instinctive way she had often -resented his eyes--or rather the something which their clouded -introspection held from her. Now she thrilled under them. They were -clear, intensely, fiercely living. - -"Yes, I do mean it," he said passionately. "Anne--if I thought you -happy, I should be content. If I knew of anything that would give you -only a moment's pleasure, I wouldn't rest till I brought it you. I want -you to be happy--more than I can say." - -She flushed girlishly. - -"Do you love me so much as all that, Tris?" - -"Isn't that proof?" he asked back. - -"You are very, very good to me." Still she held her ground, watching -him with her strange mingling of diffidence and conscious power. -"Tris--I do want something awfully--something that will make me -perfectly content----" - -He smiled. - -"Then it's yours, if a poor Major can squeeze it out of his official -fortune." - -"I want my father here--with us." She saw no change in him, and yet, -absorbed as she was in her own appeal, she felt the sudden check in his -breathing, the tightening of the muscles under her hand. She became -reasonlessly frightened. "Tris, is it too much to ask?" - -He turned and continued to walk on. - -"No--I meant what I said just now. Only--I don't understand, Anne--in -the old days--before the accident--you were so afraid of him. You -dreaded him--I think you hated him----" - -"Don't!" she interrupted. "You can't think how it hurts to be reminded -of all that. Yes, he frightened me. He made us all unhappy. Now he is -helpless--broken. Sometimes, looking back, it seems to me that we were -to blame--that perhaps mother was not the wife for him--that she didn't -understand----" - -He crushed back the exclamation that had risen to his lips. He dared -not admit even to himself that it had been one of bitter impatience. - -"That doesn't seem quite fair, Anne. He may have been ill, mad, if you -like. It's the best one can say." - -"He was considered a fine soldier," she returned, rather primly. "His -men worshipped him." - -"You live in the past, dear," he persisted. - -Something had risen between them, a pulsing, quick-breathing irritation. -She pressed his arm. - -"You don't understand," she said forgivingly. - -"No, perhaps not." They had reached the gates of the compound, and, -arrested by sounds whose thrill for ever outlives familiarity, they -stood still, their faces turned to the open high-road. Amidst the -rattle of drums, and the shrill call of the fifes, the regiment slogged -its way sullenly back to the barracks. The dust rose in silver columns -under the tramping feet. The red sun, lying already westwards, fell -aslant the dark, brooding faces and made a quivering stream of fire of -the fixed bayonets. The new Colonel rode at the head of the column, -chatting with his Adjutant. He had a resolute serenity about him, an -unimaginative contentment. Tristram, saluting, knew that for him there -was no significance in that fiery line winding its way up the hill in -black silence--no hint of the future. Only the common, daily routine. - -He heard Anne's voice at his side, broken and piteous. - -"Oh, if only father were there--at the head of his men--if we could only -bring him back----" - -"I can't do that," he answered gently. "If I could, I would. I never -realized how much you cared. It's taught me a lot about life--your -caring. But if you think he wishes it--he must come to us, whatever it -may cost." - -She smiled at him through her tears. - -"I know he would wish it. Mother is cruel to him--I know she feels -cruelly. He will be happy with us. He will get to understand that we -both care--oh, Tristram, I can't thank you enough. I promise you it -shan't trouble you." - -A scarcely perceptible line deepened about his fine mouth. - -"Don't promise rashly, dear. And remember, I said, whatever it -costs----" - -It became very still about them. The tramp of feet and the rattle of -drums grew muffled and rumbled into silence. They could see the column -wind its way up in and out of the broken avenue of trees like a -monstrous glittering serpent. The dust sank back peacefully in golden -particles, and with the deepening silence there came a sense of relief, -of healing. The vague spirit of irritation and opposition laid itself. - -Tristram drank in the silence. In that subconscious self where no -thought or desire is formulated, he prayed for its continuation. He -held himself motionless so that no movement of his should rouse his -companion from her seeming abstraction. For a moment, she had relaxed -her hold of him and he shrank back into himself, into a loneliness where -he seemed to draw breath, to lay down a burden which he never -acknowledged, and to stretch his cramped soul in exquisite relief. The -perfumed air, the golden lights and splendid purples of a brief twilight -penetrated below his senses, and with light, magic fingers opened the -closed doors behind which he had imprisoned all that the woman beside -him could not understand, all that was repugnant to her. They came out, -these ghostly figures of his fancy, and played before him. At first -they had been pale and wan, but as they drew in light and air, they -regained their youth and glowed with their old splendour. He watched -them, fascinated. His blood began to move more swiftly. A thought -shaped itself out of the depths--the thought of the nights and days out -there on the fringe of the jungle--of the work that would claim him -back--of life as it might still be to him. Service! that remained. - -He felt Anne's fingers tighten on his arm. - -"Look!" she said. - -The scorn and anger in her voice stung him. The lights grew suddenly -dim and the fancies faded. He looked the way she pointed, and his -pulses stood still. Two riders were coming slowly down the hill towards -them. Their white-clad figures shone ghostly in the shadow of the -trees. They came on, up to the gates. Tristram's pulses resumed their -beating, heavily, suffocatingly. His hand went up to his helmet, and -the fair-haired woman on the Arab bowed with grave indifference. The -man beside her smiled, showing his white teeth. Then it was over. He -heard the man's voice break on the silence--he was making some ironic -comment--and then the beat of horses' hoofs at a mad gallop. - -Anne's eyes were on his face. - -"Tris, how could you!" she said bitterly. - -He turned and looked at her. He felt stupid and heavy, as though some -one had struck him between the eyes; but even then he realized her -expression, the unbreakable will showing through the mask of her -femininity. - -"What should I have done?" he asked, and was conscious of a wry -amusement. Beneath the surface their wills grappled together. She was -so small, so strong. He would be so utterly beaten. - -"I don't know--You didn't even wait for her to bow. It's not for me to -dictate--surely it wasn't necessary to know her--she's outside the -pale--and that man--oh, it was sickening, horrible----!" - -Her voice quivered. He put his arm about her shoulders, - -"Did you want me to--to cut them?" he asked. - -"Why not? I think it would have been better to do what we must do right -from the beginning. We can't _know_ them, Tris." - -"I must," he responded deliberately. - -He felt her whole body stiffen. - -"Why?" Her voice was very low now, subdued so as to cover its real -timbre. "Why?" she repeated. - -"Because I have no reason not to," he returned. - -"A half-caste and an adventuress----" - -Something tortured and leashed within him leapt up flinging itself -savagely against his self-control. - -"What is an adventuress, Anne? A woman who ventures? What better thing -can any of us do?" He spoke half-jestingly, striving to ward off the -issue that was to arise between them; but there was no pity in the hard -eyes which she lifted for a moment to his face. - -"Are you going to be one of those who are prepared to sneer at our -morality--at the whole prestige of our race?" she asked. - -Even then he marvelled at her. She had been so young, so childish. She -challenged him now with a mature fixity of outlook and of character. -She might have been an old woman. And he knew that it was no sudden -development. It had been there always, a deep-rooted inheritance of her -kind. - -"I cannot be other than I am," he said steadily. "As to -prestige--doesn't it belong to our English greatness to shoulder our -responsibilities? We're responsible to a man like Barclay. He belongs -to us more than any man of our own blood. Don't you realize--he's our -fault--we've flung him into his position. We've made him what he is. -He had an English father--Anne, and he has a claim on me I cannot and -will not ignore." - -He saw the curl of her lips. It was an answer straight from those past -generations stronger than all reason. - -"We must stamp out our sins--not foster them. And that woman--do you -expect me to meet her--the Rajah's mistress--this man's bought -property----" - -"Anne!" A sick horror surged up within him--horror of his own -passionate anger--horror in some dim way mingled with a vicarious shame. -He turned away from her. But the instinctive chivalry which prompted -the action was unnecessary. She held her ground with the resolution of -justification. "Anne, you're speaking recklessly. I know that what you -say is not true. And even if it were--I can't judge other people--it's -not in me--I feel no right in me to judge. There's only one distinction -I can make between men and women--the happy and the unhappy, the blessed -and the cursed----" - -"The good and the evil," she interrupted stonily. "There is only one -morality, Tristram----" - -He drew himself to his full and splendid height. The red sunlight -glowed on his impassioned face, in his blazing eyes. For an instant he -forgot her--became free, breathing in the glory of his faith. - -"--That ye love one another," he exclaimed with happy triumph. Her eyes -sank. For that instant her instinct told her that she could not touch -him--that he had passed beyond her reach. But, behind their lids, her -eyes were bright with a bitter resentment. - -"Do you love Sigrid Fersen, Tris? People said you did----" - -He came slowly back--down to the level, arid country where he was to -live his life. He stared down into her white face. "Do you, Tris?" - -He caught her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him. Her eyes -were sullen and unhappy. Their unhappiness shattered his anger, -changing it to a burning remorse and pity. - -"You're my wife. There can be no other woman for me but you. That's my -little fragment of morality. Isn't that enough?" - -"You stand up for her----" she persisted, with a sudden break in her -hard voice. She put up her hands, clinging to him. "Oh, Tris, you make -me afraid----" she cried miserably. "I couldn't bear to lose you----" - -He held her with a desperate tenderness. He had groped his way to the -source of her outburst, and the dawning knowledge threw a pitiless light -into his own heart. All the antagonism had gone. In the moment's -revulsion he saw her as justified. - -"If it was because I loved her, I shouldn't fight for her," he said -hoarsely. "Don't you understand--it's not only her--it's Barclay, -too--it's everyone. I'd trample on every feeling I had for your -sake--but not on my religion--don't you understand?" He knew she could -not, that the word "religion" had rung like blasphemy in her ears. But -she leant against him, crying wearily like a tired child. - -"And this is our home-coming, Tris!" - -"It makes a mockery of all my promises!" he answered sadly. "What shall -I do to make you happy again, little Anne?" - -She bent and kissed his hand. "Oh, Tris, if we could only go away from -here--from Gaya--somewhere where we should get away from -everyone-everyone who makes me afraid--couldn't we? We could start -afresh with no one to come between us----?" - -It had grown very dark. Though she was watching him again, she could -not read his expression. And he was looking past her, straight into the -vision which she had called up before him. But it was a vision of all -that had been. He saw the old landmarks--the river and the long, broken -roads, the camping-place beneath the trees, the familiar faces whose -solemn trustfulness he had fought for with his best years, with all the -ardour of his youth. He saw the dreams he had dreamed--the hours tight -packed with action, with all the glory of battle and victory. And now -to begin again--to cut new paths through the waste tracts, to call up -fresh springs of faith and hope from desert ground. He felt himself -suddenly old and very tired. - -"It should be easy enough," he said gently. "I could get a new -district--I'm not popular and they've just left me here--but they'd do -that for me, I daresay. Yes, we will go away and start again, Anne." - -She was silent for a moment. She was breathing quietly and contentedly. -In a flash of knowledge which he despised and hated, he knew that they -had fought together and that she had won. - -"You're so good, Tris, so good to me. Sometimes we don't quite -understand each other. But we're husband and wife, and that's all that -really matters, isn't it?" - -He nodded. The tiredness stupefied him, bewildered him. He fancied he -saw something white glide in among the trees--a slender figure that -moved like a very spirit of Life. He fancied there was music in the -stillness--afar off, intoxicating. - -"All that matters, Anne----" - - - - - *CHAPTER III* - - *MRS. BOUCICAULT CALLS THE TUNE* - - -The male-nurse had put the carefully shaded lamp on the table behind the -bed and gone off to take an unobtrusive share in the festivities. -Colonel Armstrong had lent the regimental band for the occasion, and -what with the music and the superabundance of champagne and the -pliability of the native character, the male-nurse recognized golden -opportunities for a break in the tedium of his duties. Possibly he was -quite justified. It was a dull business nursing a patient who could not -even curse at you. Moreover, there was nothing to do. What could be -done for a log that lay day in, day out, staring sightlessly up at the -white ceiling, whose every desire, if desire still lived behind that -appalling silence, had to be guessed at? - -So the male-nurse threw a professional glance round the scene of his -activities, noted the perfection of orderliness, and went his way. - -Boucicault continued to stare upwards. The shadows were massed against -the ceiling like sultry, motionless clouds. They loomed over the -withering body stretched out beneath them in the rigidity of death, -their stifling intensity loaded with an overpowering perfume. There -were flowers everywhere--on the table, at the foot of the bed, on the -chest of drawers, on the shelves, lighting the room's barren simplicity -with fierce, burning colour. Their vividness seemed a part of the music -that came light-footed into the sombre hush--an echo of the murmuring -voices, the merry jangle of harness, the patter of naked feet, the clink -of glasses. The room was like a white-cliffed, deserted island in the -midst of a moonlit, tossing ocean of life. The wave slapped the walls, -and rolled back from them as from something alien and repellent. - -Or again, but for those eyes staring up at the ceiling, the place might -have been a death-chamber. There was the same orderliness, the same -white silence, the many flowers. And the long, shrivelled body outlined -on the bed was quieter than any living thing. - -A voice broke from the distant murmur and came nearer. It was a woman's -voice, rather strained and high-pitched. Something white and shimmering -fluttered against the darkness on the verandah. - -"I'm sure it's awfully nice of you, Tristram. He'll be so pleased. I -usually go in, but this evening I was too busy. Don't stay too -long----" - -The eyes distended and then closed. Perhaps the brain behind them -became conscious of a vital change in the stillness, for a moment later -they opened again and rested full and direct on the man standing at the -foot of the bed. They stared at each other dumbly. The eyes became -ironic and cruel in their knowledge of power. But, as the man moved and -came nearer, they followed him, showing the whites like those of a sick -animal. - -Tristram sat down on the edge of the bed. The light from behind the bed -drifted on to his face. He looked weary and composed, and there was no -trace of discomfort under that watching enmity. - -"I had to come, Boucicault," he said quietly. "It got on my nerves--the -thought of your being alone like this. You may not want to see me, but, -on the other hand, it may give you some satisfaction. I don't carry my -secret very well, do I?" He spoke without bitterness or sarcasm, and -the eyes gleamed. "And then there are things I have to talk to you -about," he added. - -The regimental band glided into a Viennese waltz, and the intoxicating -measure came swaying through the silence. The eyes winced, and then -steadied angrily, scornfully. Tristram stretched out his hand and -touched the coverlet. There was something groping and passionately -seeking in the movement--an articulate appeal. - -"Boucicault--it's rotten perhaps to come and preach--don't let it eat -into you--all this. Don't judge harshly. I'm not speaking of myself, -you know that. I'm thinking of your wife. You lie there dumb and -helpless--I don't know what's going on in your mind. I can't -understand. Well, it's like that with most of us. Words and actions -don't matter much. We just hide behind them. But if we could get down -to the motive of each other's cruelty, there would be neither hatred nor -condemnation--at the worst, pity." He was silent an instant, his strong -hands clasped between his knees. He had spoken sadly and with a certain -abstraction and unconsciousness of his hearer, which lent his appeal -force and took from it all hint of patronage and mockery. "I say all -this because you must think a great deal--lying there--a great deal of -the past. For your own peace, it would be better to judge gently a -woman you must have cared for. Sometimes, behind our worst frivolity, -there is a great bitterness----" - -The eyes sneered. Tristram met their ferocious gibe unflinchingly. - -"That is one thing I had to say. And then--there's Anne. When I asked -her to be my wife, I didn't know what you would feel about our marriage -and I didn't care very much. You had made her pretty wretched, and I -didn't consider at the time that what had happened between us made any -difference. You had been considerably less than a father to her--and -besides, you were knocked out. I understand Sir Gilbert treated you -like a brave man and was quite honest with you. He doesn't believe in -your recovery--nor do I--chiefly because I've done everything for you -that science can do--and failed." He paused again. His sentences had -been clipped and hard, the words almost brutal. But his attitude was -not that of a strong man talking down from the height of his strength -and well-being to a broken victim. The eyes under the straight fair -brows revealed pitilessly what lay behind the dogged jaw, the composed -and resolute exposition. There can be no sentimentality between -suffering and suffering, only equality. - -"But there was one thing I hadn't understood," he said, "and that was -Anne's love for you. Frankly, I thought she would be freer, happier -without you. But I was mistaken. It didn't matter that you'd made her -wretched. She only remembered that you were her father, the Bagh Sahib, -the fine soldier who had done great things. She cared intensely, and -all this--this sort of life smashed her up. If she ran away from it, it -was because she felt it as an insult to you--a deliberate cruelty. She -just ate her heart out about it. When I realized how matters were there -was only one thing on earth I wanted to do, and that was to come along -and give her every mortal thing I could to make her happy--you -included--everything she'd missed. It seemed to me pitiable to consider -your feelings or any conventional notions of--of propriety, as I suppose -you'd call it. She needed some one to look after her--some one who -cared. Well, I cared. Now that I have the right, I shall live for her -as far as one human being can live for another. It is my most -passionate hope to make her happy. I don't know whether I shall -succeed--that's another matter. I shall do my best." - -He got up and stood at his full height. The evening regimentals which -he wore did not become him. They looked indefinably grotesque on his -bigness--like a child's toy uniform on a grown man. The short Eton coat -exaggerated the breadth of his shoulders, the black trousers the -narrowness of his hips, the length of limb. The gold and red clashed -with his tawny hair and the rugged, weather-tanned features. He needed -a background of forest, of action, of stern living. His body needed the -freedom of rough clothing. - -"Anne wants you to live with us," he said. "That is what I have come to -tell you. If you both would be happier, I should be glad, too. There -is a great deal I might be able to do to make things more tolerable for -you--at least, I should try. I have given up my quarters at Heerut. It -is for you to decide." - -The eyes sparkled. It seemed to Tristram that they were blazing with -satiric laughter. He had a reasonless, overwhelming sense of near -disaster. "Give me some sign, Boucicault. If you consent, close your -eyes or----" - -Slowly, as if weighed down by disuse, the withered arm lying on the -sheet lifted itself from the elbow. It remained upright for an instant, -throwing a sinister shadow on the wall, seeming to point upwards with -menacing significance, then sank slowly to its place. The eyes were mad -with exultation. - -Tristram was back to the bedside at one stride. He laid his fingers on -the savagely beating pulse. With rapid, skilful movements, he began to -test the muscles and nerve of the now motionless arm. He was breathing -quickly. The weariness, the painful deliberation had gone from him. He -was himself again--the fighter on the vast field of suffering, the -physician glorying in the greatest of all triumphs. - -"By God, Boucicault, you don't know what that may mean! It's what we'd -hoped for. Look here--can you do it again?" - -The arm remained inert, the eyes were, momentarily veiled and -insignificant. "How long have you been able to do that?" He was still -busy with his examination and scarcely troubled about an answer. He had -plunged back into a world where there were no passions or conflicts, but -only huge immutable laws, no personal desires or unreal dreams, but only -facts, unending chains of cause and effect, a thousand paths converging -on one great end. It was not till he had made every experiment complete -that he remembered. He looked up. The eyes were turned into their -corners, resting on his face. Their exaggerated expanse of white gave -them a look like that of a vicious dog. They did not move save when -Tristram lifted himself slowly from his half-kneeling position, and then -they followed him with a malicious fixity. The rest of the face was -dead--a crumbling mask--but the life in those eyes was inextinguishable, -titanic in its will to continuation. - -He had to escape from them. He went over to the wide-open balcony and -stood there with his back turned, staring out into the darkness. For a -moment, his brain refused to face this reckoning with the future. He -listened to the music which poured through the scented stillness like -the drowsy, delicious murmur of running water. A man and a woman came -down the pathway which led from the front of the bungalow. He could -hear their voices--the man's deep-pitched and earnest, the woman's -silvery and ironic. The light from a Chinese lantern shining softly -among the branches drew a subdued gleam from the gold on the man's -collar, from the woman's white, uncovered shoulders. Suddenly the man -bent down, and they stood together through a tense, suffocating moment -of silence. Then the woman spoke again--breathlessly, the ironic -lightness gone. - -Tristram drew back. He felt as though he had been drawn out into the -night's delirious sweetness; as though in defiance of that silent, -menacing figure his pulses had leapt forward, his blood had clamoured -for the fulfilment of its elemental demand on all this wealth of living. -He was young still--young in his purity of feeling--young in the -unsatisfied forces of desire. Youth flung itself on him with its -imperative behests--now when he reeled under the knowledge of its -passing. For it was over. He reasoned clearly enough through this -storm of primitive emotion. Boucicault would live. He might come back -into life--he, Tristram, would bring him back to life. It was the task -which his creed set him--not the creed of his profession but the deeper, -sterner creed of his blood. - -And what if his blood lied, what if his creed were a mad, senseless -paradox? Was not the happiness of the majority the only good, its -preservation the only morality? This man had set himself against the -law. In a ghostly, tragic procession, those whom he had hunted out of -their rightful heritage passed before Tristram's memory--young officers, -those six men in the full glory of manhood standing in the barrack yard, -their backs to the wall, their faces to their brothers, and the death -which was to be dealt out to them; Eleanor Boucicault grey-cheeked and -wild-eyed pursuing the phantom promises of life; Anne, cowed and broken, -haunted now by a remorseful treacherous memory; a death-stricken little -mongrel dog, most harmless, most pitiable of all, with glazed eyes, -seeking to understand the black mystery of human cruelty. - -Tristram put his hand to the stiff military collar as though it choked -him. The foundations on which he had built his life were crumbling -under his feet. Was he to give this criminal mind the power to act, to -drag his escaped and maimed victims back into the net of his authority, -to add others to that pitiable procession? Tristram recognized the -issues with an appalling clearness. His trained intellect grappled with -them with the same stern impartiality of judgment as he would have used -in tracking the source of a disease. With regard to himself, he -discarded all false sentiment. As men judge, the blow he had struck had -been unfortunate but just. Was he to heap an outrageous punishment upon -himself, upon Anne, upon an old woman who had known no happiness save -her joy in him? Would it not be a strong and logical following out of -his sincere belief if he made no effort to fan this evil flame to life? - -As yet he was not conscious of any direct temptation. He was only facing -the issues--weighing one life against another, as it had happened a -hundred times in his professional career. - -He turned slowly and came back into the room. The eyes followed him, -but their malicious knowledge no longer reached him. The fight was not -now between himself and this man, but between two fundamental and -opposite conceptions of life. There was a little table at the foot of -the bed, crowded with the paraphernalia of sickness. He stopped before -it, because its interest offered a fresh delay, and idly picked up one -of the glass-stoppered bottles. He opened it and smelt its contents. -The faint, sickly perfume flashed its significance to his brain. - -Men were given the power to kill---- - -He looked up. The eyes burning in that white mask were on his hands. -Their expression had changed--had become more horrible. It was the very -spirit of fear and triumphant evil. - -Tristram put the bottle back in its place. He came and stood by the -bed. - -"I don't want you to hope too much, Boucicault," he said, coolly and -professionally. "In the best of cases, it will be a long job. I shall -come tomorrow and go over you again and see what's to be done. If Sir -Gilbert is still in the land, we'll have him over. And you must do all -you can to help us. As to me--I quite realize I have landed myself in -an impasse from which there is no possible escape. I don't know what -Anne will feel or think. But she'll be so thankful to get you back, the -cost won't matter. At any rate, I shall not speak of all this again to -you. My business with you is to give you back to life. The afterwards -is my concern. Good night, Boucicault." - -As he had spoken, his eyes on the mask of bitterness and hatred, -something rushed over him. It was like the melting of a frozen stream -under the first warm sunshine. It seemed to him that he had looked -straight down through those eyes into the very heart of human misery, -and had understood. He remembered his own words: "There is only one -distinction between men--the unhappy and the happy, the cursed and the -blessed." They blazed now with a real significance. Men were -pitchforked into this world with distorted bodies or distorted -souls--what did it matter which? They deserved neither hatred nor -condemnation--they were the awful mystery of humanity, the visible -symbol of the curse under which humanity totters. "Here, but for a wild -incalculable chance, go I, Tristram." - -He bent down and laid his hand on Boucicault's arm. He did not stop to -think whether or not his touch might be repugnant to the other man. He -acted out of an imperative instinct. - -"You mustn't worry," he said gently, and almost gaily. "You'll live to -do for me yet, Boucicault! Good night again." - -The eyes closed as though they had burnt themselves out. Tristram moved -quietly to the verandah. He had a sudden sense of freedom, of physical -relief, which was like an awakening from a suffocating nightmare. He -went down the steps into the garden. It was then, as he stood there -listening to the music and the distant voices, that he saw Sigrid Fersen -come towards him. His eyes could not have recognized her face, for it -was dark and she was moving quickly, like a pale mysterious light, -through the shadow of the trees. But he knew her. Was it her step--the -lithe, familiar motion of her body--or something deep-hidden within -himself which irresistibly went out to her? He could not have told. He -waited for her. She came on unseeingly to the edge of the faint -reflection from Boucicault's room, and then stood still, staring at him. -Her small, white face had an aghast look. He tried to speak to her and -could not. His throat hurt him. - -He knew now that he had never known her, never, even in his dreams of -her, realized her potentialities. He knew that she had deliberately -thrown down her weapons to meet him in the stern simplicity of his life. -She had been too proud, too self-assured perhaps to fear to show herself -to him physically at her least. Now he saw her at her highest--the -priceless, polished stone in a rare and exquisite setting. - -A languorous breath of night-wind ruffled the smooth gold of her hair -and lifted the flimsy scarf from her shoulders. It fluttered out behind -her like a pale mist. He saw the single string of pearls at her neck. -He fancied he could see the passionate life beating beneath them. And -through all her brilliancy, her burning vitality, there was a strain of -quaint Victorianism, a demure elfishness--like the inter-weaving of a -minuet with the riot of a bacchanal. - -He could not have spoken to her, and at last a smile dawned at the -corners of her mouth. He knew that she had been afraid, and it flashed -upon him that in the bitterest moment she would retain her humour, her -zest of life. - -"You quite frightened me, Major Tristram," she said. "I have never seen -you in uniform before." - -"Does it become me?" he heard himself ask back. - -"No. You look as though you were rather stifled by so much -magnificence. And you've never seen me in full gala either, have you?" - -"No." - -"It suits me, doesn't it? That's the difference between us. I'm in my -natural element. Will you take me back, Major Tristram? I came out for -a breath of fresh air and to escape Mrs. Boucicault. Mrs. Boucicault -asked me to dance. I think she fancied it would be a good method of -rehabilitating me in the eyes of outraged Gaya. But I didn't want to. -What's the use of marrying if you have to go on working for your -living?" - -He walked silently beside her. He did not know this woman with the hard -voice--he felt that she did not want him to know her. Her hand rested -lightly on his arm. He looked at it. It was like alabaster on the red -sleeve. "We're going to be married shortly," she went on. "Mr. Meredith -is trying to refuse his services. He doesn't approve. He wants us to -leave Gaya. It's so absurdly Christian, isn't it? My husband's -business will be in Gaya and I like the place----" They had turned the -curve of the path and came within sight of the softly-lit garden. They -could see shadows of the dancers gliding through Mrs. Boucicault's rooms -to the rhythm of the latest American distortion. Little groups had -gathered round the tables on the verandah and there was much laughter -and the subdued clinking of glasses. The Chinese lanterns shone like -bright warm eyes amid the trees. - -Sigrid stood still an instant. He heard her draw a deep, unsteady -breath. "How gay it all is--fairy-like! One can scarcely believe that -there is such a thing as reality. Perhaps there isn't. Mrs. Boucicault -is a daring hostess. It requires nerve to dance with a dead husband in -the house." - -It occurred to him then to tell her what he had just discovered. He -held back. He was afraid of troubling the surface of their -relationship. They did not know one another. The man and woman who had -faced each other that night in Heerut belonged to a different life. -They were shadows--or had become shadows. - -"By the way, Major Tristram, what has happened to the Wickie Memorial? -Is he still among the living?" - -"He lives and rejoices in the name of Richard," he answered lightly. - -"Do you sometimes let him out of the compound?" she asked. - -He did not answer her at once. Her voice had sounded casual enough, and -yet he knew that there had been something deliberate in her words--a -deliberate desire to hurt, to thrust down through his seeming -tranquillity to a raw and open wound. - -"How did you know?" he asked curtly. - -"I don't know--I guessed." - -"My wife doesn't like animals about the place," he said steadily. "I do -what I can for the little chap. You see, in Heerut it was -different--and I don't live at Heerut now." - -"Of course not. You have become so civilized." They had reached the -verandah steps and she turned to him with a laugh. "So civilized. The -old landmarks have gone--the beard, the disreputable clothes, the -wild-man-o'-the-wood's hair--and heaven knows what else! Is there -anything left of the Dakktar Sahib, or is he smothered under the -respectability of Major Tristram?" Her eyes ran over him--mockingly. -He raised his right hand--he could not have told why. It was at once a -movement of pain and self-defence. Then he saw that her eyes were on -his wrist. "I'm sorry----" she said, gently. "I am intolerable. There -are things one must believe in or perish--Forgive me. And, for a -wedding-present, will you give Richard back to me? I think he would be -happier." - -He nodded. He had the feeling that therewith something for which he had -fought had been finally surrendered. He followed her silently up the -steps. At the top they were met by Anne. She went up to her husband -and put her hand on his arm. She did not look at Sigrid, and the -deliberateness of her disregard betrayed how keenly she felt the other's -presence. Her obstinate mouth was compressed and unsmiling. - -"I have been wanting you, Tris," she said sharply. "Where have you -been?" - -"With your father," he answered. "I'm sorry. I did not know you were -looking for me." - -"You might have told me----" Her voice sounded pettish and breathless. -"I should have come with you. And you haven't danced with me once." - -He laughed. He felt rather than saw that Sigrid had turned away and -joined one of the parties of the verandah. He heard Radcliffe offer her -his place and the sulky deference in the boy's voice. It gave him a -sudden knowledge of the fight she was waging. - -"I can't dance--not even as well as a polar-bear," he said. "You've -married a loutish barbarian, Anne." - -"Your barbarism seems to appeal to some people," she flashed back. He -knew then that she had listened. But he could feel no resentment. She -looked ill and almost old. Her home-made evening dress did not become -her, and the Indian sun had begun to drain the colour from her cheeks. -As though remorse-stricken, she pressed his arm, looking up at him -pathetically. "Tris, I didn't mean to be cross and horrid. I wanted to -go home with you----" - -"Weren't you enjoying yourself?" he asked. - -"I couldn't--Tris, don't you see----?" - -He looked past her into the brightly-lit rooms where a few couples were -still dancing. He saw then what it was that had driven her out to seek -him. Mrs. Boucicault danced the tango with Barclay. They were both -conspicuous. Barclay was the only man in civilian dress, and, thanks to -Rasaldu's angry absence, his deeper isolation was made more manifest. -But he danced well--perhaps too well. Mrs. Boucicault gave a fierce -little laugh of pleasure as he guided her swiftly across the room. She -herself was an outrageous figure in her youthful, almost childish dress, -high at the neck and loaded with jewellery. Her fluffy grey hair looked -tossed and disordered, her cheeks were painted. But as she suddenly -broke off and came towards them leaning on Barclay's arm, Tristram saw -that there was nothing artificial in her shining eyes. - -"Now, what do you think of me, Tristram?" she exclaimed. "Isn't there -life in me yet? Don't you admire me?" - -He felt Anne shrink closer to him. He bowed gravely. - -"With all my heart," he answered. - -"Oh, it's been splendid! I've been chasing the years and catching them -up. Mr. Barclay dances so wonderfully, Anne: you should try your step -with his----" - -Barclay made a little movement forward. He only glanced at Anne. His -eyes fixed themselves on Tristram's face. - -"I haven't the pleasure," he said, in his soft mincing way. "Perhaps -you'd introduce me to your wife, Tristram----" - -"I don't care whom I dance with as long as our steps match," Mrs. -Boucicault continued, with reckless ecstasy. - -There was a moment's silence. Barclay had heard. His eyes narrowed a -little and his nostrils dilated with his quick breathing. Tristram -turned to Anne. She stared straight up at him. Her face was sallow and -pinched-looking. - -"Will you please take me home, Tris?" - -She slipped her arm through his and turned to go. Barclay held his -ground. His lips were trembling. The little vein of success that he -had had with Mrs. Boucicault had intoxicated him, but many things had -happened that evening. It was as Mrs. Bosanquet had said--Gaya was -fighting to the last ditch. - -"I don't think Mrs. Tristram understands," he said huskily. "We're sort -of relations, aren't we? Won't you do the brotherly, Tristram?" - -He had not meant to say it. It was the look on Anne's face which had -goaded him--the hundred petty pin-pricks which he had endured patiently, -the sudden realization of the impossible gulf between him and the tall -standing uniformed figure before him. - -Anne gave a little laugh. It was tremulous and disgusted. - -"I really think we'd better go, Tris." - -"I'm not drunk," Barclay said. "It's true. You'd better ask him. -Captain Tristram was my father right enough----" He swung round. "Why -don't you own up to it, damn you----?" he burst out. - -The little group nearest him turned to look at him. He was only -conscious of Tristram and Sigrid. The latter had half-risen from her -place. He saw her face as a white blank. Some one came and touched him -on the arm. That was what he wanted--to come to grips with them, to -choke them with some of the humiliation that was like dry dust in his -throat. - -"Look here, Barclay----" - -"It's perfectly true," Tristram said suddenly. "Mr. Barclay is my -half-brother. I understood that he did not wish it known--or I should -have acknowledged the relationship before. I do so now." - -There was a silence. He had spoken simply and very naturally. It was -as though a bomb had been thrown into the room and he had picked it up -and proved it an empty shell. Still more, it was as though a child had -burst out with some weighty, wonderful secret and had been met by cool, -indifferent laughter. The whole situation seemed to have lost -point--become tiresome and ridiculous. The man who had interfered drew -back, muttering an apology. Mrs. Boucicault laughed. - -"How silly it all is!" she said, half to herself. "What does it -matter?" - -But Barclay turned and crossed the crowded verandah and stumbled down -the steps. Afterwards he ran like a madman. He had not seen Tristram's -detaining hand. He thought he heard some one laugh, and the sound was -like the cut of a whip on an open sore. He ran till his breath jarred -from him in aching sobs. He ran till the last light had vanished among -the trees, till there was no sound but his own tortured breathing. Then -he stood still swaying on his feet, his hands pressed to his wet face. - -He remained thus many minutes. Then he walked on. He was hatless and -coatless. As he turned into the gates of his own compound, a light fell -on his face and it showed piteously wild and stupid-looking, like that -of a hunted animal. - -Something moved in the shadow of a tree and came out and stood in his -path. Barclay jerked to a standstill. He passed his hand over his eyes. - -"Who the devil are you?" he muttered. - -"Ayeshi. I've been here waiting for you." - -Barclay gave a little unsteady laugh. - -"I don't know you. You're not Ayeshi. Ayeshi's gone to the devil. -You'd better clear out----" Then he was silent, staring at the face -which turned itself deliberately to the light. "Good God!" he muttered. - -"Vahana sent me to you. I've not tasted food for a week. I didn't dare -go to the villages. They're still hunting for me. Are you going to -give me up?" - -"Where have you been?" - -"Calcutta." - -"What did you do there?" - -"I learnt things." - -"What things?" - -"I learnt that I had been a fool. Hatred, too----" - -"You mixed with the students?" - -"Yes." - -"What else----?" - -"I know who I am." - -Both had spoken in English, and each accent had its own quality. -Barclay peered into Ayeshi's face. He was breathing, quickly, with a -smothered excitement. - -"You're ill, aren't you?" - -"I am dying." - -"What do you want to do?" - -"I don't know yet. Are you going to give me up?" - -Barclay looked back over his shoulder into the darkness. He was -shivering. - -"No," he said. "I'll not give you up--not to them." - -He made a sign, and they went up towards the bungalow, keeping to the -shadow of the trees. - - - - - *CHAPTER IV* - - *ANNE MAKES A DISCOVERY* - - -Anne had given a little tea-party. A tea-party was a favourite function -of hers. Mrs. Bosanquet, fond of developing her ideas, set it down to a -tendency inherited from the suburban days when Anne had played hymns on -a pianola. Anne liked tea-parties because they were inexpensive, and -sober. She liked to be quiet and to talk gently and seriously. Gaya -had other ideas of amusement, but came nevertheless and sat on the cool -verandah and talked gently and seriously, till there was no character in -the station that was not in ribbons. And this was not because they were -venomous, but because they were bored and their Anglo-Saxon bodies -yearned for violent exercise. - -A week before, Tristram had set out for a brief round of the nearest -villages, and the tea-party was a method of filling in a few hours of -his absence. Anne detested his absences, and gradually he had reduced -the camping-out days to the least possible number. She had never -pleaded with him. Her pressure had been almost imperceptible but -persistent. - -Gaya had accepted her invitation to the last available man. They had -had a vague idea that they were thereby "backing up" the poor old -Hermit, whom they vaguely pitied. Only two people in Gaya had been -ignored, and it was on their account that Mrs. Bosanquet and the two -Comptons lingered after the rest of the company had excused itself -homewards. Mrs. Bosanquet sat on one side of the prim, muslin-frocked -figure and Mary Compton on the other. Archibald Compton took up his -place on the verandah step and smoked innumerable cigarettes. Knowing -the probable trend of events, he felt wretchedly uncomfortable. - -Anne chatted about her servants. She did not quite approve of Mrs. -Bosanquet, who was too irresponsible for her size and years. On the -other hand, she was the Judge's wife, and what she did not know about -native cooks was not worth knowing. So Anne related her woes, and in -the very midst of them Mrs. Bosanquet blundered in with her attack, for -all the world like a squadron of cavalry through a picnic. - -"You know, Anne, you're not playing the game," she said. "That's my -feeling about it. You're setting a bad example. We can't go on like -this. It's our duty to hang together--not to build nasty little -coteries and cliques. We're not living in London, where there's plenty -of room for everybody's morals. We've got to put up with each other and -pretend we like it. I do my share, you must do yours----" - -Mrs. Compton nodded decided agreement. Her husband hunted for his -cigarette-case. - -"Them's my sentiments," he declared vulgarly. - -Anne had started a little. Now she looked from one to the other and -finally at the unhappy Archibald. Her lips curled. - -"Of course, I know whom you mean," she said; "but I didn't think you -would take that point of view, Captain Compton. I thought men were so -strict about that sort of thing." - -"What sort of thing?" Mrs. Compton asked, elbowing her husband from the -field of discussion, where he was not likely to distinguish himself. - -Anne's smile persisted. She was not in the least angry, though the -war-signals had been in the other's eyes from the outset. She was -prepared to discuss the question reasonably and gently. She felt a -queer, suppressed little exultation throbbing beneath her -reasonableness. - -"Colour," she said. - -Both Compton and Mrs. Bosanquet grimaced involuntarily. But Mary Compton -was too accustomed to her advanced position to feel any particular -smart. - -"You mean, because Mr. Barclay has native blood?" she asked. "It's -ridiculous. Of course, we none of us like it. We don't even like him. -But he's going to marry one of us----" - -"Not one of us," Anne interposed with a quick, upward flash of the grave -eyes. - -"One of our blood," Mary Compton persisted. "And--and, speaking for -Archie and myself--one of our friends. We can't have them ostracized by -half the station like this. The scene the other evening was intolerable, -and it would never have taken place if you had behaved reasonably. You -don't involve your heavenly salvation by bowing to a man." - -Her fiery temper, which had been severely tested during the last week, -had taken the bit between its teeth during her expostulation, and the -knowledge that she was now at a disadvantage did not help her to recover -it. Anne's mouth hardened. The memory of that scene still rankled. - -"One has to draw the line somewhere," she said. - -"I daresay. Still, it would have been wiser not to have drawn the line -at one's husband's brother." - -"He is not Tristram's brother." Her voice quivered, and Mary Compton -had the satisfaction of seeing the tears rise to the brown eyes. -"They're no relation--no legal relation. These dreadful things -happen--but one doesn't acknowledge them or talk about them. It was -absurd and unkind of Tris to have behaved as he did. He has such -ridiculous notions. Anyhow, just because it's true, it's all the more -impossible for us to have anything to do with him--or his wife. Surely -you can see that, Mary." She paused, and then added: "Everyone else -does, you know." - -It was true. Mary Compton acknowledged it to herself with an angry, -sinking heart. Sigrid had not been strong enough--not strong enough, -certainly, to balance the consternation, the uneasy sense of insulted -tradition which had punished Barclay's outburst. Mary Compton looked -gloomily at Tristram's wife, and wondered if it was only a sense of -outraged propriety which gave her naturally girlish face that expression -of old and set resolution. - -Archibald Compton created a merciful diversion. - -"It's a rotten business," he said, in his drawling way; "and I can tell -you one thing--it's not going to be settled quite so easily as some of -you people think. Barclay isn't just an ordinary, feckless Eurasian. -He's not going to be snubbed for nothing. He's got Tristram blood in -him. I believe he's got a touch of the devil, too--which Tristram senior -may or may not have had--and a lot of dangerous explosive stuff in his -head which might go off any minute. We've seen that. And I'll tell you -something more--some natives are jolly touchy about that sort of thing. -I've no doubt Tristram senior got the knife for his little escapade, and -a grudge dies hard. Besides, this fellow has an awful hold over the -natives. They've pretty well mortgaged their souls to him. He can make -himself jolly awkward if he chooses." It was the longest, most dogmatic -utterance Compton had ever been guilty of, and he got up and groped for -his helmet on the chair behind him. "I guess we'd better be clearing, -old lady," he said awkwardly. - -His wife forgot to reprove him. She felt a glow of passionate affection -mingle with her general indignation. - -"I'm sure we deserve whatever happens to us," she said. "We're the -pettiest, meanest lot of God-forsaken, benighted idiots that ever made -the word 'humanity' ridiculous. Anyhow, I shall do what I can. You can -all come to our dinner or you can stay away. I've asked Sigrid and Mr. -Barclay, and they've accepted. It's in their honour. So now you know." - -She looked at Mrs. Bosanquet, and the latter lady got up with a fat sigh -of resignation. - -"Oh, I suppose I shall come," she said, "and George, of course. It -seems to be his luck, poor dear, always to be on the wrong side." - -Anne said good-bye to them with her composed little smile. It was -amazing how self-possessed, how deliberate she had become in those few -months of married life. It was as though her character had been kept -deliberately in flux until her mate had been chosen, and had then -settled into hard, predestined lines. After the routed deputation had -waved its farewell, she went back into the drawing-room and began to -rearrange her wedding presents for about the fourth time. They never -quite satisfied her. Gaya had divided its treasures in the true -Christian spirit. The family that had two silver candlesticks gave one, -and so on, and the result was distressing for any one with a sense of -symmetry. She sang softly to herself as she worked, and when she came -across the Dresden shepherdess she put it in a drawer and turned the key -on it with a quiet satisfaction. After that, she found an old -foul-smelling pipe hidden behind a vase. She smiled at it -affectionately, disapprovingly, as at a child's broken toy, and placed -it in the waste-paper basket. Then she rang the little silver-tongued -bell and a soft-footed servant slid into the room, and, in obedience to -her slight gesture, the waste-paper basket and its doomed contents -disappeared. - -It was at that moment that she noticed the shadow of a man on the -verandah. His back was to the light, and at the first glance she did -not recognize him. Nor did he make any movement to recall her memory. -He stood there looking at her. - -"Why--Owen!" she said. "Owen!" - -She ran to him with a joyful relaxation of her staidness, both hands -outstretched. He waited for her to come up to him. There was something -at once proud and humble in that deliberate waiting. He held his head -well up like a soldier, challenging nothing, fearing nothing. - -It was the first time that they had met since the day when he had seen -her off on her way to Trichy. Between then and now there had been the -Feast of Siva and her marriage. She looked up at him, her hands in his -quiet grasp. - -One side of his face had no resemblance to the other. It had been -smashed and mended into a grotesque hideousness--into a leering -distortion. The eye was completely closed. The whole face looked like -a divided mask--one half human, the other devilish. It was intensely, -cruelly pitiable. - -Anne neither winced nor changed colour. She looked up at him steadily. - -"Dear Owen!" she said. "Dear Owen!" - -The one half of his poor twisted mouth smiled. - -"I've been hesitating outside for about an hour--listening to your -voices. I didn't like to come in--I was afraid of startling you. I -suppose you knew--but one can talk about things one can't face." - -He lisped a little, but the lisp could not weaken his simple, -unconscious dignity. - -"You should have come before," she answered. "I have thought so much of -you." - -"I couldn't come. It took a long time to tinker me up, and then I tried -to go back to my work. It's been rather difficult. The poor beggars -think I've got the evil eye or something." - -She made him sit down in Tristram's long wicker chair and sent for fresh -tea. There was a gentle solicitude in all her movements that was very -touching. When she came near him to bring him his cup, he saw there -were tears on her lashes. - -"Anne--it's awfully sweet of you to be so sorry." - -She smiled at him with unsteady lips. - -"I don't think I am sorry. It isn't a matter to be sorry about--one can -only be very proud." - -A boyish flush crept into his cheek. - -"There's nothing to be proud of either. I thought perhaps you'd be -angry, as the others were." - -"Don't you know me better than that? Were the others angry?" - -"All of them, pretty well. They talked about the risk. Tristram said -I'd endangered their lives." - -She considered a moment. - -"It isn't like Tristram to be afraid," she said. - -"Not for himself. My word, no. He came into the thick of that scrum -like a lion. You know how big he is. He seemed to grow a lot bigger. -He fairly picked me up by the scruff of the neck and hauled me out over -their heads. How he managed, I don't know. It was a marvellously brave -thing to have done." He laughed. "I've had a kind of hero-worship for -him ever since," he added shyly. - -"You don't need to have. What you did was just as brave. It was -throwing yourself single-handed against all the forces of evil. I was -proud, Owen. It made me feel that some of us are still ready to prove -our faith at whatever cost. It was as though one of the old martyrs had -come back to shame our indifference, our wicked toleration. It gave me -new hope----" - -The colour glowed vividly in her cheeks. He glanced at her, and then -turned away again, revealing the distorted profile. There was a -moment's crowded silence. She could see his hands working nervously on -the arm of his chair. - -"I was awfully afraid," he said at last, and she knew by his voice that -he was living his bad hour of fear over again. "And yet I had to go on. -I had never understood how real the voice of God can be. It's easy -enough to keep up the ordinary jog-trot service until the summons comes -to you--then you must either obey or give up your mission. One can -deceive one's conscience--not God." - -"And God saved you," she said eagerly. - -She said it with her eyes set on his tortured face. He nodded, and -laughed whimsically. - -"And with a strange instrument--a man who cursed me in all the languages -for doing the devil's work." - -"Tristram, you mean?" There was no amusement in Anne's eyes, but a -shadow. "Poor Tristram, he just doesn't understand. He hates -sacrifice--I don't think he knows what it means. He wants people to be -healthy, and have plenty to eat, and lots of pleasure. He thinks that's -all that matters. He doesn't understand the significance of the Cross. -Perhaps he has been too happy." - -Meredith did not answer. He was thinking perplexedly of the man who had -lain stretched motionless across the portrait of an unknown woman. It -was a glimpse of memory which never wholly faded. It blurred his -conception of Tristram's happiness. Then he looked at the woman -opposite him and forgot. He saw her goodness, her purity, her -steadfastness of soul. He saw that she had developed. She had been a -girl, she was now a woman, strong and self-reliant. A thrill of sheer -adoration ran through his senses. She looked back at him steadily. With -a passionate thankfulness, he regained those moments of communion when -she had knelt before him at the altar and they had been one in worship -and understanding. - -"You are very happy, Anne?" he said gently. - -"Very happy." - -"I am glad. I wanted to see what a true marriage can mean----" He -hesitated. There was something that he had come to tell her. It -sickened him, and yet it pleased him, as he knew it would please her. -"Miss Fersen and Mr. Barclay were married this afternoon," he said. - -She looked up. The sun had gone down behind the high trees in the -compound, and the room was full of fast-deepening shadows. They were in -her eyes, and he could not read their expression. - -"You married them, Owen?" - -He heard the subdued reproach in her voice. - -"I couldn't help myself. What power had I to refuse? But I confess I -hated it. It seemed horrible to me--as though I had taken part in an -ugly farce. It was quite private--no one knew about it. The banns have -been up sometime." - -Her lips were set in a hard line. - -"Perhaps they were ashamed," she said. "I only hope they will leave -Gaya. It is terrible to have them here. I think she wanted to get hold -of Tristram. Wasn't she with him that day at Heerut?" - -She spoke carelessly. He wondered if she knew or only guessed. - -"Yes--she went out to see the festival." - -"She would like that kind of thing--she is that sort of woman." A spark -of passion flashed in her quiet voice. "I always distrusted her. Don't -you remember, Owen?" - -He nodded. He remembered everything that had ever passed between them. -He knew that he could not forget. He did not want to. He hugged his -sorrowful happiness close to him. He loved her intensely and purely. -He knew that no other human love could ever come into his life, and -there was no evil in the knowledge. - -It had grown so dark that their faces were white ghostly blanks. A -native servant brought in a lighted lamp and set it noiselessly at the -far end of the room. Meredith got up slowly. - -"I must be clearing," he said. "It's done me good to be with you. -You've always understood so wonderfully, Anne." - -"I wish I could help you," she answered. - -"You have helped me." - -Their hands met in a long clasp. - -Tristram rode up through the shaggy, unkempt avenue. It was still light -enough outside for his amazingness to be apparent to the two standing -together on the verandah. He wore his helmet at the back of his tawny, -unkempt hair. Three days' stubble was on his chin. He was collarless, -and his soiled shirt gaped at the neck. His long legs were out of the -stirrups, and dangled absurdly along Arabella's sides. Arabella had -grown, if anything, a little leaner and she exhibited her favourite -mannerism of trailing her nose when tired of things in general, and -camping-out in particular. They were a wonderful pair. - -Tristram sang as he rode. His soft, rather hoarse baritone struggled -with a translation of the melody that was running through his brain. It -failed, and he knew it, but he continued to sing. He had been three -days in the open--three days skirting the grey, sombre-flowing river, -ploughing through harsh jungle grass and following rough tracts through -forests where life lurked and rustled and fled with a hundred distinct, -familiar footfalls. For three nights he had camped under the stars. He -had seen the moon rise like a silver lamp held aloft by a giant peering -down on a sleeping, pigmy land. He had sat under the council-tree and -smoked his pipe and listened to the grumbles of the headman, the latest -scandal, and many an old legend. He had scolded and bullied and laughed -and triumphed. He had touched life again, and regained his grip and his -clear vision. - -He laughed as he swung himself out of his saddle. - -"You didn't expect me, did you?" he asked gaily. - -Anne ran down to meet him. She kissed at first rapturously and then -with a little shudder of irrepressible disgust. - -"Oh, Tris, a beard again! And you smell horrid--of horses and--and -natives and things--you look a perfect sight. What have you been -doing?" - -"Not washing, anyhow. You remember that bath I had just before I went? -Well, it was my last. Been too busy for such foibles of an effete -generation. Hullo, Meredith. Glad to see you. Not going, are you?" - -"I must; I've been here hours." - -"Anne was jolly glad of your company, I expect. I'm coming round some -day to give you the benefit of my medical genius. I believe I know more -about things than a lot of your high-brow Calcutta folk." - -"I don't fancy even you can do much," Meredith replied. "I'm a bad job. -But it's good of you all the same. Good night." - -"Good night." - -Anne would have watched till the white-clad figure had disappeared, but -Tristram put his arm about her and drew her into the room. He was -momentarily serious. - -"Poor old Meredith!" he muttered. "They have messed him up. It must be -almost unbearable." - -She drew herself gently away from him. The feel of his arm, with its -ripple of steel muscle, had been wont to thrill her. Tonight he jarred -on some raw susceptibility; his strength repelled rather than fascinated -her senses. - -"I don't think Owen feels about it like that," she said. "It's not awful -to him. He recognizes it as a cross which he is glad to bear." - -He shrugged his big shoulders with good-humoured impatience. - -"Why should one be glad to bear crosses? It's that sort of spirit which -makes crosses possible. Our business is to get rid of them--to blot out -the very memory of such a thing----" - -"A holy symbol!" she interjected eagerly. - -"I don't see anything holy in it. It's a symbol of man's cruelty to -man. If I believed in a devil, I should say he created it and put the -idea into our poor heads that it was a thing to be cherished." He -chuckled. "Well, I shall have a shot at lightening Meredith's cross -whether he likes it or not, though he doesn't deserve it----" - -"Why not?" she asked. He was moving about the room, evidently searching -for his lost pipe. She watched him coldly. She had been very happy -only a little time ago--very peaceful, very conscious of her own soul. -It was as though a dishevelled giant had burst into her world, pulling -it about her ears, trampling on her treasures. She loved him, but she -was not blind. She saw, almost for the first time, that he was vitally -of the earth. "Why not?" she repeated. - -"Because through him lives were lost and endangered." - -"Sigrid Fersen, for instance?" - -The little sneer did not reach him. Having failed in his search, he -produced a briar of disgraceful antiquity from the depths of a trouser -pocket. He began to fill it with a lover's tenderness. - -"Lots of decent fellows I knew were trampled to death on that particular -afternoon," he said simply. "Some of them had saved my life." - -"You saved Meredith," she put in loyally. She wanted to be just to -him--to admire him, to stifle that feeling of intolerant disgust. - -He laughed. - -"Why, yes, I suppose I did. It was an inspiration. I just shouted at -them that he had the sunstroke and didn't know what he was talking -about----" - -"Tris!" - -"It was the best way. I had to fight like mad as it was. I didn't want -to have to kill any of my people." He stretched himself out on the long -chair and held out his hand. "You don't mind if I rest a bit before I -wash up? I've been ten hours in the saddle. Don't be cross. Of course, -I didn't mean that about Meredith. He did what he thought was right, -and so it was right. I'd do anything I could for him." - -She gave him her hand and sat down on the edge of the chair beside him. -She had herself well under control now. She spoke gently and almost -affectionately. - -"You could help him if you wanted to, Tris." - -"Well, I do want to. Tell me how." - -She bent her head, stroking the brown hand on her knee. She did not know -that she was stroking it. The action was purely instinctive. - -"You could use your influence for him with the natives." - -His vivid blue eyes rested rather anxiously on her face. He sat up a -little and drew her restlessly caressing hand into a strong grip. - -"I couldn't do that, Anne." - -"Not even for me?" - -"I'd do most things for you--chuck my work even. But as long as it is my -work, I've got to do it as I think right." - -"Isn't it right to help people to be better and happier?" - -"Of course. Only it doesn't seem to me that smashing their faith is -going to help them." - -"We can give them a better faith----" - -He shook his head. - -"Not till we've lived it ourselves." - -She got up abruptly and moved away from him. She felt as though a chasm -had opened at her feet. Or had it always been there? Had she been -blinded by her girlish worship of his strength and almost feminine -gentleness? She did not know. She felt a physical nausea creep over -her. - -"You promised to make me happy. You don't when you talk like that." - -He thought a moment. - -"I do want to make you happy, Anne. It's not an exaggeration to say I'd -give my life for you. But--I was thinking it over whilst I was alone -out there--happiness isn't a thing you see in a shop window and buy for -a price. You have to have it in yourself if you're going to give it to -others. I shouldn't be happy if I pretended to be any one else but -myself. I should stifle and have no power to make you happy. I can't -humbug--I don't want you to, either. We've both got to be free, or it's -the end of everything." He waited a moment, watching her. "Anne, do -you know whom I've seen?" he asked, with a complete change of tone. - -"No." - -"Sir Gilbert Foster. I heard that he was tiger-hunting this way, and I -tracked him down. I wanted to see him and tell him about some -favourable symptoms I have noticed in your father's condition. Also I -wanted to make a suggestion. Well, he agrees with me. It means an -operation--a pretty dangerous one. I wanted him to perform it, but he -can't. He's got a Conference somewhere or other. He thinks I'm the man -to go ahead with it." - -She turned swiftly, suspiciously. She saw the flame under the fine -brows--perhaps glimpsed how deep and passionate was his desire for her -happiness, how eagerly he had planned this moment. She came back to him -and knelt down, her trembling hands on his shoulders. - -"Tris--does that mean--he might get well?" - -"He might. It's a fighting chance." - -"Oh, Tris--if it were only true----!" - -He smiled gravely down at her. - -"You'd pay any price for it to be true, Anne?" - -"Any price!" she answered joyfully. - -He put his arm round her. - -"We'll do our level best, dear." - -They remained silent for many minutes. She half crouched, half lay with -her head against his shoulder. Her antipathy had died down. He was -again the strong and perfect hero of her fancies. She loved him. The -arm curved about her shoulder was again a thrilling force. She looked -down tenderly at the slender, powerful wrist. Then she laughed. - -"Tris, why do you wear that silly, common bracelet? It's cheap, and so -unmanly." - -She felt his body grow suddenly tense. He answered without effort, -almost lightly. - -"It was a great gift--a gift of friendship." - -"From whom?" - -"A friend." - -She drew herself up. At no time was a sense of humour strong in her. -She resented his lightness. - -"You might tell me----" - -"I can't." - -"Is it a secret?" - -"I suppose so--yes." - -"Husband and wife ought not to have secrets from one another." - -He laughed. - -"Oughtn't they? Why not?" - -"They're one." - -His eyes darkened. He saw that the anger was mounting in her and strove -to silence it. But an immense weariness lamed him. All the life and -hope which he had gathered to himself out there on those wild fastnesses -died out of him. - -"They're not, Anne--heaven forbid. Because you and I are to live -together all our lives--because we care for each other, our -personalities don't cease to exist. We have both our secrets--our very -thoughts are secret. We can't help it. I'll wager you don't tell me -everything you think about me. Do you?" - -She got up slowly. She went and stood by the light, her head averted. -She was very truthful. She recognized the truth of what he had said. -She could not have told him then what she thought. - -"I daresay--you're right. It was silly of me." But an immense desire -possessed her--a primitive desire beyond her control and based on she -knew not what knowledge--the desire to hurt him. "By the way, Sigrid -Fersen was married this afternoon," she said. - -He did not answer for a moment. She heard him re-light his pipe. The -stem was evidently choked, for it drew badly and noisily. - -"Well, that was to be expected," he said. "My word--I am tired--just -dog-tired." - -She kept her eyes averted. She was stifled by an emotion that was half -shame, half anger. Presently the shame predominated. She turned to -him, a word of reluctant kindness ready on her lips. - -His head had fallen back among the cushions. His outstretched hand -still held the pipe, which had gone out again. She saw the great -muscles of his bare neck--of the half-exposed chest. His eyes were -closed and he breathed deeply and smoothly like a child. - -The pipe slipped from his hand and fell on the mat with a dull little -thud. She crept nearer and picked it up, her lips drawn together in -ungovernable disgust. - - - - - *CHAPTER V* - - *CRISIS* - - -The Comptons had rushed into debt with their eyes open and their teeth -clenched. More than one piece of valuable Sevres had vanished from -their collection and its place been filled by a judicious rearrangement -of the remaining gods. Colonel Armstrong never met the Captain without -dropping a hint as to the inexpediency of opposing oneself to the -feelings of a touch-and-go community like Gaya. The Comptons persisted -recklessly on their course. Archie Compton, no military genius, was a -fine soldier, prepared to fight to the last cartridge and go down with -his superior officer, colours flying. - -His superior officer in this particular affair was one Mary, his wife, -and the last cartridge was about to be fired at her command. - -It could not be said that she faced this last encounter with perfect -equanimity. Throughout the day she had felt her heart beat loudly and -heavily. At the approach of the fatal hour, woman-like, she had arrayed -herself in her very best, her courage trickling back to her in the -measure that she discovered herself still presentable. The look of awed -admiration which her husband threw her from time to time gave her -strength to meet the advance-guards of the enemy forces. - -Were they enemy forces or was it a capitulation? At any rate Gaya had -not turned its back, and that was something to be thankful for. Mrs. -Bosanquet, with George in tow, was the first to arrive--probably an -intentional move on the part of that good-natured and loyal soul. She -kissed Mary on both cheeks and squeezed her hand. - -"_Morituri te salutant_," she whispered. "My dear, you have done things -wonderfully. I had hardly recognized the place. What are you giving -them to drink?" - -"Champagne--the very best," Mary Compton replied grimly. "Twenty rupees -a bottle, and unlimited supplies. I've borrowed a cook from the Prevets -at Lucknow. He's supposed to be a wonder. We may pull it off." - -"We may," Mrs. Bosanquet agreed. "Gaya isn't an ass. It would be a -dull station without Sigrid, and it knows it. Unless anything unlucky -happens they'll give in gracefully--especially after dinner. But why on -earth did these two go and get married like that? It adds a kind of -scandal----" - -Mrs. Compton sighed. - -"That man wanted it. He was finding the half and half situation too -trying. They both wished it to be quiet--Sigrid especially. I think -she thought we'd rather be out of it----" - -"I don't wonder----" Mrs. Bosanquet began and checked herself. She was -in the unfortunate position of doing something whole-heartedly of which -she equally whole-heartedly disapproved. - -A fresh influx of guests sent her adrift. Everybody who had a right to -be considered in the first flight had been invited and had accepted. -They came in with more formality than was usual with them. It was as -though they recognized that the occasion was in the nature of -ceremony--a kind of symbolic festival. If they swallowed Mrs. Compton's -dinner it was only to be understood that they swallowed the Barclays -with it. Mrs. Compton's manner, if not her actual invitation, had made -that clear. - -Mrs. Compton heaved a sigh of relief when Colonel Armstrong and his -washed-out-looking wife made their appearance. He paid her a little -old-fashioned compliment, and she understood from his manner that he had -reached toleration, if not approval. Mrs. Boucicault swept both out of -her path. She was radiant. Even the painted cheeks and reckless -display of jewellery could not detract from the wonder of her vitality, -her irrepressible joy of life. It was as though all the winds of heaven -had blown in with her. - -"I passed the Barclays as I came along," she said. "Mr. Barclay has such -wonderful horses. He told me he has the finest polo ponies in India -just eating their heads off. Won't it be splendid if we win the cup? -Do look at Tristram, Mary! Doesn't he look odd in uniform? Anne, of -course, loves it. She would, wouldn't she? She made that dress of -hers. It's not economy. She has a sort of idea that it's wicked to be -beautiful. And Anne is so good." She gave a little malicious laugh. -"I don't know how she came to be my daughter." - -She rambled on erratically, but Mary Compton heard her only as a vague -murmur. That moment of which she had been so painfully conscious for -the last week had come. She drew her breath sharply between her teeth. -She had seen Sigrid--Sigrid and her husband. The little groups went on -talking, but there had been a general, involuntary movement. It was not -hostile. They turned towards her as they had always done, scarcely -knowing that they did so, drawn by the magnetism stronger than either -good-breeding or dislike. And tonight it was not easy to turn away. -There was something new about her--something more arresting than either -beauty or even the vivid life which had made her powerful amongst them. -They could not have defined it. She was not radiant, not triumphant, -not challenging. The gold hair was smoothed down on either side of the -small, erect head. Her face was colourless, the mouth composed, -unsmiling. The eyes were wide open and intensely bright. There was a -touch of gold on the white, full-skirted dress--on the slippers, on the -small, perfect feet. She was a study of a burning pallor--a white -flame. Barclay came behind her. He looked proportionately dark and -very handsome. The cut of his evening clothes proclaimed Bond Street. -He wore a red silk button in the lapel of his coat--an order given him -by King Leopold in recognition of short but effective service in the -unhappy Congo. He glanced about him with a sombre distrust. - -Gaya hesitated. Even a gathering of well-bred English men and women can -be swept by an invisible wave of panic, and Gaya was panic-stricken, -torn between a headstrong admiration and an instinctive, inherent -dislike. Moreover, it was not easy to take the initiative, and the most -seasoned among them wavered. - -But before Sigrid and her companion could reach their hostess Tristram -had left his wife's side and gone to meet her. - -"I wish my bracelet-sister all happiness," he said in a low tone. He -held her hand for an instant and then turned to Barclay and greeted him -frankly as though nothing had ever passed between them. But Barclay's -hand hung at his side. He bowed with an exaggeration that was a veiled -sneer. - -But the ice had been broken, if not dispersed. Others came forward, -murmuring incoherencies which, they thanked heaven, no one could wait to -disentangle. They tried earnestly, and they believed successfully, to -include Barclay in their welcome, and they would have been surprised to -learn that the most any of them accomplished was a sightless nod in his -direction. Perhaps, at the bottom, they were of opinion that their -resignation to his presence was enough. - -But it all looked well enough from a distance, and there was colour in -Mrs. Compton's cheeks as she kissed Sigrid. - -"We've won," she whispered. "You've won, dear." She gave Barclay her -hand with a little vacant smile. "You've got to take your wife in, Mr. -Barclay," she said. "You two are the guests of the evening, and must -lead the way. I'm sure we're all ready." - -Then another little rush of misery and panic swamped her. She had gone -over the points of precedence very carefully. It had seemed to her best -and most courageous to take the bull by the horns, to drive the nail -home with all her strength. The Barclays were not to slip in--they were -to be the people of the evening. Gaya had got to accept them -whole-heartedly and with its eyes open. Now she realized the -horribleness of theories when applied to human beings. She saw that she -had made a blunder and had set one person at least an almost intolerable -task. Sigrid laid her hand on her husband's arm. The entrance to the -dining-room was immediately opposite her--half a dozen yards away, Gaya -between. It was like running the gauntlet. An almost imperceptible -spasm passed over the dead-white face. For an instant Mary Compton -thought she faltered. Then the two incongruous figures made their way -slowly across the room. - -But Mrs. Compton had seen that scarcely perceptible change. She forgot -her guests. She stood there, lost in misery and helpless speculation. -For what was this intolerable price paid? Was this the splendour of -living for which a woman might sell herself? What silence could be -worth such galling humiliation? If Sigrid had committed a crime, surely -it was not in this way she would have chosen to escape? - -Then Mrs. Compton, finding herself on the verge of tears, became -exasperated and seized the arm of the man nearest her. - -"Please--please take me in," she said imperatively. - -He obeyed, perhaps aware of the nearness of disaster, and thereby the -order and decorum of the evening went to the winds. Gaya, however, -itself ill at ease, accepted the situation, and followed haphazard, the -two forsaken and ill-assorted partners joining forces in good-natured -resignation. - -Only Compton himself lingered. He had excused himself to Mrs. -Bosanquet, who had fallen to his lot, and whose understanding of the -situation was probably more poignant than his own. As a rule, he knew -what his wife let him know and saw what she pointed out to him, but not -much else. He had not the vaguest idea why she had, as he expressed it, -"stampeded," but he did realize, as a painstaking host, that one guest -had been forgotten--and that guest a personage who would be unlikely to -accept the oversight gracefully. - -Compton set himself to wait, therefore, with as much patience as he -could muster. - -It was not till ten minutes later that Rasaldu made his appearance. -Unpunctuality was with him a fetish. On this occasion his ordinary -habit had been exaggerated by circumstances which he explained -elaborately as he smoothed his sleek black hair before a glass. - -"Only got back this afternoon--marvellous fine shooting--two tigers and -a cheetah. I got the tigers myself--magnificent specimens. The biggest -made a devilish fine fight; if it hadn't been for my mahout I mightn't -be here now. Sorry to have kept you waiting." - -"Not a bit of it," Compton assured him in his languid, incoherent way. - -"Seems a special sort of affair. Anything up?" - -Compton stroked his little moustache. There were times when the Rajah's -Anglo-Saxon brevity jarred on him. Moreover, for other reasons, he felt -disinclined to be communicative. - -"No--nothing special," he said. - -"All right. I'm ready." - -For all his apparent good-humour, Rasaldu was in a sulky mood. The -tiger-hunt had been the expression of an incoherent rage and sense of -unforgivable humiliation which Gaya had found amusing and not at all -serious. But to Rasaldu the whole matter had been serious. He had -dispensed European hospitality the while retaining an entirely Oriental -mentality. Sigrid Fersen had been in part his guest. Her marriage was -therefore an insult and a gibe. She had made fun of him. In his own -language, "she had made a fool of him." And he was not given either to -forgetting or forgiving. - -And now a fresh slight had been put on him. They had gone in without -him. They had deprived him of that sense of grandiose arrival which was -the most pleasing part of any entertainment. It made him, at least for -a moment, the person of paramount importance. - -His round face was therefore creased with sulkiness as he reached his -place at the Comptons' table. Not even the beauty and promise of the -display soothed him. Mary Compton had borrowed and been within an ace -of stealing in order to produce a result which would soften the -bitterest opposition. But she had counted without the Oriental -character. Rasaldu merely bowed in her direction, then, before seating -himself, he looked round, making the most of his moment. - -Barclay sat immediately opposite him in the centre of the table, with -Sigrid on his right hand. Outwardly he had borne himself coolly enough, -accepting his conspicuous place of honour with an air of rather insolent -ease. But below the surface the whole man had been tense, agonized, -quivering with memories of past humiliations. In every glance, in every -word, he read the disparagement which his instinct knew was still in -arms against him. He had won. He could look down the length of the -table and tell himself that these people were here to meet him, to do -him honour. He could remember the hour when his hostess had left him -standing in the dust of her cart-wheels. He could look at Tristram and -recall that twilight scene by the temple. Best of all, there was the -woman beside him. He could turn to her white, quiet face with the memory -of a night when these two had watched him slink out before them like a -beaten dog. - -Yes, he had won. He had broken through the invisible barrier of their -caste. He had fought his way into their citadel, and yet----! It was -as though he had grasped at shadows and they had eluded him. He knew -that he had never been further from them--never more the stranger and -pariah. The English blood in him arose against him in triumph. It -showed him what otherwise might have remained hidden--what Rasaldu could -never have seen--the hearts of these people, their splendid isolation, -the impregnable aloofness, their blank denial of himself. As he sat -there listening to their quiet, self-certain intercourse, the bandages -which he had wrapped about his bleeding pride were ripped off and with -them every trace of healing. The sweat stood out on his dark forehead. -He hated them. He desired them. He wanted to spit in these serene, -immaculate faces. He would have grovelled to them for one word of -fellowship. He had as yet scarcely touched the wine before him, but his -blood was in an uproar, warring against itself. - -Then suddenly he looked up at Rasaldu across the table, staring at him. - -Perhaps that silent, deadly exchange lasted no more than a second or -two, yet the unbridled ferocity of it rested like a chilling hand on -those nearest and passed on down the table so that the last murmur sank -into an appalled quiet. Something tigerish had leapt up in the breasts -of both men. On the one side the Oriental, wounded in every -susceptibility, threw off the mask of English breeding; on the other, -the English blood, fevered by the maternal heritage, boiled under the -insult of those eyes, broke from its own frail bondage of self-control, -and by a mad paradox became native blood, native hatred. - -The seconds passed. Then Rasaldu, with an insolent little movement of -the shoulders, bent down to Colonel Armstrong on his right and spoke to -him in an undertone. The unhappy Colonel listened, tugging painfully at -his moustache. Mrs. Compton had half-risen, but Barclay forestalled -her. He got up, leaning across towards Rasaldu. - -"What's the matter with you?" he said. - -Rasaldu's thick lips curled. He looked at Sigrid with the bloodshot, -hating eyes of a thwarted animal. - -"I don't eat with half-castes," he said. - -Barclay seized his glass and threw the contents full into the Rajah's -distorted face. - -"You swineherd upstart!" he gasped thickly. Then, with a glance that -swept the table, he turned and strode out of the room. - -The silence continued. No uproar could have been more terrible than its -unendingness. The Rajah stood there quite still, his mouth open, the -wine trickling from his face on to the immaculate shirt-front--a -ridiculous, sinister figure. Mrs. Compton tried to master her voice, to -say something, but it was as though a gag stifled her. She saw Sigrid -get up--very slowly. - -She stood there looking round her--and then across at Tristram. He made -a movement as though he would have risen, but she lifted her hand -slightly, imperatively, and he sank back, not looking at her. Her lips -were a little parted with an odd, pathetic little smile. It seemed, as -she stood here, that she was trying, not to speak, but to grope her way -to some thought, to some answer. - -Nobody spoke to her or tried to stop her. But at that moment she -belonged to them, was one of them--for the last time. Sheer futility -lamed all movement, all expression of what they felt. It was as though -a frail, beautiful ship had broken from its moorings in a great tempest -and they stood there and watched it drift out seawards beyond the reach -of their voices, of their help or pity. - -Only Mrs. Bosanquet cried openly--the tears rolling down her fat cheeks. - -Sigrid went out through the silence. She found Barclay already in the -driving seat of his dog-cart and without a word clambered up beside him. -He glanced at her and brought the whip down savagely across the horse's -head. The animal did not need the blow. It felt the madness in the -man's hand and broke into a wild gallop. They swung through the -compound gates out on to the white moonlit road. For an instant they -seemed to hover in mid-air, and then, with a grinding jar, the off-wheel -came back on to the ground and they raced on, down through the black -belt of the palm-trees and out again into the silver road, pursued by -their own frantic shadows. - -Only once did Barclay speak, and then it was to himself between clenched -teeth: - -"Now I know," he whispered. "Now I can see clear." - -She did not answer. She sat very still, gazing steadily ahead into the -half-light which ran before them, and encircled them with odd, -treacherous shapes, so that now there seemed a barrier where there was -none, and now a clear road where suddenly it curved and dipped. He -drove well. Once the horse shied violently at an overhanging branch, -and with a turn of his wrist he brought the animal to a baulked, -fretting submission. Sigrid gave a short laugh, and he glanced sideways -at her. Perhaps in that moment a grim admiration one for the other rose -between them. At least neither had shown fear. - -A syce, drowsing on the steps of the old bungalow, ran out to meet them -and caught the restive, sweating animal by the head. Barclay threw him -an order in Hindustani and then, without a glance at his companion, led -the way to the room where the amazing Venus held her lamp. He crossed -straight over to the wide-open windows and pulled the curtains to. - -The door behind Sigrid closed softly. - -Still Barclay did not look at her. He opened a cigarette box with a -theatrical affectation of deliberation, but when he struck a match she -saw that his hand shook. The tiny flame near to his face betrayed new, -ugly lines cut deep about the mouth and nostrils. - -"I'll tell you something queer," he said, glancing up over the lighted -match. "Tristram Senior was murdered in this room--just here, where I'm -standing. There's a stain under the carpet. The place is supposed to -be haunted." - -She lifted her eyebrows. Her eyes were very steady and watchful. - -"Yes?" she queried. - -"He was murdered by my mother's husband. You see, he had betrayed her. -It was a sort of insult to my people." The match went out almost at his -finger-tips. He threw it away. "Strange how things happen, isn't it?" - -She made no answer. Her cloak had slipped from her bare shoulders and -she put her hand up and drew it back, holding it across her breast. He -began to move restlessly about the room. - -"And now Tristram Junior is in love with my wife." - -"You do not know----" - -"Oh, I know well enough, I've seen it. What was--is. I imagine a man -doesn't forget you for that puling little saint. How he must wince! Or -have you told him? Well, you'll have something else to tell -him--tomorrow." - -"We made a bargain," she said sharply. - -"A bargain! What have you done of your share?" - -"All that lay in my power." - -He gave a wretched laugh. - -"This evening, for instance? Well--it's finished, do you hear? I've -done with the whole thing. I gave them and you a last chance. Now I'm -going my own way--and you're my wife. I've got that right left." - -"You've no right but what I choose to give you." - -"You'll choose--you've got to--you're helpless." He paused, choking. -He threw the half-burnt cigarette on the floor and ground it under his -heel. "There's no one in this place that's going to bother about either -of us. Tristram won't play _deus ex machina_ this time--you and I--we're -going to have this out alone." - -He saw her glance towards the door. "It's locked. You can scream to -your heart's content. Your Smithy may hear, but she won't help. The -servants have their orders. Besides--what right has any one to -interfere. You're my wife. You swore before the altar----" He stopped -again. Like an animal lashing itself to fury, he strode towards her and -then turned and came back, his face swollen and quivering. His words -came in a broken torrent of passion. "There's--there's a sort of -compensation--in things--my mother's body was found out there in the -well--she was good enough for an hour's sport--a native--what did it -matter?--a sort of superior toy for an Englishman's pleasure-and the -result--a half-caste, a mincing, feckless muddle of two races--let him -rot in some stuffy Eurasian quarter and drink himself to death. If he -dares rise--if he dares come among us--if he dares aspire to one of our -blood--then spew upon him--roll him in the dust--kick him out--let him -feel the whip like the misbegotten hound he is. As to our -womankind--hands off, or heaven help him----" - -"I understand," she threw in breathlessly. "I am to be your revenge--on -them--on your brother----" - -He turned back to her, staring at her. Then he burst into a laugh. - -"Revenge? Oh, I don't know--nothing perhaps so--so high-flown as that. -After all--they'd hardly know, would they? It's--it's a sort of -instinct--to get level--in one way or another. Besides--I want you----" -He measured her with a savage deliberation. "My God--it's natural -enough." He was shaking from head to foot. Swift and soundless as a -flash of light she put the table between them and stood confronting him. -Her fair small head was thrown back, her mouth set in an unfaltering -line. "By all means--it's useless--I've the right and the might----" -Suddenly, like a tiger weary of toying with its victim, he flung himself -on the table, lifting it with both hands. Then, as he did so--he -stopped short--faltering. - -A full minute passed whilst they remained face to face, neither moving. -He drew himself slowly upright. - -"Well--why don't you do it?" he asked. - -"I don't want to--not unless I must." - -"It would be an expensive business." - -"I don't know. I've paid so much already--it might be better to go on -paying----" - -"To get what you set out to buy? You don't need to worry about that. I -may still keep my share of the bargain. I have other plans. So you had -the draw on me all the time? Who would have thought so gentle a bosom -could hide so much deadliness?" - -"I have always carried it," she answered simply. "It may seem -theatrical--but I realized--this might happen." - -He smiled ironically. - -"You are very cool--very brave, Sigrid. You--you inflame my admiration. -Won't you sit down? It is very early yet." - -"I would rather you unlocked the door. I am tired." - -"And sick with disgust? I can quite understand. You are white to the -backbone." His voice shook with an uncontrollable despair. "Still, I -warn you--if I open the door, I win. It is guarded. You see, I took -precautions--but I don't want that. I--I have that much English blood -in me--I'll fight fair." - -"Very well. If there is anything you have to say----" - -"Nothing--except perhaps that it is still early. I can display -patience. Won't you sit down?" - -"Since you wish it." - -He took his place opposite her, the table still between them. It was a -wide table and he could not have touched her. She rested her elbow on -the polished edge, the little toy-like weapon held lightly but firmly in -her lifted hand. He leant forward, his eyes on her, watchful, intent. -All passion, all desire had died out of them. They were hard and cold -with purpose. - -"You will tire," he said softly. - -"I am very strong." - -"_A l'outrance_, then?" - -She smiled faintly. - -"_A l'outrance_." - -But he had seen that flicker of amusement and winced under it. - -"You think I am as absurd--as--as--I am beastly?" he asked. - -"No--I couldn't think like that--at least, not at the bottom. I -understand too well." - -"You understand?" He stared at her hungrily. "What do you understand?" - -"That you would have been glad to have acted--and felt differently." - -He nodded. - -"I would have been their friend--a good friend. It's too late now." - -"Yes--too late. I can see that----" - -It grew still between them. Once he moved suddenly, testing her, but -her eyes and hand were unwavering, and he dropped back into his old -position. - -As the time passed blue shadows darkened her eyes and crept about her -mouth. She seemed to grow smaller and paler, and a kind of wonder came -into his patient watchfulness of her--an almost pitying admiration. - -"Spare yourself!" he whispered. - -She made no answer. - -The hours passed. The man and woman became grotesquely like wax figures -in their grey, pallid immobility. The lamplight began to fade. In the -dusk the empty face of the Venus looked ghostly and unreal. They could -hear a heavy bullock-wagon plough its way up the hill to the crack of -whips and native imprecations. - -Barclay rose slowly and stiffly to his feet. He went across to the -window and pulled the curtains aside, letting in a flood of golden -morning. - -"You've won--this time," he said. "You won hours ago." - -He did not look at her. He went down the verandah steps and did not -turn even though he heard the thud of the revolver as it slipped from -her unconscious hand. - - - - - *CHAPTER VI* - - *"OF YOUR BLOOD"* - - -Gaya awoke the next morning depressed and rather incredulous. The -daylight has a tendency to throw a chill interrogation at whatever the -previous night has held either of greatness, tragedy, or passion. The -blood cools to a little below the normal and the brain perceives things -in their flattest, dullest colours. Indeed, until lunch-time the human -constitution is too busy working up steam to produce emotion, or even to -acknowledge the possibility of anything vital save the getting of the -daily bread and the partaking thereof. So Gaya went lazily about its -business, deferring serious consideration to a convenient future, and -meantime vaguely aware of a foolish, unpleasant crack in the neat -surface of its daily life which somehow would have to be patched up. - -Barclay also went about his business. Beyond a certain sombre -abstraction his manner gave no hint of any change. In the early morning -a messenger mounted on his favourite Arab rode out on the Heerut road, -and in the afternoon Lalloo, suave and impassive, made his appearance in -a bullock-wagon which had performed a fifteen-mile journey over bad -roads in little over three hours. The two, Lalloo and his patron, sat -together in the very English library and talked subduedly until the -first breath of nightfall rustled among the trees of the garden. Then -Lalloo, as he had come, took his departure, nicely tingeing respect with -disparagement and disparagement with respect. - -Barclay himself did not set foot outside the bungalow. - -At dinner he sat opposite his wife and ate whatsoever the noiseless -servants placed before him. Contrary to his custom--for he had a morbid -respect for all appearances he did not attempt to keep up the small talk -which usually passed between them. He scarcely spoke to her, and only -once looked in her direction. - -Afterwards they stood for a moment together on the edge of the verandah, -looking out into the quiet darkness. Here, too, custom was broken. It -was the first time since their marriage that she had joined him after -their ceremonious meal. A memory shot like a light through his moody -silence. - -"Aren't you afraid?" he asked brutally. - -"No," she answered. There was no bravado--only a great physical -weariness in her low voice. "I want to know what is going to happen," -she said. - -"Nothing." - -"I thought--as I have failed so completely----" - -"--that you could clear out?" He smoked for a moment in sombre -consideration, then tossed his cigarette away from him. It glowed on -the pathway like a tiny, watchful eye. "Of course you're free," he said -finally. "I haven't any power to hold you. But if you go, then I shall -be free too. The last article of our agreement will have been annulled. -That's obvious, isn't it?" - -"Yes--if you hold to your agreement." - -"I shall." He gave a subdued laugh. "I am like Shylock, Sigrid. And -you are one of those good Christians trying to cheat and possibly -persecute their infidel creditor. What do you expect?" - -"Just that." She waited an instant and then he felt rather than heard -that she turned away from him. "That's all I wanted to ask you." - -"Well----? Have you decided?" - -"There was nothing to decide. I shall go on with it--whatever it is." - -He heard the curtains fall. Throughout he had not looked at her. It -was as though he withheld from her something which his eyes might have -betrayed. When all was still again he took a book haphazard from the -pompously crowded shelves and sat down beneath the light-bearing Venus -to read. He sat very still, his dark eyes resting intently on a spot -just above the page which was never turned. - -The gold-faced clock on the table chimed ten o'clock. The thin, dulcet -tones dropped into the quiet like pebbles into a still pool. They -seemed to arouse the man beneath the lamplight. He got up and pulled -the curtains across the windows. There was a door in the left-hand -wall. It led into a room in which he kept his papers, and no one -entered it but himself. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. - -"You are safe now," he said in the native tongue. - -Ayeshi came out slowly into the light. His eyes were dazed-looking, but -rest and food had restored something of their old fire, and that very -return of life accentuated the deeper change in him. It was not only -the lines which disease and want had chiselled among his features. The -one-time boyish beauty had been hardened and sharpened by something more -subtle than physical privation. His eyes, as they grew accustomed to -the light, were no longer clouded with mystic dreams, but were stern and -penetrating. His very bearing was profoundly different. His dignity had -been gracious and unconscious; it was now conscious and commanding. - -"You have done me great service," he said in an undertone. "I shall not -forget when the time comes for remembrance." - -"You are rested sufficiently to go on your way?" - -Ayeshi nodded. He glanced keenly into Barclay's impassive face. - -"You use our tongue to me?" - -Barclay shrugged his shoulders. - -"Is it not mine also?" - -A faint hauteur compressed the fine lips. He turned away and lifted the -edge of the curtain. - -"I give you great thanks, Barclay Sahib." - -"I ask no thanks of you, Ayeshi. You will find a horse at the gates. -But first, can there be no trust between us? Can you not tell me whither -you are going and to what end?" - -Ayeshi turned, measuring the other man with a grave, scornful -deliberation. - -"I have learnt to keep my counsel where there is English blood," he -said. He did not see the expression which passed like a withering flame -over his companion's features. He lifted his hand in salutation, and the -curtains fell noiselessly behind him. - -Barclay waited, motionless. His breathing was quick and shallow, his -whole body tense with pent-up excitement. As the muffled sound of hoofs -reached him he turned the light out and the next instant was running -towards the compound gates. - -A syce leading a horse by the bridle came out of the shadow. Without a -word Barclay caught the helmet and long cloak which was held out to him -and swung himself lightly into the saddle. - -"Which way?" - -"Towards Heerut, Sahib." - -"See that you remember my orders." - -"The Sahib shall be obeyed." - -Barclay's steel wrist brought his nervous, fidgeting animal to an -instant's complete quiet. He listened intently. He could still hear the -sound of hoofs, beating in the distance. He drove his heels into the -Arab's flanks and rode out into the stream of pale starlight which -flowed down towards the valley. - -He rode at a quick canter, dangerous enough on the steep gradation and -only justified by his knowledge of every curve in the narrowing roadway. -His riding had nothing of the recklessness with which he had driven the -night before. He held himself and his horse in the steel grip of a -definite purpose. - -At the bottom of the hill on which Gaya perched itself like a beautiful -white bird he drew rein and again listened. There was no moon; the -intense clarity of an Indian night covered the parched and gasping plain -with a seeming luminousness in which nothing was visible but -unrealities. Overhead the black burnished shield of the sky blazed with -its mysterious, unreadable devices. But for the monotonous rhythmic -thud dying in the distance the silence was absolute, painful, like the -suspended breathing of a fevered body. The river was voiceless. - -Barclay rode on. The road had narrowed to little more than a track -which the drought and the passing of heavy wagons to and fro to the new -bridge had made a trap of crumbling ruts and dust-covered holes. It was -five miles to the river, and nearly two hours had passed before the -rider caught the first murmur of water. It sounded faint and exhausted. -In the vague light the new bridge looked like some monstrous dragon, its -body spanning the half-empty river-bed, its thick-set limbs planted -stolidly in the sluggish water. It needed no more than a ceremony for -it to be complete. Yet Barclay turned up to the old bridge. In view of -its approaching demolition it had been neglected and part of the wooden -rail had been broken down, making the crossing at nightfall a matter of -some danger. - -Barclay chose it and rode across with slack rein. On the other side he -dismounted and tethered his horse and went on on foot through the -trackless jungle grass. - -When he stood still he could catch no sound, neither the thud of hoofs -nor the faintest movement. The high grass, as it yielded to his body, -rustled and cracked deafeningly in his ears. His own breathing sounded -like the loud panting of a hunted animal. - -The temple lay sullen and dark and silent in the black shadow of the -jungle. - -Barclay reached the gateway. The obscurity was here so dense that his -instinct alone guided him. He went forward deliberately, noisily, -sensing the hands that waited for him, the eyes that watched him. Then -he struck a light. - -The next instant that for which he waited came, and, though he had -waited for it, its swiftness and deadliness drove a scream from his -lips--a scream that was smothered to a choking groan almost at its -birth. He stumbled and fell, his hands twisted behind him, his -unprotected face grazing the stones. He felt hot breath on his neck, -the cut of a cord round his wrists. Gagged and helpless, he was jerked -back to his knees and a dark lantern flashed its eye on to his bleeding -face. - -Beyond the dazzling circle he could see forms no more than shadows -painted dimly against the dense blackness of the temple walls. Nearest -to the light, Vahana's wild, expressionless eyes glittered with the cold -lustre of a serpent's; but, as he grew accustomed to the light, Barclay -recognized other faces, two headmen from neighbouring villages, a -handful of priests wearing the Triple Cord on their shoulders, five -non-commissioned officers from the native regiment. They crowded round -him in a silent circle which contracted like a steel trap. But Barclay -seemed neither to fear nor heed them. He threw back his head and looked -up into Ayeshi's face. Then he drew himself together as a man does who -knows that life and death hover in the balance. - -"So you were a spy after all, Mr. Barclay?" Ayeshi said in English. - -"No, Rajah, your servant," was the swift answer. - -The fine nostrils distended with a deep-drawn breath. - -"Do you know who I am, then?" - -"I know that you are Ayeshi, the son of Ram Alla, who was deposed and -driven into exile by the English. I know that you were saved by a few -faithful who feared to breathe the secret even to you. I know that you -have borne willingly a stigma which is another's. I know that you have -starved and suffered and learned in the gutters of Calcutta that an -unworthy English Sahib should go unpunished." - -Ayeshi lifted his hand imperatively. - -"How have you learnt these things?" - -"I have ears in every village, Rajah." - -"Why did you follow me?" - -"I have a wish to serve you." - -"You are English----" - -"English!" Barclay laughed. "Yes, I have English blood in my veins. I -am the son of the old Tristram Sahib who seduced my mother and brought -about her death, who hunted down my brothers and our father's servants -and shot them from the cannon's mouth, who gave honourable life to -Tristram Sahib, the wealthy and happy and honoured, who gave life to me, -an outcaste----" - -"Yet a night ago you sat and ate with these, thy people----" - -"That also is true. I fought for their friendship, Rajah, I grovelled -for it. I schemed for it. I would have sold you and all these, my -brothers, if they would have made me one of them. But they would not. -They have chosen, not I. Last night, Rasaldu, the swineherd's son, -would not sit at table with me. That was the end." - -"You have an English wife." - -Barclay laughed again. - -"Who sold herself to me for a high price, who would rather die ten -deaths than be a wife to me, who loves Tristram Sahib----" He broke off -and jerked his head towards the intently watching Sadhu. "Vahana here -knows something of what I say. Let him testify for me." - -The shadowy, unreal circle of faces turned for an instant. Vahana bowed -his head in assent. - -"I have told you the truth," Barclay went on. "The best and the worst. -I have risked life to tell it you. I knew what might await me here--a -knife in the dark perhaps without a word spoken--and yet I had to come. -Life can be more bitter than death. A man cannot live alone as I have -done--there comes a time when his soul cries for his people." - -They looked at him silently, without pity. The agony in his hoarse -voice did not touch them. For them also he was the Pariah--the -outcaste. He read their answer in their eyes and turned back to Ayeshi -with a burst of passion. - -"Take me--claim me--make me one of you! I have power--I have money--I -can do for you what no other man could do. Either you must kill me or -make me one of your blood. I know too much. There is no other way out -for either of us." - -Ayeshi did not move or speak. One of the two priests crept closer, -avoiding Barclay's shadow. - -"What can you do for us?" he whispered. - -"You know very well, O Heera Singh! The drought is on us. The crops -will fail. Is there a man in your village who does not owe all that he -has to me? What if I make our Lord Ayeshi their deliverer--if he should -free them from me? And I have money. Is all that nothing?" - -The priest was silent, fingering his sacred cord with eager fingers. -But Ayeshi knelt down and looked full into the Eurasian's face. - -"You said that you would have betrayed us for their friendship," he -said. "What if they came now and offered you their hands----" - -"It is not in their power," was the swift and bitter answer. "They have -tried--the river is too wide for them." - -There was silence again. The yellow light revealed figures lurking -behind them, black, vaguely defined forms which glided softly up and -down the temple walls. Vahana had bent down and with his claw-like -finger drew a pattern in the dust. It was the sign of Swashtika. -Barclay drew his breath between his teeth. He laid his hand on the -rough-drawn symbol and Vahana's hand closed down on his. The priest -wetted his forefinger with his tongue and touched Barclay's forehead, -tracing two horizontal lines. But Barclay did not feel him. He was only -conscious of that hand, cold, hard, scaly. It seemed to envelop him, to -glide up his arm and to reach down and close about his heart. - -"One of our blood," the priest muttered, "for evil and for good we claim -you one of us." - -But Ayeshi made a gesture of proud impatience. - -"There can be no evil," he said. "The worst that can come to any of us -is death. And what is death but release? We who have seen our faith -insulted, our gods denied, our dreams shattered--what is death to us? -Each one of us has his own bitter wrong. Let him avenge it under my -banner." He turned authoritatively to one of the native officers. "We -have had enough of words. From henceforward there shall be nothing said -which does not translate itself into action. You, Parga, what have you -to tell me?" - -The man answered with a military salute. - -"All is ready, lord. We are patient. We do but await your signal." - -"We have planned for the twenty-fifth of this month, lord," his -companion added. - -Ayeshi nodded. - -"By that time we shall have our forces on this side of the river ready. -Give me the map." - -The map was spread out on the ground. Ayeshi traced a line down the -length of the river, whispering his orders. Here and there one of the -soldiers assented or offered a suggestion. The priests were silent but -watchful. Their faces glistened like burnished bronze in the yellow -light. - -But Barclay felt and realized only that hand which had rested on his. -It was as though he had plunged his arm into icy water and the chill had -begun to creep through his whole body. His blood had become cold and -sluggish in his veins. - -He listened, and beyond the subdued voices he heard strange sounds--an -intermittent rustling amidst the long grass, a hushed, sibilant -whispering, the crack of a branch under the weight of a writhing, -twisting body. - -He lifted his head and it seemed to him that the jungle towered over -him, roofing the broken walls of the temple with its sinister shadow. - -Vahana watched him unceasingly. - - * * * * * - -Dawn was still afar off as Barclay rode his horse over the narrow -bridge. Once on the farther bank he turned and looked back furtively. -Nothing was visible. The forest-clad mountains were no more than a -monstrous blot on the burnished shield, wiping out a part of its -mysterious quarterings. Yet their massed blackness fascinated him. They -filled him with an inexplicable horror which until now he had held -partially in abeyance; but in this loneliness it became an obsessing -force of panic. Something had happened to him. He sat there in the -saddle, but his mind, a second vitally real consciousness, crawled -through the trackless undergrowth. His ears heard strange whisperings; -things unnamable slid over his limbs and wound themselves about his -throat and body, driving the breath from him. He could not taunt -himself with feverish imaginings. The man in the saddle might have been -a shadow, a figment of the brain, but that second being struggling and -gasping for life in those jungle fastnesses was a reality--himself. - -It was not imagination, but revelation. A sixth sense had been stabbed -to consciousness. Scales had fallen from his eyes. - -He forced himself to ride on and in an instant the return became a -heedless, panic-stricken flight before an invisible, formless enemy. -Even in his own compound there was no safety, no escape from whatever -hunted him. Rather in the black silence of the bungalow he recognized a -new menace. He tried to master himself,--to call the sleeping syce, but -his tongue was dry and thick in his mouth and refused its office. With -shaking hands he tethered his horse and crawled stealthily across the -verandah to the open windows of his room. - -He stood still on the threshold, listening. His own breathing seemed to -come from the other end of the room--from some one who crouched amidst -the ponderous furniture, watching him. He tried to strike a light, but -the match flickered and went out and he dared not try again. He felt -that no light could live in that stifling, foetid atmosphere. And the -shadows which he had awakened appalled him. He stumbled blindly to the -chair beneath the lamp and crouched down into it, hushing his labouring -lungs, forcing himself to confront the darkness, the sweat thick and icy -on his forehead. - -He had dared death that night and had not known fear; but this was -different. It was something in himself--an awful disruption, the -breaking down of some secret barrier behind which had been imprisoned -untold knowledge, a horde of ghostly, inherited memories. He tried to -stem them back--vainly. - -He--that second self--saw this stain beneath the carpet. He saw old -Tristram Sahib seated where he sat--Vahana crawling out of the -darkness--the uplifted weapon. He heard a woman's muffled scream--the -bumping of a body falling between narrow walls--the sullen splash of -water. - -These things were to him actual--corporeal. - -He turned with a shuddering gasp, burying his face in his arms, hiding -from them, awaiting in palsied helplessness for the deliverance of the -morning. - - - - - *CHAPTER VII* - - *THE PRICE PAID* - - -Mrs. Boucicault and her daughter sat on either side of the wide-open -windows and avoided each other's eyes. It was the first time that they -had been alone together for many months, and they found nothing to say. -Had they been total strangers they could have discussed the situation -with sympathy, but they were bound together, and to the man on whose -return from death to life they waited, by too many ugly memories for any -superficial intercourse. They were like galley-slaves, hating each -other and the bonds that manacled them to an intolerable intimacy. - -There was a faint, sickening taste of ether in the hot air. It seemed -to permeate everything, and to Anne, who knew nothing of the surgical -side of illness, it conveyed a suggestion of mysterious suffering and -horror. It affected her with the same physical and purely instinctive -fear which assails most human beings in their first contact with death. -It was not so much the thing that was happening as the grim, immaculate -ceremonial surrounding it which terrified her. She would have been glad -to have been alone, and in her heart she denied her mother the right to -be present. But convention and decorum were on Mrs. Boucicault's side -and against such opponents Anne felt herself powerless to make a stand. -Once she glanced quickly across at her companion and saw how cruelly the -daylight treated the small face now that it was without its persistent -animation. Neither paint nor powder could conceal the livid pallor -beneath the painful slackening of all the facial muscles. Only the mouth -retained its straight, unbreakable resolution. - -"One can't live as she does without paying for it," Anne thought, and -did not acknowledge the little glow of righteous satisfaction which -passed over her. Instead she went back mentally to the man lying -unconscious at the other side of the bungalow and to her own life. - -For all her painful anxiety she felt strangely content. She had the -elevated serenity of one who has passed through tribulation to a -well-earned happiness. For she had been very unhappy in her life. -There were the days of "misunderstanding" with her father, the days in -"Trichy" when she had faced the alternatives of a penniless and -ill-prepared attack on the unknown world or an ignominious return to a -life her whole soul condemned; there were days, even since her marriage, -when she realized that the man she had worshipped was not wholly worthy -of worship, that in many ways he had fallen below the standard which she -set him. - -But of late these things had sunk into the background. God had been very -good. She had longed so much for a child, and that was to be given to -her. That fact alone poured like sunshine over all the past. It seemed -to her that with the beginning of that hope everything had combined -together to make her happy. Her father was to be made well and strong -again. Sigrid Fersen, save where a very few were concerned, had dropped -out of Gaya's life into a grey seclusion, and with her the man whom she -had sought to drag up the heights of her meretricious popularity. And, -best of all, that very morning, when so much hung in the balance, she -had regained her love, her humble, possessive adoration of her husband. -He had seemed so big, so strong and invincible. The fire in his steady, -absorbed eyes had thrilled her, the touch of his hand had given her a -passionate, child-like confidence. - -"I know that you won't fail," she had whispered. "God bless you, Tris." - -"I'm sure He will," he had answered, smiling. And though perhaps there -was something in that familiar phrase which jarred on her, still it -could not weaken her joy in him or her faith in her own blessing. - -"Yes, God had been very good----" - -"I think it is over," Mrs. Boucicault said suddenly. "I can hear some -one coming----" - -Both women rose instinctively to their feet and turned towards the door. -Anne's heart throbbed painfully. As Dr. Martin entered she felt a -sudden weakness overcome her so that she could hardly stand. The doctor -had discarded his white overalls, but he brought in with him a deeper -tinge of that nauseating odour. Through a mist she heard him talking, -and even in that moment she was conscious of a bitter resentment. He -was speaking to her mother. - -"Yes--wonderfully successful, Mrs. Boucicault. To tell you the truth I -had no idea the I.M.S. concealed such a talent for the knife. -Remarkable hand--almost inspired, one might say. Major Tristram can set -up in Harley Street any day. Of course we're not out of the wood yet. -We can't hope to see much change in your husband for some weeks. Shock -and all that, you know. There was a lot more trouble than we suspected. -Old trouble which must have caused a good deal of--eh--mental unrest." -He rubbed his chin as though on the point of some further information. -"Well, I daresay Tristram will go into details. He wants me to stop in -Gaya till we know better where we are, and I shall try and arrange to. -Very interesting case--very. Hullo, here's Major Tristram himself." - -With a little cry of joy Anne turned to run to her husband, but as she -saw the man who entered her purpose faltered. She was not given to -analysis, and the change in him, because it was not entirely physical, -eluded her. And it frightened her. It was as though all her instinctive -fears had taken shape in him. He looked exhausted to the point of -breakdown, but that she had seen before, and it was not that which had -brought her to a standstill. It was something behind the white stillness -of his face the passionless detachment, the Nirvana which, had she but -known it, comes to men who have passed through a vast spiritual crisis. - -"Tris!" she whispered. - -She came to him at last and he put his arm round her. - -"It's all right," he said simply. His eyes were on Mrs. Boucicault. -"Your husband will live," he said. "He may get well." - -She nodded, twisting the rings round her thin fingers. - -"How long will it take before he is strong again?" - -"A few months perhaps." - -"Then I--I have that much time left me." - -"Mother!" Anne cried out. She felt Tristram's arm slip from her -shoulder. He went to Mrs. Boucicault and took her hand in his. - -"He may change very much," he said. - -She laughed. - -"Perhaps--but it will be too late." She made a little grimace. "Well, -I have learned the value of time at any rate. Dr. Martin, come and see -me into my carriage. My daughter wants to have a good cry." - -Dr. Martin offered his arm with a grave courtesy surprising in a man of -his somewhat casual temperament, and the two went down the verandah -steps talking in an undertone. Anne watched them in bitter silence. -The attitude of these two men towards the wizened, painted woman had -thrown a shadow of disgust over her happiness. They had treated her as -though she occupied the centre of their stage, accepting her flippant -cruelty without reproof, offering her an austere reverence. A scornful -comment trembled on Anne's lips, but, turning, she saw that Tristram had -dropped down in one of the chairs, his face hidden in his hands, and her -heart melted towards him. She knelt down and put her arms about his -neck. - -"Tris!" she whispered. He looked up. "Tris!" she repeated on a note of -faint reproach. For she had seen that his face was wet, and tears in a -man had always seemed to her rather repulsive. "What's the matter, -dear?" she asked. - -He smiled faintly. - -"I am an ass, aren't I? I don't often do this sort of thing--some -things touch me horribly. Besides, I'm a bit rattled still. Those two -hours were devilish--you don't know----" - -She kissed him solemnly. - -"I know how splendid you are--Dr. Martin told us." - -"Did he? Well, honestly, I don't believe any other man could have done -what I did today. No one else could have wanted to win so badly as I -did." - -"For my sake, husband?" - -"For yours and mine." - -"That's sweet of you," she said gently. Her moment's irritation had -passed. She rested on his bigness, his redeeming strength and -tenderness. "I am very happy, Tristram." - -"Are you?" He looked into her face eagerly. "Really happy?" - -"Happier than ever in my life. So much that is wonderful has happened. -It seems to have made everything worth while. All the suffering." She -leant against him, her eyes half-closed in dreamy recollection. -"Sometimes I think it's all been for the best. It's taught us charity, -hasn't it--to be gentle in our judgment? I know I have often been hard -too. Today I could forgive even the man who caused it all." - -His arm tightened about her. - -"He'd be glad to hear that, Anne----" - -"I could forgive." She drew herself up a little. "But I wouldn't help -him to escape his punishment, Tristram." - -"You couldn't, dear. No one escapes." - -"Yes, that's true, isn't it? Sooner or later they are found out. They -say criminals always return to the scenes of their crime. Mother told -me Ayeshi had been seen slinking about Heerut at night----" - -"Ayeshi?" he interrupted perplexedly. - -She gave a quick glance into his face. - -"Yes--of course, I'd forgotten, no one's ever told you. You see, you -were so fond of Ayeshi, and you were ill, and so we arranged that we -wouldn't tell you unless--unless he was caught. Afterwards no one liked -to, and you're such an old hermit--you never hear anything. But now it -doesn't matter, does it? It was Ayeshi who tried to kill my father." - -He pushed her away from him as though she had suddenly ceased to exist -for him. - -"I don't understand----" - -She laughed uncertainly--half-angrily. - -"Why, Tris, I've just explained----" - -"I understood that no one was suspected----" - -"I've explained that, too, dear. I thought you would guess when you -heard that he had disappeared like that----" - -He turned on her almost violently, but even she realized in that moment -that he was scarcely conscious of her. His blazing eyes had a sightless -look in them that frightened her to her feet. - -"I might have known," he stammered, "but I am too big a fool--an idiotic -sentimentalist----" He steadied and looked at her straightly with -seeing eyes. "Ayeshi must have disappeared to shield me," he said. "It -was I who nearly killed your father." - -Her face was at first only stupid-looking as though his words had had no -meaning--then every trace of colour ebbed from her lips. She wavered, -and he sprang to her side, and carried her to the chair which he had -just left. An intense, torturing pity swept him. She was so small, so -very fragile. He felt himself as something monstrous riding over all -her happiness. She clung to him. - -"Tris--Tris--please don't say things to frighten me----" - -"I've got to. Sooner or later I had to tell you. I didn't mean to be -so sudden. But it's true." - -She freed herself. There was no strength in her arms, but he had felt -her whole body cower and shrink from him and he stood back from her as -though she had struck him. - -"I can't--I can't believe----" she whispered. - -"You must, Anne." He paused, and then went on quietly. "It was after -that time at Bjura. I was riding home as best I could with a -temperature God knows where--I don't tell you that as an excuse, but as -a sort of explanation--and I found your father torturing Wickie. I know -now that probably he was as mad and irresponsible as I was, but at the -moment I thought he was simply a devil. I intervened--I believe I -appealed to him I tried to stop him. He struck me repeatedly, but as -long as he didn't touch Wickie I didn't care. Then he ran Wickie -through with the sharp end of a bamboo stick--and I struck him. I am -very strong--and I had no self-control. It was as though all the brakes -had given way--and I struck too hard. That was how it happened, Anne." - -He waited. He could not have said for what, but he knew that it was -something great in her. He had seen this moment many times before and -seen it both as an end and as a beginning of a new life between them. -It was in her hands. But at the last a kind of proud confidence had -swept over him. It did not occur to him to appeal to her. -Understanding is above forgiveness. Either she understood, and there -would be no need to forgive, or he was simply a murderer, and then her -forgiveness would be valueless. - -But he had believed that now she would understand. She crouched in her -chair, looking at him with horror in her eyes. - -"I can't--it's too terrible--to have done that--and then to have shirked -the responsibility----" - -Still he waited. He had to explain--that was only fair to her and to -himself. But he began to lose hope. He saw himself with her eyes and -the eyes of her world. - -"You know that I was delirious for a long time afterwards. When I -recovered the whole thing seemed finished. No one was suspected as far -as I knew. Well, your father meant to smash me. I saw that much in his -face. And, frankly, Anne, I did not choose to be ruined for his sake. -My life--my work--was of value to others to whom I owed more than I did -to him. If I made no effort to escape the consequences of what I had -done I also did not immolate myself to a false idea of justice----" He -broke off. It was not what he had meant to say to her. It was cold and -ugly. But her eyes told him that everything he could tell her, of the -deliberately accepted burden of silence, of the motive of a great filial -love which had chosen to crush the inborn, conventional instincts of -honour rather than tread the easy, chivalrous road of self-accusation, -of all that the intervening time had held of doubt, and weariness--would -be to her so much hypocrisy and cowardly subterfuge. The crisis struck -no fire of sympathy in her which might have illuminated his curt and -clumsy sentences. To her he was simply a criminal, and before her he -became one--tongue-tied, self-distrustful. - -She spoke at last and instinctively he braced himself. - -"Are you taking shelter behind your mother, or whom?" she asked -sneeringly. Then, as he did not answer, she got up. The stupor which -had restrained her hitherto gave way. She shivered from head to foot, -and her face was twisted and livid with the violence of her feeling. -"And then you married me!" she cried out--"just to shield yourself----" - -"Anne!" - -"Well, didn't you?" - -He strode at her and took her by the shoulders. For a moment she -thought, in her horror of him, that he would have struck her, and she -threw back her head defying the blow with all the strength of her -contempt. But his eyes daunted her. They were neither angry nor -guilty--but bewildered. - -"Anne, why in God's name did you marry me if you thought of me like -that?" - -Her lips quivered. - -"I didn't think of you like that." - -"No, perhaps you didn't. You couldn't have thought of me at all. You -just imagined me--you never knew or wanted to know the man I really am. -Now that the image is broken, there's nothing left. I am just--somebody -you don't know--a total stranger, capable of anything----" - -"Isn't it true?" she persisted stubbornly. - -"No," he said. "It is not true." He thought a moment and then added -with grave simplicity, "It would never have occurred to me. You were -just some one I was very fond of. I wanted to take care of you." - -She tried to laugh. - -"I suppose, having murdered the father, you thought it was your duty to -marry the daughter." - -His hands dropped wearily to his sides. - -"If I hadn't been instrumental in your father's loss, if I had had the -faintest hope of his ever being able to take his place in your life -again, I wouldn't have asked you to be my wife. I shouldn't have dared -draw you into my life. But you were lonely and unhappy--much as I -was----" - -"You felt guilty and you pitied me," she interrupted with feverish -excitement. "I suppose you think you've sacrificed yourself. You never -wanted to marry me. It was always that woman--that woman----" - -"For pity's sake--don't, Anne!" he pleaded. - -"Why shouldn't I? I've the right----" - -"You have not the right to say that," he said sternly. "I have behaved -like a fool--I have done you, as things turned, a great wrong; but I -have never thought of any other woman as my wife." - -"Not as your wife, perhaps," she interrupted wildly. - -He turned away from her. He felt physically sick and broken. The room, -with its suffocating propriety, its prim order, seemed to him an -integral part of the scene's sordidness. He had only one instinct -left--the thirst for the free air and the loneliness of the life to -which he had belonged. She watched him in breathless silence, clasping -and unclasping her thin hands. She was the more resentful because he -had driven her to an outburst of which she was ashamed. - -"When you found my father was going to get better, what did you expect?" -she began again. "I wonder since you had gone so far--that you didn't -finish your work." - -A faint, bitter amusement touched his white lips. - -"Yes, Anne, you would wonder that. But I am a doctor--not so much by -profession as by instinct. I have to save--to heal where I can. Even -then I might have failed in this instance and not found myself guilty. -But he was your father--I wanted you to be happy--I think it--it -inspired me to do more than I could otherwise have done." - -"What did you expect--between us afterwards?" she persisted. - -The smile lingered, but without its bitterness. - -"Oh, I don't know, Anne--but something different from this. I knew that -you'd be pained, even horrified--that was only natural. But I thought -you knew me well enough to see the less ugly side. I had a foolish -fancy even--that in such a crisis we might find each other--understand -each other better. Well--I've been wrong all the way." - -She was silent for a moment, gathering together the storm-scattered -principles of her life. She was trying to be just, charitable, towards -him. The tears glistened on her cheeks. - -"I daresay you did mean to make me happy, Tris. But you see, you -couldn't. One can't build up happiness on sin." - -"I did not feel myself guilty--not in that way," he said gently. - -"But you were guilty." Her voice hardened. "It was a crime to have -struck a man down for the sake of a mongrel dog----" - -He turned quickly. He felt mysteriously outraged, as though she had -struck straight and deep into something vital in him. - -"It wasn't only a dog, Anne," he said. "It was the pain--all the -needless suffering----" He did not try to finish. He could not have -explained, because he knew it was not in her power to understand. For -the first time he saw all that separated them--not so much a gulf as a -world, making her day his night. They were both silent. In a few -minutes the superficial wrappings of their life had been torn off and -its nakedness held them appalled. - -The door opened softly and the new nurse who had come with Dr. Martin -looked in for an instant. - -"He is coming round, Major Tristram," she said. - -"Very well, nurse. I'll be with you at once." - -He went towards the door, but Anne forestalled him. Her face was -composed and very set, though the tears still hung on her long lashes. - -"I don't want you to--I don't think you ought to----" - -He looked at her grimly. - -"As you wish. Dr. Martin must be outside somewhere. I'll explain. He -can take over the case." - -"Explain--what do you mean?" - -He shrugged his shoulders. - -"We've got to begin somewhere. Better now." - -She stared at him blankly. - -"You don't mean--you can't mean--you're not going to tell people?" - -"I must. Besides, isn't it what you wish?" - -She turned away and sat down, burying her face in her hands. She was -crying softly, helplessly, like a child. He came back to her and stood -over her as though his first impulse to comfort, her had been checked by -recollection. - -"Anne, I am a clumsy beggar--I don't understand--I don't know what you -want----" - -"You can't tell everyone," she sobbed wildly. "You can't, Tris. It -would be too cruel. Think of all the people you'd hurt--who would have -to suffer with you--all of us, even--even our child--even father. You -mustn't do it, Tris. Father may have changed--he will be so happy--I -shall beg him for his own sake as well as for mine. He'll do as I -ask--I'm sure he will. Tris--it's awful to know this awful thing -oneself--but for others to know too--and all the scandal----" - -She was incoherent in her piteous despair, but now he understood her. - -"You forget Ayeshi, Anne," he said, "and all I owe him." - -"Ayeshi----? But people only suspect--he's in hiding because of some -money he took--what does he matter? No one could prove anything--only -father--and he can clear Ayeshi best of all. Don't you see that--or -don't you care? Do you want me to suffer?" - -He winced. - -"I'll do whatever you want, Anne," he said heavily. "Everything on earth -I can do. But I've got to think. I'll tell Martin I've had marching -orders, or some lie. He knows the case, and can do everything as well as -I could. I'll clear out to Heerut. I've got to see Ayeshi. In the -meantime, you'll have breathing space to think things over too--and to -decide. You can let me know." He went to the door and there hesitated -and looked back at her with pitying wistfulness. "Anne, I don't repent -much what I did to your father--I can't--but you didn't deserve to be -hurt. And I've hurt you. I can't forgive myself that--ever." - -He waited an instant. She did not move and he went out closing the door -softly behind him. - - - - - *CHAPTER VIII* - - *RETURN* - - -"When I heard folks say the place was haunted I just laughed in their -faces," Mrs. Smithers asserted moodily. "I don't hold with ghosts and -them sort, and in a general way I don't believe in them. But I believe -in this ghost all right. We've tried to scrub it out, but it won't go -and it's got the grouch on us for trying. It's just sucking the polish -out of the furniture. And it's sucking the life out of me; I know -that." - -She turned to her companion lying curled up in the big basket chair and -challenged contradiction with her own appearance. Sigrid looked back at -her gravely. - -"Your wig's crooked, Smithy dear. Of late its angle has been -persistently drunken." - -"What's it matter!" Mrs. Smithers returned. "Who cares? We might as -well be drunk for all the notice these stuck-up nobodies take of us. -What's the use of being respectable, if there's no one to see? Might as -well fade away, comfy, that's my opinion." Whereupon, suiting her -action to her words, she snatched the offending erection from her head, -sat on it, and proceeded to rumple up the short grey hair till the last -vestige of propriety was lost in a ludicrously rakish disorder. "Well, -I've been respectable for your sake for two solid years, Sigrid, and -it's nigh done for me. Now I'm myself again, and I mean to stick to -meself or bust; so there." - -Sigrid gave a laugh that ended with a sigh. - -"Your nice, wicked, unprincipled self, Smithy! It reminds me of old -times." - -"H'm, does it? Well, nothing reminds me of old times in this horrible -place. Nothing--not even you. You're just the outsides of what you -were, Sigrid--a sort of husk. I don't know where you are--but the real -you isn't here at all--and a good job too." She paused and then -wistfully, rather shyly: "You don't even play nowadays, my dear." - -Sigrid got up slowly. - -"Smithy, one couldn't play in this room. I could play in a garret or in -the streets, but not here. Fancy Beethoven and that marble atrocity! -Even Elgar! No, no, I couldn't." She went out past Mrs. Smithers on to -the verandah and there lingered for a moment. "Look at the sunshine!" -she said dreamily. "That, at least, is always the same for the just and -the unjust, the happy and the unhappy. Doesn't that console you?" - -Mrs. Smithers shook her head. - -"It isn't the same. It's an awful thing here. They say if it goes on -beating down like that it will mean thousands and thousands of deaths. -It's cruel. But, such as it is, it don't come inside this place, -Sigrid. It beats down on the road out there, but it don't touch us. -We're walled in--the Lord knows by what--but we're walled in." - -Sigrid took her lace parasol and went down the steps to the wide avenue -which swept round in a semicircle to the road. She still moved with her -smooth, tigerish elasticity, but she herself was conscious of an -overwhelming fatigue. It was as Smithy said--the spirit of the place -had triumphed. Little by little it had overpowered the garish, -incongruous splendours with which Barclay had sought to change its -character. The life and gaiety which he had schemed for had never -crossed the threshold, and now he no longer fought, but in sullen -acquiescence watched gloom and decay rise like a sombre tide over its -old ground. The place was moribund. The people in it moved softly and -spoke instinctively in hushed voices as though somewhere in those empty -rooms some one lay dead. - -Sigrid reached the compound gates. It was still early in the morning, -but the heat burnt down on the white road with the reflected fierceness -of a near and monstrous fire. The air was thick and tasted metallic. A -bullock-wagon toiled up towards Gaya, came to an exhausted halt, and -then, in response to listless imprecations, creaked heavily on its way. -The mingled sweat and dust lay in ridges on the animals' heaving flanks -and scored the dark faces which were turned for a moment in Sigrid's -direction. Man and brute were curiously allied in that blank and yet -piteous stare. It was as though both visaged suffering and visaged it -dumbly, patiently, accepting it as the decree of life. - -Then all was still again. - -A man on horseback turned the bend of the road and came at a lumbering -walk down-hill towards the bungalow. She stood and watched him and an -odd, unsteady smile of recognition played with the corners of her lips. -No other man in Gaya rode such a lank, spindle-legged mare, no other man -cut so quaint a figure, no other man could have worn those clothes and -borne himself so bravely. For, despite that touch of the grotesque, -there was something splendid and royal about him, something in his -bigness, in the grand lines of his body, in his freedom and -unconsciousness that made him physically kin to those giants whose -fearless, joyous living glimmers through history and legend--to the -Siegfrieds and the Beowulfs and the Parsifals, men of the forest and the -mountain, who drank deep of life at its source and died on heights which -our day has forgotten. - -He carried a yellow-haired dog under one arm and an ordinary covered -wicker basket was tied to his saddle, and despite his efforts jolted -somewhat to the plaintive protests of a cat's mewing. - -She would have turned and avoided him, but the bigness of him had held -her riveted too long. He drew rein and swung himself to the ground -beside her. - -"I've brought you Richard," he said simply. He did not offer her his -hand or greet her, although they had not spoken to each other for many -weeks. He seemed to sweep all ceremony aside. - -"I ought to have brought him before--I promised, didn't I?--but somehow -I couldn't. It was like a slight to Wickie. He's had a rotten time -though, poor chap. You'll make it up to him, I know." - -She patted the mongrel's distrustful snout. The man's proximity shook -her composure so that she seized eagerly on the first thought that came -to her. - -"What other passengers have you on board?" she said, with a little nod -towards the heaving and mysteriously creaking basket at his saddle. - -"My tabbies," he said solemnly. "They've got rather obstreperous since -we've been civilized. My wife doesn't like them running about after me, -so they had to be shut up, poor beggars, and there's nothing like -shutting people up for bringing the devil out of them. Now I'm taking -them with me to Heerut." He smiled a little. "I'm going back to the -wilderness," he said. - -He took off his helmet and ran his hand through the thick, tawny hair -with a gesture like that of a sleeper freeing himself from the clouds of -an evil dream. The light striking through the branches of the -mohwa-tree lit up his face, and, looking up at him and reading all that -the last months had wrought, she felt a pang of angry pity. If this was -Siegfried, then it was not the Siegfried of Bruennhilde's fiery -mountain, but the man of the Rhine Valley, Gudruna's man, fettered by -civilization and weakened by its trickery and dishonesty. Had he also -drunk of the cup of forgetfulness, she wondered? Had he lost his vision -of the fire-girded rocks above where he had won his manhood? A flicker -of the old mockery shone in her eyes. - -"You don't look very well, Major Tristram," she said. - -He shook his head. - -"Oh, I'm well enough--physically at any rate." He laid his hand on his -heart with a rueful laugh. "I've got a sort of spiritual indigestion -though--it's this life--it doesn't suit me or my tabbies. It's too neat -and tidy. I'm like that what's-his-name person who had to put his hand -to his mother earth to keep strong. I need to be doing and fighting, -struggling for existence in my mother wilderness to keep decent. Well, -I shall have enough of that out there. Unless the drought breaks soon -we're going to have more trouble. The unhappy folk in the village are -beginning to die off like flies, and when the famine comes----?" He -shrugged his shoulders. - -"You don't look fit for such work," she exclaimed bitterly. - -"I'm tired--that's all. I had a stiff day of it yesterday." He looked -at her with a flash of boyish enthusiasm. "Hasn't any one told you?" - -"No one has told me anything," she said. "People don't rush here with -their latest gossip." - -He flushed painfully. - -"Oh, well, it isn't exactly gossip. It's about Boucicault." - -"Boucicault?" - -"Yes. You know Sir Gilbert Foster gave him up. Well, I found something -Sir Gilbert didn't--a little spot on the brain not bigger than a pin's -head. I operated yesterday, and I believe he'll get well. Isn't that a -feather in my cap?" - -He looked up, smiling into the sunlight, and waited for her to speak, -until the silence became oppressive. Then he turned to her, drawn by an -instinct which the next instant he knew was justified. He caught her by -the arm, shaken from all his resolute self-possession by what her face -revealed to him. - -"Sigrid--what is it--you're ill--in pain----" - -But she freed herself almost violently, steadying herself, forcing the -blood back into her cheeks by a sheer effort of the will. - -"It's nothing--don't fuss over me. It's the heat--nothing more----" - -"Then you ought not to be out here." - -She laughed defiantly. - -"You're not my doctor, Major Tristram, and I won't be bullied. Besides, -you've whetted my curiosity. There now, I'm all right again. What were -you saying about Colonel Boucicault? You--you operated, and now he's -going to get well?" - -"I think so." But he answered absently. He was still intent on her -face, striving to get beneath the mask. The moment's livid pallor had -gone, but she was none the less changed. Her voice, level and quiet, -had yet a new tone in it--a kind of hoarseness which he knew as a -symptom of exhaustion and pain. She turned away, trying to avoid his -eyes. - -"Has he been able to speak?" - -"Not yet. He is not even properly conscious. It may last some weeks." - -She gave a little cynical laugh. - -"I suppose some one will be glad." - -"Anne--my wife." - -"Ah, yes--your wife." Some new thought struck her. She turned back to -him, with a line of perplexity between her arched brows. "Aren't you -leaving him very soon?" - -He hesitated, and then answered slowly: - -"Dr. Martin is with him. I have to go to Heerut. It's not only my -work. I've heard that Ayeshi's somewhere in these parts, and I've got -to find him." - -"What do you want with Ayeshi?" she asked, no less deliberately. - -"I've got to bring him back. I only heard yesterday of the suspicion -which sent him into hiding, and, I am afraid, to the devil. The -suspicion is unwarranted. He's got to come back and be cleared." - -"Poor Ayeshi!" she said under her breath. - -He nodded, his eyes darkened with pain. - -"He has suffered horribly and unjustly." - -"Needlessly!" she corrected vehemently. "Uselessly! Who minds sacrifice -or suffering or injustice so long as the end--the purpose--is clear and -attained? It's the pitiable uselessness----" She broke off, tapping -the ground with an exasperated foot. But he had heard the tears in her -voice. - -"Isn't that the horror of all suffering?" he asked, wearily--"its -apparent uselessness? We can only hope it leads somewhere." - -"Oh, for pity's sake don't be platitudinous!" she burst out. "It's -almost as though I was listening to Anne talking." - -"My wife!" he reminded her sharply. - -"Oh, you are very loyal!" she retorted. - -He was silent a moment, and then laughed, covering over his own pallor. - -"It's only a sense of justice. A wife isn't responsible for the poor -qualities of her husband's brains, is she?" - -"She may be responsible for his becoming a sleek prig," she said -cruelly, then, with a quick, almost girlish gesture of appeal: "Don't be -angry, Major Tristram! The heat has disagreed with me mentally and -physically. Let's talk of something else. Tell me something about your -mother." - -He looked at her, puzzled, and naively pleased. - -"What shall I tell you about her?" he asked. - -"Oh, I don't know--tell me if she is well and happy." - -He bent down to stroke the dog at his feet, hiding his face. - -"I believe she is. In her last letter she hoped to live to welcome us -both home----" - -"Will that hope be gratified, Major Tristram?" - -"I fear not," he answered unsteadily. - -She was silent, looking wistfully ahead into the white sunlight. - -"Ever since that day I saw her picture and heard her story I have been -interested in your mother," she said at last. "She is the sort of woman -whom one wants to be happy--whose happiness one would like to shelter to -the end." - -"One can't protect another's happiness," he said. "I've learned that -much." - -"I also," she said gravely. - -He straightened up. His blue eyes rested on her face with a -treacherous, smouldering trouble. - -"I can't help feeling that you're--you're suffering," he said. "It's -the only thing I'm quick at guessing at--if it's only physical--please -go in and--and rest----" - -She shook her head. There was a tenderness in her faint smile which a -woman may feel for some big, clumsy, loving boy. - -"I'm not tired. I come down here every day and watch life go past." - -"Sigrid----" He faltered. "Does that mean that you are very lonely?" - -"No--not very. My husband is always away now. Mrs. Boucicault and Mary -come sometimes--and even Mrs. Bosanquet. I think they all love me, but -they can't alter circumstances, and it makes them desperately unhappy. -Often I wish they wouldn't come----" She waited a moment, studying his -set features with a pitying knowledge. "I know what you're thinking, -Major Tristram. You're comparing this life with the golden palaces and -the mountain-tops, with my splendid living and splendid dying." - -She burst out laughing and patted him on the arm. "Oh, my innocent -friend, don't you know us mortals better than that--don't you know how -we love to air our borrowed souls and talk largely and pompously about -the ideals we've cribbed out of a novel? There is nothing in -it--nothing. I just sold myself for an easy life in a mud hut in the -valley. Let that comfort you." - -He threw back his head, looking her full in the face. - -"That's a lie," he said. "You must have loved greatly." - -For a full minute they remained staring at each other in defiant -silence. And under his unhappy eyes her expression changed and grew -careless and indifferent. - -"Well--perhaps you're right, perhaps I did love with all my heart." She -held out her hand. "But I am very, very tired now. The heat is -appalling. I wish you God speed, Major Tristram." - -He scarcely touched her. He swung himself up into the saddle with a -suddenness which startled Arabella into a youthful curvet. The tabbies -mewed protest, and Tristram laid his hand soothingly on their basket. -Then he looked down and saw Sigrid standing at his knee. The change in -her held him motionless for all that every nerve in him ached for motion -and action. Her small, pale face lifted itself to his in breathless -eagerness; her parted lips quivered, the eyes were fiery with the -glitter of sternly mastered tears. - -"Tristram--tell me--are all the old dreams gone?" she asked huskily. - -His mouth under the short ruddy moustache hardened. - -"I am going back to find them." - -"That's well--go back, Tristram. They may be all that are left any of -us at the end. Our dreams are real--reality is nothing. See--!" She -laid her hand on her breast with a curious gesture of self-accusation. -"I am all your wife would call me--just a mean, soulless fortune-hunter. -You've found me out. There is not one fine or noble or high thing in -me--and yet your vision of the woman who danced that night, who has -played to you the finest music in the world is no illusion, but the -truth. Keep it--remember it. Perhaps"--she smiled faintly--"your memory -of her may bring Undine to her soul." - -He looked away from her. - -"I can't help myself----" he said roughly. - -"Don't try. Let us keep all the beauty that we can." - -She laid her hand on Arabella's long neck and stroked it caressingly. -And now something elfish and illusive dawned under her expression of -intense earnestness. "Do you remember--you used to go down to the -temple when the moon rose and dream you saw me dance among the -ruins----" - -"I was a romantic boy--half crazed with loneliness----" he broke in with -repressed vehemence. - -"The moon rises tonight," she said, so gently that he scarcely heard -her. Yet something insistent, patient in her forced him to meet her -eyes. He saw that they were dry and brilliant, tragically exultant. -They betrayed her careless smile, the affectation of demure mockery with -which she once more gave him her hand. "Major Tristram, I have a -foolish presentiment that we shall meet just once again--and after that -no more. Good-bye till then." - -He did not answer. She turned lightly away from him. And he rode on -down towards the valley. - - - - - *CHAPTER IX* - - *FOR THE LAST TIME* - - -Memory has many merciless weapons, but none keener, crueller than a room -which has belonged to our dead. Who amongst us has escaped that moment -of return after what seems the culmination of all agonies when the mere -position of a chair, a glove thrown down idly and forgotten, a little -touch of familiar disorder tears open the freshly closed grave and shows -us on our way to a new, seemingly endless road of pain? - -Something of that impotent grief laid hands on Tristram as he stood on -the threshold of his old home. The barely furnished room was as he had -left it that night of Meredith's visit. An instinct had forbidden his -return. Shortly afterwards he had gone to Trichinopoly to be married, -and since then the place had stood deserted. - -The camp-bed had been tidied by Meredith's conscientious hand, and the -few breakfast things washed and replaced, but there was cigarette ash on -the table and the lamp stood where it had burnt between them. It had a -grey, dead look, as though it had burnt itself out. The chair where he -had sat in that final hour of reckoning expressed vividly the movement -with which he had risen. There were small, regular fragments of torn -cardboard beneath the table, and the dust lay thick and white over them -like a shroud. The dust was everywhere. It veiled the photograph of -his mother so that he could not see her face. - -And the dead man whose personality the place expressed so poignantly was -himself. He felt towards it as a spirit may do, looking down on the -body which it has quitted for ever. Not years, but a deep, narrow gulf -of experience separated him from the grown boy who had lived out his -joyous, romantic creed between these wooden walls, who had striven and -dreamed in their cool solitude, and gone thence day after day to fight -the bitterest of all realities, human suffering, himself living in a -world of his own imagining. - -Looking back, he saw that those had been winged days of inspiration. He -saw that in his dreams he had stood close to the inner life of men which -is greater than reality and had seen visions and been dimly, gloriously -aware of great truths. These things had gone from him. He stood with -his feet planted on firm earth and knew nothing but the dust and the -turmoil and the darkness. - -But because there was stern stuff in him, he went about his work -patiently. With the help of the servant who accompanied him, he dusted -and tidied like a woman, unpacked his medicine-chest and set out his -instruments in their glass cases. The two tabbies which he had set at -liberty prowled disconsolately about their old home, seeming to miss -something. He called to them and fed them, but they did not respond, -and presently they slipped out into the street and vanished. He let -them go. He felt that they would not return. They had forgotten him -and had grown wild in their captivity. - -The brief dusk which precedes the Indian night shrouded the village -street, when at last, his work done, he came out and closed the door of -the hut behind him. The street was empty. That fact did not as yet -appear strange to him, for the murderous heat of the day, far from -relaxing, seemed to have become intensified and hung thick and sullen in -the tainted air. Overhead the sky threw off its brazen robes and came -out in a luminous purple, whose darker brilliancy was no less sinister. -As yet there was no sign of the break for which the land waited in -gasping agony. - -Tristram went on his way towards the cross-roads. He passed a little -group of old men returning from the river and would have spoken to them, -but they salaamed and there was something in that ceremonious greeting, -in their stony, expressionless faces which chilled the blood and forced -him to go on wordless. - -It was dark by the time he reached the council-tree. As he approached he -had heard a murmur of voices, which were hushed as his shadow loomed up -over the circle of squatting figures. In the brightening starlight, he -recognized Lalloo in the place of honour at the foot of the battered -idol. Other forms he recognized, and for the first time he became aware -that he had seen only old men since his return. - -The circle greeted him gravely. He sat down at Lalloo's side and filled -his pipe. He talked of the drought and of the coming famine and asked -after those he knew. The glowing bowl of his pipe threw a dull -reflection on his face, and he felt that their eyes were fixed on him. -They answered his questions with a measured slowness as though each word -had to be chosen and weighed, and when his questions ceased they too -became silent. One after another a shadow rose from the circle and -glided out into the darkness. - -Presently only Lalloo remained. - -Tristram got up. - -"Tell me," he said, "what is happening here?" - -Lalloo lifted himself slowly and stood deferentially bowed, his hand -caressing his beard. - -"Nothing, Sahib." - -Tristram smoked placidly. - -"That is a lie, Lalloo. Once you were my friend." - -"It is long since the Dakktar Sahib lived amongst us." - -"Is friendship forgotten from one day to another?" - -"There is a saying, Sahib, that it must be won every day afresh." - -Tristram was silent for a moment, hiding from the other's eyes how sure -and deadly the thrust had been. Then he shrugged his shoulders. - -"I'm afraid fate means to give me another chance to serve you and win -your friendship, Lalloo." - -"The wheel turns but once in a life-time," was the enigmatic answer. - -"That may be. Well, I don't intend to cadge for your good-will. I -shall stay here and see you through whatever is coming. In the -meantime, tell me where can I find Ayeshi?" - -Lalloo gave no sign. - -"Ayeshi comes no more----" he said. - -"Doesn't he?" Tristram laughed grimly. "Well, the next time he doesn't -come, will you tell him that I must see him. Perhaps his friendship -will have worn better. Tell him that he may return to us in safety and -honour." - -"There is no return for Ayeshi, Sahib." - -"Dead----?" - -Lalloo glanced up through the darkness into the Englishman's face. For -a minute his own manner changed, losing something of its impassive -reticence. - -"Sahib, there are things which no man may forget and prosper. For the -sake of one memory--leave here, leave Gaya--there is an illness coming -which even the cunning hand of the Dakktar Sahib cannot stay----" - -"Is that a threat, Lalloo? Do you know me so little that you think I -should turn tail----" - -The old money-lender lifted his hand almost with authority. - -"No man can change the course of his fate, Sahib. But I have paid my -debt." - -He salaamed and slipped away into the irregular silhouette which the -tumble-down huts threw into the palely-lit street. - -Tristram lingered a moment. His pipe had gone out, and he lit it again -with an affectionate care, which covered tension. An instinct, more -delicate than a seismograph, inherited from men who had learnt at bitter -cost the significance of a glance, had warned him. It fed itself on the -unbroken silence, on the fevered, palpitating heat. The bo-tree, whose -leaves quivered to the faintest breath, was still as though it, too, was -aware of an approaching change and listened for its footfall. The very -light which filtered down from the stars and poured in a pale stream -between the black banks of the street carried with it a suggestion of a -near and brooding menace. - -Tristram walked slowly up towards the northern entrance of the village. -In the past he would not have walked alone. There would have been -Ayeshi on one side of him and some woe-begone villager on the other, -with Wickie scampering in and out among the shadows, pursuing, with the -uncrushable optimism of his kind, the elusive mouse. And Tristram, -listening in memory to those past sounds and voices, was overwhelmed, -not with a sense of an invisible danger, but with a bitter loneliness. -He had now only one desire, and that to get away from these silent, -watching walls, out into the open. - -He walked fast, but by the time he had reached the narrow road along the -river the first bar of moonlight had struck across the valley. He stood -still again, for beneath the sullen muttering of the water he had heard -other sounds. - -Two horsemen rode out of the shadow. He made way for them, and as they -came abreast the man nearest to him turned his head, so that the light -fell full on to his face. - -Tristram sprang to the horse's head, forcing the startled animal to its -haunches. The rider made no sound, but his companion turned about -instantly and bore down upon Tristram as though to force him back into -the river. In that swift course of action not a word had been spoken on -either side. The Englishman held his ground. With an iron skill, he -dragged the plunging horse about so that it came between him and his -aggressor, who reined in frantically on the very verge of the steep and -muddy bank. - -"Ayeshi!" Tristram exclaimed, imperatively. - -The Hindu peered down into his face. The recognition for which Tristram -waited with passionate hope did not come. Ayeshi drew himself up in the -saddle. - -"Let me pass, Major Tristram." - -Tristram laughed between his teeth. The hope was dead in him. "No, by -the Lord, I won't. You've got to listen to me first. I don't know what -devil's game you're playing, but I know what you've done--what you've -sacrificed for me--you've got to listen--I've a right to ask this of -you----" - -The second rider burst out laughing. Tristram could not see his face, -but the laugh had a familiar ring. A pale satiric smile quivered at -Ayeshi's mouth. - -"I have ceased to be your servant, Major Tristram!" - -"Have you ceased to be my friend as well?" - -He waited. He heard a whispered appeal. Ayeshi's companion shifted his -position and Tristram, though he could see nothing, knew that he was now -covered by a revolver. He knew, too, that it was no threat but an -intention. Death tugged at the leash. He drew himself up to meet it. -Had he possessed a weapon, he would not have sought to defend himself. -An overwhelming indifference akin to relief rested on him. He released -Ayeshi's bridle and stood back a step. He was like a drowning man, -fighting off the final and fatal apathy. "Is there no memory, Ayeshi, -which gives me the right to appeal to you?" he asked. - -The smile faded from the Hindu's haggard features. He threw back the -loose white sleeve from his arm and pointed to the wrist. - -"There is one memory, Major Tristram, against a hundred wrongs with -which your race has afflicted me and mine. That memory has saved you. -A life for a life----" - -He made a gesture of proud authority. The next instant, both men were -riding at a fast canter into the darkness. - -Tristram listened absently to the water as it poured over the rhythmic -thud of hoofs, till there was no sound left but its own languid murmur. -The indifference with which he had faced the end receded from him like a -narcotic before the returning tide of pain. He saw now that in that -moment death had seemed not so much a release as a blotting out of -failure, a passing on to the hope of a new and greater achievement. For -he had failed. Upon the recognition Ayeshi had set the seal. He had -ploughed and sown and watered the acre of earth which had been given to -him in stewardship, and there was no harvest. He had poured out his -strength and faith over that beloved ground, and it lay before him in -hard unfruitfulness. The magnitude of his bankruptcy staggered and -stupefied him. - -It would have been better for others had Ayeshi forgotten his -debt--better for Anne, entangled innocently in the mesh of his blunders, -for his mother who would have seen in that death only a mysterious, -tragic repetition. Both would have been spared the pitiable anti-climax -of his career, one at least the publicity of an incomprehensible -dishonour. He stood at the edge of the water, listening to its luring -whisper as it slid past in the blackness beneath him, thinking of those -two women. For in them he had worked out his creed of happiness, in -them he had failed most utterly. One other woman indeed crossed his -thought, but she stood apart, neither failure nor success, but a golden -figure of enigma, a fancy, a dream that had become a reality, and had -separated itself from him and gone into the turmoil and mystery of life, -a separate individuality lost to him forever. - -The moon rose slowly and majestically above Gaya's mountain. It poured -its pale splendour over the plain and changed the black-flowing river -into a polished, glittering road of silver. The man wrestling with his -last problem stood in the midst of the light, his shadow thrown in -gigantic outline against the high-standing grasses. And little by -little the light permeated his greater darkness and reached his -knowledge. He lifted his eyes from the black temptation and despair of -the waters to the faintly shadowed disk rising in serene immortality -amidst the music of her million worshippers. And suddenly the tension -and horror passed from him. He lifted his arms above his head with a -gesture of release and greeting. His stifled lungs drew in the life -which came down to him from those vast heights of infinity. - -This much remained; for the foolish and the wise, for the successful and -the failures, for Lazarus starving in the gutter and the rich man -starving at his loaded table--the earth's godliness, man's oneness with -her and with his brother, as yet but dimly felt and broken by -devastating storms of passion, yet moving on triumphantly to the divine, -far-off event of perfect unity. Thus in his isolation he was not alone, -but could reach out in fellowship to the whole earth. It did not matter -that he had failed. Others would follow stronger and wiser than -himself. They would till his barren acre--perhaps out of his very dust -would spring the harvest which had been denied him. - -The moment's ecstasy passed, but behind it followed a deep and healing -serenity. He walked on slowly. "Our dreams are real--reality is -nothing," Sigrid had said, and now the words were illuminated with his -own knowledge. They gave her back to him. They lifted her figure out of -the sordid ugliness of the events which had blurred and marred his -vision of her. He had known her best when he had known her least, and -as he knew her so she would belong to him and go down with him through -all the years. - -He reached the temple gateway. He did not know nor care what power had -drawn him there. He stood in the entrance looking into the moon-flooded -court, remembering those far-off nights when he had come there to -picture her as he had seen her amidst the trumperies of a stage -churchyard, transfiguring them with the energizing spirit of her genius. -His imagination had painted her amidst the grandeur of these broken -pillars. In his romantic fancy it had not seemed incongruous that she -should dance against the background of an alien thought and art. -Fearlessly he had linked beauty with beauty, perfection with perfection. - -And as he stood there gazing down the softly radiant avenue of columns -towards the black entrance to the _antarila_ he saw her. He knew one -moment's agony of doubt, of fear, of mental disintegration as though the -marvel of it had torn down the walls of his mind and spirit, thrusting -him out into a bottomless void. Then, as a falling bird spreads out its -wings and swings back in safety to its old heights, his mind rose out of -the moment's chaos and went to her in passionate recognition. It did -not matter then whether she was fancy or reality, whether he was sane or -mad. The splendour and wonder of it was all. - -At first she was a shadow among shadows. She seemed to hover on the -verge of the light as a thought hovers on the verge of form. Then, -without effort, seemingly without movement, so still and quiet did she -hold her whole body, she glided out of the darkness, and, with her arms -raised above her head, her face lifted to the flood of moonlight, she -stood still, _sur la pointe_, poised in attitude of joyful waiting. - -She wore the low bodice and short, full skirts of the old classic -ballet. A slender wreath of laurel crowned the smooth, fair head. -Though as yet she stood afar off from him, he knew that her eyes -laughed, that her mouth was open in that wide, frank smile of happiness, -that she was breathing deep with the foretaste of ecstasy. He knew, -too, for what she waited--for the bar of music which should set her -free. - -It came at last. He heard it rush down through the stillness. It -caught her up on its crest and swept her down the path of silver towards -him. He knew it and recognized it. Its delirious beauty poured through -his blood. And even if his instinct had not seized it she would have -taught him. Her movements, her hands, her feet her body sang it to him. - -She danced. Even in these moments when all clear thought was suspended -he knew that this was something that his generation had never seen. It -was the final word of a great art, often debased, now lifted to the -heights where the soul pours through the body to triumphant expression. - -She danced. Her shadow rose and fell upon the grey, time-defaced -columns not more silently. There was no technical feat that she did not -strike like a note of music in her passage, but the marvel of it was -lost. As the daring flight of a gull, swooping from precipice to -precipice, becomes a simple thing of ease and beauty, so her laughing, -dangerous steps over the uneven flags seemed no more than an -instinctive, effortless volition. As the brook leaps and sparkles over -its rocky bed, now in sunlight, now in shadow, now rushing forward in -headlong eagerness, now caught in a clear pool and held an instant in -quivering suspense, so joyously and fearlessly she passed from the -quick, brilliant passage of the waltz to its slower, deeper movement. - -She danced. And it was a religion. Amongst the shades of departed -worshippers she was the living spirit. She called them back from their -dust-strewn oblivion to the rites of their mystic faith. She leapt the -barriers of time and race. The ruined Hindu temple, its towering -_sikhara_ rising up over its holy mystery to the stars, identified -itself with her; she became its priestess, it became her natural -background, the splendid shrine of her genius. - -She danced. As David danced before the Lord, so she offered up the -incense of her art to whatever was divine in that crumbling monument to -man's faith in God. Greater than prayer or praise was the joy of her -body and the laughter of her face lifted to the moonlight. - -She danced. She had the austerity of nature. Her appeal to the senses -was the appeal of a flower, of a butterfly's wing, of a lark singing -amidst the azure, of the forest and the mountain and the running water. -It was the appeal by which the earth calls men back to their sonship and -the knowledge of her divinity. - -She danced. And to the man who watched her she was all things that he -had ever loved, ever believed in, ever hoped for. - -A cloud passed over the moon and threw the temple into obscurity. She -was for the moment only the shadow of herself. It seemed to him that -the music had broken off and that she too had faltered. Then, as the -light came out from behind the drifting darkness, he saw her glide down -the avenue of columns, on tip-toe, her arms raised, her small fair head -thrown back as though she drank in the growing radiance. - -But her expression had changed. Her face had a look of child-like awe, -of breathless, startled wonder. - -She danced. It was the apotheosis. - -She came like a leaf blown before the wind and like a leaf sank slowly -to the ground. She was so small, so frail and white, she seemed no more -than a flower lying on the great stone flags beneath the pillars. - -He ran out to her. He knelt beside her and gathered her up with her -head against his knee, calling her by name. But it was only the -half-dazed dreamer who called her, for one glance at that white still -face, with the faintly shadowed lips, told him that she could not -answer. He lifted her in his arms. For all the sick horror that drove -its claws into him he was still too much the man of action to hesitate. -She was so light. It seemed to him that he carried a tired, sleeping -child--something so frail and tender that his own strength seemed -giant-like and almost brutal. He scarcely felt the burden of her, and -yet before he reached the outskirts of the village he knew himself -broken by her nearness. Her warmth enveloped him. He could feel the -faint, irregular breath against his cheek. A perfume more subtle than a -flower's reached his senses and stirred them to an exaltation that was -beyond reason, far beyond desire. Her face rested against his shoulder -and he could have bent and touched her cheek with his lips. He did not. -He carried a Holy Thing--a vessel into which the Creator had poured all -beauty--a lamp whose flame of genius flickered beneath the breath of -death, a woman whom he loved with all the force and passion of his -manhood. Beneath great banks of sullen cloud rolling up over the moon's -silvered field, the village slept or seemed to sleep. He strode through -its forbidding silence like a man possessed. He had become invulnerable, -omnipotent. There was no force on earth that he could not have met and -scorned in that hour save the invisible spectre stalking at his elbow. - -He reached his hut at last and laid her on the camp-bed. He lit the lamp -and with ruthless, skilful fingers ripped open the close-fitting bodice -about her breast. He forced a stimulant between the blue lips. In -everything he was as swift and sure as though no fear knocked at his -heart, as though his own pulses beat with the smoothness of old custom. - -It was done at last--all that he could do. She lay there in her deep -unconsciousness like a fair princess from a child's dream. The laurel -wreath had freed itself from the pale gold of her hair and fallen back -upon her pillow, making a dark frame for her ethereal pallor. He took -it gently and laid it on the table. Up to that moment he had held -himself in an iron calm, but the touch of that simple ornament, with its -poignant significance, struck deeper than all his memories. He turned -to her and knelt down beside her, pressing the still hand to his lips in -an agony of helpless pity. - -The seconds passed. Each one, for the man kneeling there, was measured -by the sound of the quick-drawn, shallow breath. Each one, as it -passed, left behind a deepening hope. His fingers rested on her pulse, -and as though his will drew her back from the depths into which she had -been sinking, he felt it slowly steady and strengthen. - -And suddenly he looked up, knowing that her eyes were open. - -They were very clear--very peaceful. They looked down into his haggard -face with a wondering tenderness. Her lips moved. Twice she essayed to -speak. He drew closer to her. - -"Wasn't it the end----?" she whispered. He shook his head. He could -not have answered her. "Isn't it the end, Tristram? I'm--I'm dying, am -I not? Tell me--I'm not afraid--not very--tell me----" - -"No--please God----" - -She smiled with a ghostly touch of her old mockery. - -"You--you believe in God, Tristram. Do you care so much?" - -"Yes--I care." - -She lifted her little hand as though it was almost too heavy a burden -for her weakness, and laid it on his bowed head. - -"It doesn't matter what we say to each other now--we don't need to -pretend. I'd hoped there would be no coming back, but now I'm glad. I -love you, Tristram." - -"I love you," he answered. - -And therewith there came silence and peace into his tumult. The warring -events of their lives poured into a deep and tranquil river flowing on -irresistibly seawards. They knew now with the great certainty which -comes in such moments that there was no end, no power in heaven or earth -to blot out that simple confession and all that it must mean, now and in -whatever hereafter awaited them. He could look into her face over which -death had passed its hand, without fear, almost without pain. She too -had ceased to suffer. Her hand caressed him softly. - -"I knew you would come, Tristram." - -"I had to--all the time I was coming to you." - -"I danced for you. I've never danced like that before--it was the last -time----" - -"Sigrid--if you knew--why did you do it?--why have you hurt us both?" - -"Have I hurt you?" She drew herself up a little, looking down at him -with an exquisite compassion in her fading eyes. "Dear, it was to make -you happy--to give you back all you had lost--I wanted you to see me--at -the last--on the mountain-top--in my golden palace--don't you -remember----? Not in decay and ugliness--but in beauty." - -"It has always been in beauty!" he cried out in passionate protest. - -She shook her head. Her eyes no longer saw him. They were fixed ahead -on some brightening vision. - -"Not always. You and I--we saw the same sunrise but we were afar off -from each other. We stood on different mountain-peaks--there was a -great valley between, which one of us had to cross before we could stand -together. And one night--I couldn't bear to be so far off from you and I -saw that your mountain-peak was higher than mine and nearer to the -sun--and I made up my mind. I came down from my heights and went -through the valley. It was so ugly--quagmire and darkness--and -loathsome things--sometimes I felt I could never be clean again and -sometimes that I should not have the strength to reach you--and in that -time you could not see me but in the end we stood together--we're near -each other now, Tristram----" - -Her voice faded into an exhausted silence. He knew that her mind was -clouded with a rising mist of old memories, old doubts and struggles. -He could not wholly understand, and yet the recognition of an -immeasurable, fearlessly born suffering came to him with her broken, -fevered murmurs. - -He bowed his face upon her hands. - -"My mountain heights--oh, Sigrid, they have been low enough--if you knew -how low----" - -"I know everything--everything----" - -He was silent. The certainty, serene and complete, broke in a shaft of -light through his darkness. He lifted his face to hers. Her eyes were -closed. Her fair head had fallen a little on one side in an attitude of -great weariness. Slowly, in answer to his imperative appeal, her eyes -opened. They were at first dim and expressionless as though she withdrew -her sight from some inner vision. - -"Everything--Sigrid?" - -"Everything," she answered. - -"Barclay----" - -"He told me--but I knew more--I knew everything. Because I loved you I -understood." - -A fine, contemptuous smile touched her suffering lips. "I knew Anne, -too. I knew how she had chosen----" - -He got up, driven to his feet by an intolerable knowledge. - -"Then you shielded me----" - -"Do you grudge me that little comfort?" she whispered. Then as he stood -staring down at her, she made a little helpless effort to touch his -hand. "Bracelet--brother--you mustn't be too proud----" - -"Oh, God----" he burst out. "It isn't that--don't you know I love you -too--and you've suffered----" - -"I've lived as I wished to live," she said with a sudden thrilling -clearness, "and when I couldn't help you any more--when I saw that it -was all useless I made an end--my end. I didn't mean to tell you--I -meant to leave you a perfect memory--and to go silently. But you called -me back. You made me--if you love me--you will be glad." - -She struggled up on to her elbow, gasping for breath, and he saw the -greyness creeping to her cheeks. He turned to fetch fresh stimulants, -but she clung to him with an incredible strength. - -"No--stay with me, Tristram--these must be perfect minutes--we've earned -them--they're ours--there's nothing to regret--a happy death--it's what -we live for--I'm happy--madly happy. Stay with me, Tristram--don't -leave me in all this darkness----" - -He dropped to his knees beside her. He slipped his arm beneath her -shoulders, holding her in an embrace of desperate tenderness. She threw -back her head, smiling. - -"Kiss me, Tristram." - -Their lips met. She fell back with a short sigh and lay still, her -mouth a little open as though in the midst of a laughing triumph she had -fallen asleep. But presently she stirred and drew closer to him. - -"Happy, Tristram?" - -"Yes," he answered. - -And indeed all anguish, all fear had gone from them both. They had gone -down together into a sea in which there was no thought, no memory, no -desire. The coming night enclosed them, shielding them from the future. - -"It's because I'm dying----" Then suddenly she laughed softly, -contentedly. "Those steps--in the fast movement--no one--no one has -ever dared them--no one has ever danced like that--it was a great -triumph--the greatest----" - -He bent and touched her forehead with his cheek, soothing her. She -smiled a little as though in gratitude, and sighing, fell asleep. - -He did not move. He knelt there listening to her breathing. It -hypnotized him, drowning his consciousness in its sweet, unbroken -rhythm. It conveyed no meaning to him. He had passed out of the -regions of hope and dread into the serenity of resignation. - -Far off, in some other world, he heard the whisper of rain, the patter -of heavy drops in the dust-laden street. He heard voices--exultant, -hysterical. A pregnant coolness crept into the suffocating quiet. He -knew that the drought had broken--that the rains had come. - -But it was another world. In this world there was nothing but himself -and this one woman. - -He bent lower to catch a murmur from her parted lips. One small hand -still rested on his breast, clinging to him. Its hold was greater than -death--stronger than the threat of life. It drew him down with her into -her peace. - - * * * * * - -She awoke as the grey, rain-swept dawn crept sullenly through the open -doorway. Only little by little had she fought back the engulfing -oblivion. The shadow of the man standing beside her, watching her, had -loomed huge and unreal. But now she saw his face and knew him. - -"Tristram!" she whispered. - -He seemed to draw himself up to a greater height. His features were -haggard and painted with the livid pallor of the light. - -"A messenger has gone to Gaya," he said. "They will send Smithy with a -litter----" - -"Tristram--I'm going to live?" - -"Yes," he said, "the danger is over." - -They looked away from one another, finding no word of comfort. The -glamour of the night dropped from them. They had drunk of death, and of -that intoxicated hour nothing remained but the bitter aftermath of -life--an anti-climax, tragic and pitiful, half-grotesque, a little -sordid. - -And as two travellers who have reached what seemed their journey's end -only to find the desert stretched before them, they faced the grey, -unending road of their future. - - - - - *CHAPTER X* - - *ANNE CHOOSES* - - -Outwardly the scene was commonplace enough. Women, for all their -supposed emotional weakness, have for the greater part a knack of facing -the graver crises with a deliberate and almost prosaic calm. And for -one woman at least in that quiet room the moment could not have been -more bitter, more fraught with ugliness and humiliation. Yet she sat -very straight, very composed, tearing down the sanctity of her life -without a quiver. - -"You must think it very strange of me to come to you like this," she -said, "but I had the feeling that, whatever else you would do, you would -be frank with me. And I must know the truth. I must know where I -stand. I must know what you are to my husband, Mrs. Barclay." - -She looked straight at her companion as she spoke. She was not -conscious of her own insolence. Her words had been forged in a -fortnight's agony and had cost too much in their utterance to allow -consciousness of any hurt but her own. Moreover, to her the pale, -delicate-faced woman opposite her had no claim to her consideration. -She was "one of those others" whom the remnant of man's prime favourite, -the Victorian female, passes with gathered skirts. For in Anne's -catalogue of humanity there were as yet only two varieties of her sex, -the sexually virtuous and the sexually immoral. They were accordingly -good women or bad women, no matter what other failings or qualities they -might possess. Or, in a word, a woman's loyalty to her husband, -prospective or actual, was all that mattered in Anne's eyes. - -Mrs. Barclay, she knew, was a bad woman. - -Sigrid regarded her thoughtfully from beneath the shadow of her hand. - -"You are insulting me, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "but I do not think you -mean it. I think you are unhappy, and that is excuse enough. Won't you -explain exactly what you mean?" - -"I'm sure you know," Anne answered unsparingly. "You were always--I -don't know how to express it--but it seemed to me--to a great many -people--that you tried to entangle my husband--before our marriage----. -I could have borne that. I knew my husband so well. In many ways he is -careless and unconventional. He doesn't recognize evil easily. But -now--now it's different." She halted, fighting the tremor in her voice. -It was the first trace of emotion that she had shown, and, in spite of -her prim brutality, it was curiously pathetic. "Since the--the scandal -in the temple--I've felt I couldn't bear it any longer. People have -talked--they think--oh, I know--though they hide it from me--and I can't -do anything. I can't because I don't know----" - -"You don't know what?" - -"Whether it's true." - -"Wouldn't it be best--fairer--to ask your husband?" - -There was a moment's silence. The splash of the rain on the trees of -the compound sounded dismally in the room's stillness. Sigrid shifted -her position. She leant forward a little as though to look closer into -her visitor's face. The small white hand on her knee clenched itself. -But Anne turned her face away from the intent, weary eyes. She bit her -lips desperately. - -"I can't----" she said. "I can't--that's just it----" - -A tear rolled down her cheek. She brushed it away flurriedly, but the -knowledge of her weakness broke down the wall of pride and anger which -she had built up in her loneliness. "I can't because I sent him away. -We'd quarrelled--no, it wasn't a quarrel--it was something worse than -that--and--and he let me choose--and I told him to go. I was very -wicked--very unjust. A wife's business is to forgive everything. I see -that. But it's too late. He's gone, and now--now I've no one----" - -It was not what she had meant to say. She had meant to be grave and -dignified and judicial, and instead she was crying quietly. But now -that the dam was broken her pent-up unhappiness flooded over her -irresistibly. She had been intensely lonely. She had no great friend -to turn to, and her instincts tended to a stern reserve where marital -relations were concerned. She had hidden her growing fears and remorse -under a cloak of indifference. Then had come the wild story of the -temple, of Sigrid Barclay's night spent in Tristram's hut, of her -supposed dangerous illness, of her apparently swift recovery. Then Gaya -had begun to whisper, and those whisperings had been more than she could -bear. She had meant only to seek the truth--instead she had poured out -her overladen heart to the woman she most hated. - -Sigrid got up slowly and went to the verandah. She stood for a minute -with her raised hand resting on the lintel, gazing out into the -rain-soaked gardens. The moist air was full of fragrance and reviving -life. When she turned at last there was a splash of colour in her pale -cheeks. - -"Mrs. Tristram, send for your husband--go to him. He is the sort of man -who doesn't need to forgive." - -"I can't." - -"You love him----" - -"I couldn't go to him until I knew----" - -"--that you had nothing to forgive?" - -Anne's silence answered. Sigrid studied her with no shadow of change on -her own palely composed features. - -"We're two women, Mrs. Tristram," she said, "and that makes many -impossible things possible--it makes it possible, for instance, though -we dislike one another, for us to be honest--even about the man we both -love." - -Anne lifted her wet, piteously twisted face. - -"Then it's true?" - -"It's true that I love him." She played absently with one of the little -silver ornaments on the table beside her, and then added: "It is true -also that I offered myself to him, though I never meant to marry -him--threw myself at his head. And that he refused me----" - -"He didn't care----?" - -Sigrid, glancing up, caught that look of mingled disgust and hope and -fear, but it was the hope and fear alone that had significance. - -"He had asked you to marry him. He told me that there could only be one -woman in his life--and that woman his wife." - -"That is true?" - -"I give you my word of honour." - -Anne sat very still. The tears were dry on her cheeks. She held herself -rather as she had done at the beginning. - -"And then--that night--a fortnight ago----" - -"Ah, the temple?" She smiled faintly. "You won't understand that so -well. You see, I am a mixture of a great artist and a bad woman. And -artistically I have always realized how beautiful I should be against -such a background. It was an artistic freak--though I daresay the woman -in me had a spiteful hope that Major Tristram might chance that way and -realize all he had lost. Anyhow, my heart failed me. Your husband acted -the good Samaritan; and that is the whole story." - -"If that is true I have done my husband a great wrong." - -"I think you have." - -Anne rose with a vague little gesture. It seemed to indicate barriers -over which no reproof could pass. She was quite composed now. The -strain and insolence had gone out of her manner, which was faintly -patronizing. - -"I have to thank you for your frankness. I--I shan't ever feel quite -the same to you as I have done. Indeed--I hardly understand. You say -you dislike me--and yet you've told me all this----" - -"That's because most unscrupulous people are good-natured," Sigrid -answered with careless amusement. She helped herself to a cigarette, -aware that by so doing she was living up to Anne's conception of her. -"You see, it doesn't cost me anything. This particular incident is -closed as far as I am concerned, and you might as well enjoy the benefit -of the truth. I am conscious that I tried to hurt you, and I'm sorry." - -Anne nodded. - -"I'm sorry, too," she said primly. She went towards the door and there -hesitated nervously. "You're--you're leaving Gaya, are you not?" - -"Yes, soon. My husband's business here is finished. It is very -fortunate." - -"Yes--very fortunate." - -She lifted her eyes to Sigrid, realizing for an instant why Gaya had -called her beautiful. An incredible impulse seized her, but she thrust -it down in scorn and self-disgust. She made a little tentative movement -as though to hold out her hand, and then turned and went out without a -word. After all, it was the only thing to do. Now that her worst fears -were over she saw that the scene had been preposterous, but she was a -little thrilled by her own action as conventional people are when they -have ventured out of their rut. She had met sin on her own ground and -worsted her. In some dim way she believed that she had fought for -Tristram and his happiness. Her anger against him had died--had been -transmuted into pity. She saw that behind his bigness he was weak and -easily led. Well, it was her task to lead him, to protect him. She was -his wife. - -She drove homewards through the steady downpour with an exalted -consciousness of a duty done and of a clear road before her. She knew -now what she had to do. It meant sacrifice because she no longer loved, -but sacrifice was a glorious prerogative. In it one found peace and -happiness. She was happier already. As she passed the little tin -chapel her happiness clamoured for expression, for thanksgiving. She -ordered the syce to wait for her, and a moment later she was kneeling in -her old place, to the right of the pathetic altar, thanking God for the -light that had been granted her. - -At first she did not see Meredith. There were only two side-windows -through which the grey light filtered, sinking drearily on to the -place's bleak unloveliness, and the figure bowed down before the altar -was in shadow and motionless in its utter, almost passionate -prostration. But presently he rose slowly to his feet and turned. The -lower part of his body was still in darkness, but his face was in the -light, lifted to it. And to Anne, who now saw him, its hideousness was -sublime. She saw in it the seal of God set on His martyr. Her -intuition flashed down into the depths of the man's patient soul, more -seared and scarred even than those dreadful features, and the compassion -which she poured out to him was other than her pity for her husband. It -was understanding. In truth it was not pity, but she gave that name to -it. - -He saw her. Even though the twilight separated them she knew he -faltered. She knew the memories that had driven the dark blood into -those scars. And she too remembered--all her girlhood and all her -girlhood's prayers and fancies which had been born in this poor room. -She was a woman now. The fancies had been foolish and childish. She -had flung away reality for them. Well, she would take up her cross. - -Meredith came towards her and took her outstretched hand. - -"When I saw you it was as though all the old times had come back again," -he said with a grave smile. - -"I came in for quiet," she answered. "I wanted to--to thank God for -something. And now I've found you--may I speak with you?" - -He nodded silently and led her into the tiny side-room, where he changed -his vestments and gave lessons to a few Pariah children who accepted his -doctrine in exchange for a certain social status. He offered her the -one chair, but she remained standing. - -"I have just seen Mrs. Barclay, Owen," she said. "I went to see her. -It may seem a dreadful thing to have done--and it was dreadful--but I -know that I did right. She confessed to me." - -He looked at her and then down at the papers littered on the table. - -"What did she confess?" - -"That some of the wretched scandal which has associated her with -Tristram was true. She did try to drag my husband into a horrible -intrigue. But she failed. She swore to me, and I believe it was the -truth." - -"I think Mrs. Barclay would speak the truth," he said meditatively. - -"She is shameless," Anne retorted with a flash of scorn; "but, at least, -now I know that Tristram is innocent where she is concerned. It is for -that I am so thankful." - -Owen Meredith drew himself up from his bowed attitude. There was -something weary and apathetic in his bearing which was new to her. She -felt, with a stab of pain, that he was very ill. - -"Anne--don't you love your husband?" he asked. - -The feverish blush in her cheeks deepened. But his eyes were grave, -even to severity, and admitted no offence. - -"Why, I must love him--he is my husband." - -His twisted mouth was bitter. - -"The one thing doesn't always imply the other, Anne. Men and women are -frail. They can't always keep the terrible oaths God makes them swear." - -"They can do their duty," she interrupted, "as I shall do mine." - -"Duty isn't love," he said. - -She lifted her head proudly. - -"It is the best one can give after love has been killed." - -"Has Tristram killed your love, Anne?" - -She met his stern gaze unflinchingly. - -"He has done something I can't forget. I have forgiven it, but I know -now how wide the gulf is between us and now I can't ever forget it. -That's all I can tell you." - -"Anne--Anne--we must judge gently----" - -"I don't judge any one but myself," she answered. "I see that I have -been most to blame. I made a great mistake and I accept the -consequences. I am going back to my husband." - -"Going back to him?" he echoed heavily. - -She nodded. - -"I can do nothing here. My father's condition is unchanged. Dr. Martin -is staying on, but he believes that the operation has failed. At any -rate, I shall be within reach and my place is at my husband's side. I -see that in many ways I could have done more to help him. Now I mean to -share his life--to stand by him. I am going to Heerut." - -"There's no place for a woman," Owen exclaimed. - -"I think there is. I am a good nurse. I could help him. And out there -I should see all that is good in him--oh, Owen, I must love and respect -him if I can." - -She lifted her eyes to his and for the moment in which their gaze met -they acknowledged to each other the naked, hopeless truth. He turned at -last with a broken laugh. - -"I think hell itself must be paved with useless sacrifice," he said. - -"Oh, Owen, don't talk like that--it's terrible. I can't bear it. Help -me!" - -"How can I help you?" he asked almost impatiently. - -"Ride with me to Heerut this afternoon--take me back to Tristram." - -She did not realize what she asked. She did not see his face. She was -possessed with a restless feverish desire for action--to start out on -the road she had chosen. - -"Dear, it's not possible. The weather and the roads are too bad. -You're not strong enough. A man told me this morning that the river is -terribly swollen--dangerous even----" - -"I am not afraid," she said proudly. "Owen, won't you help me this last -time?" - -"This last time?" - -She faltered. - -"Oh, I didn't mean that--it was just a phrase----" - -"God knows, it may be the truth--of late I have felt----" - -He broke off and added quickly: "Yes, of course I will take you if it -can be done." - -"Thank you, Owen. I knew you would always help me if you could." - -"Always." - -Their hands met. The tears shone in her eyes, and they were not far -from his. He bent and kissed her solemnly between the wet curls on her -forehead. - -"My little sister in God!" he whispered. - -"Dear Owen!" - -And neither of them was conscious of a lie. Their hypocrisy was -pathetic in its stern sincerity. - -That same day Owen Meredith rode with Anne to Heerut. The pitiless rain, -the roads, so deep in mud that their horses had to pick their way at a -walk, prolonged the fifteen-mile journey into the late afternoon. They -scarcely spoke. The strain and physical discomfort kept them silent, and -on Meredith's part there was an abstraction, a curious detachment which -made speech difficult. It was as though somewhere, somehow, a vital -link between himself and life had been cut. Something was finished--a -book had been closed. He knew no more than that, but the vague -knowledge numbed even his suffering. From time to time he glanced at -his companion, questioning her power to bear so much; but her upright -figure, the brilliant flush on her cheek, reassured him. He knew that -she was setting out on a road of abnegation. He saw how wonderful she -was. - -They reached the new bridge and drew rein for a moment to watch the -angry river rush past between the arches. The soffits were already -awash. The monstrous flood of roaring water deafened them, and the -voice of the engineer who had crawled out of his shanty to watch the -progress of events came to them only in gusts. - -"Damnable--you never know where you are--these accursed rains--nothing -in moderation--my life's work--the lady'd better go back--it's no time -to cross----" - -"I am going to join my husband," Anne said slowly. - -The man grunted. - -"Better if he joined you," he grumbled. - -They reached Heerut at last and urged their weary horses to a canter -down the deserted, evil-smelling street. Tristram's hut was empty, but -there were signs of a recent habitation--a pipe on the table, some -instruments washing in a basin of carbolic, an open book. The dank -nakedness of the place drove Meredith out of his stupor. - -"Anne, is it wise--hadn't you better come back--you're not strong enough -to bear all this privation----" - -She shook her head with a faint smile. - -"I'm not strong enough to ride back. Besides, I wouldn't. I've set out, -and I'm going on." - -He placed her saddle-bags out of reach of the rain which oozed in -through the open doorway. He knew now that he had acquiesced in a -reckless, ill-judged adventure, but a spirit of weary fatalism silenced -him. Perhaps good would come of it--a real and lasting reconciliation. -He thought of that night in this very place when he had intervened and -his whole being winced under the lash of his self-contempt. He would -not intervene again. - -"So it's good-bye, Anne." - -"Good-bye, Owen--and thank you." - -Their hands met. He did not kiss her. Though he did not own to it, the -presence of Tristram was strong in that drear place, and his own passion -more vivid, less subdued by resignation than he had believed. - -"God bless you, Anne--I--I--shall pray for you always." - -"And I for you." - -Such was their leave-taking. There was in it an element of finality -which neither analysed nor understood. When the door had closed on him -an instant's pang of fear and yearning forced his name from her lips, -but he did not hear and she did not call again. She sat down, looking -about her. Now that she was alone she knew that she was very tired--so -tired that even rest offered no relief. At other times, after a long -day in the saddle, the thought of sleep had been like a draught of fresh -water to a thirsty man, but now it seemed hideously afar off--almost -unthinkable. Instead her weariness goaded her to movement, whilst her -brain was numb. It was as though something mysterious was working up -inside her physical being, gathering together for some unknown crisis. - -She tried to think--to visualize things. She tried to picture -Tristram's entry and the scene between them. She had gone over it so -many times, and now it eluded her. She tried to remember what her -husband was like, but could not. A little prayer for strength and -guidance came into her mind, but after the first words she forgot that -she was praying. In despair she drove herself to think of Sigrid in -this place, of Sigrid in her husband's arms; but the picture left her -numb and indifferent. Her mind rode helpless on a great shoreless sea -of exhaustion. Nothing mattered but her body, and its rising suffering. - -Her hands and face burnt. The room was stifling. She got up -uncertainly to open the door, but on the way remembered her wet things -and began to unpack the saddle-bags. In the midst of it she fancied she -heard Tristram's step and a new desire obtruded itself on her masterless -thoughts. She had meant to get a meal ready for him--to make the place -homely--to welcome him as his wife, his comrade. She swayed as she drew -herself up. She began aimlessly to clear the table---- - -Half an hour later, when Tristram returned, he found his supper waiting -for him and his wife unconscious on the ground. - -The shock, coming as a climax to a fruitless day of labour among men and -women who had once loved him and now shrank from his very shadow, did -not hinder prompt action. He gathered her up tenderly and laid her on -his bed. Her clothes were wringing wet, but the fever of her body burnt -through them, and, knowing what Meredith did not know, he cursed with an -anger inspired by pity. He forced a little brandy between her lips, and -he was beginning to remove her soaking riding-skirt when her eyes -opened. - -"Tris--what's happened? Did I faint?--oh, how stupid of me--don't -bother--I can manage--I shall be all right in a minute----" - -"You must lie still," he said impatiently. "Why did you come? It was -madness. If you had wanted me you could have sent for me. You've made -yourself ill." - -"I don't know--I wanted----" She tried desperately to think, to recall -all her plans and motives. They slipped through her fingers. And -meanwhile he was tending her skilfully, tenderly. He scarcely heeded -her broken muttering. Suddenly she stretched out her hand and drew him -to her. - -"Tris, I know what it was--I wanted to come to you--and tell you -that--that--I--I--forgive--I was harsh--and cruel--I--misjudged. Mrs. -Barclay told me--how loyal you had been. I'll stand by you--I'm your -wife--it's my duty--I want to do what's right--I'll help -you--here--I----" Then her body overwhelmed her. It threw her soul to -the earth, whining and whimpering. "Oh, Tris, Tris, I'm in such awful -pain--such awful pain." - -"I know," he answered hoarsely, "my poor little Anne----" - -Her eyes turned to his. They cleared for an instant. - -"Tris--you don't think----" - -"Dear, I'm afraid so. We've got to do the best we can. You mustn't be -frightened----" - -She began to cry helplessly. Then the pain dried even her tears. She -clung to him in a frenzy of agony. - -"Oh, Tris--Tris--help me----" - -She passed at last into a merciful unconsciousness. Not once during -that night did she regain knowledge of his presence and yet he knew that -even in that mental darkness she suffered as only women are doomed to -suffer. Watching her, alleviating where he could, he gave no thought to -the past or future, no thought to the other woman who had lain in the -selfsame place, battling with the selfsame enemy. He did not ask -himself whether, had this piteous offer of forgiveness been made in the -crisis of their lives, it would have stemmed the torrent of events, -whether indeed there is any power which can check the course of -character and the heart's will. Nothing of all that mattered. Nothing -but this pitiful suffering. He saw Anne only in her girlish youth and -innocence and ignorance. He saw her as a child ground between life and -her own child's beliefs and ideals. She claimed him by the great right -of pain. - -Her poor fevered little hand rested in his. Even in her unconsciousness -she clung to him as though his touch soothed her. But in her delirium -she called on Owen--called on him incessantly---- - -And in the early hours of the morning her hope was taken from her. - - * * * * * - -Owen Meredith reached the river shortly before nightfall. The muffled -roar of the water sounded louder and nearer than before. As he crossed -the bridge he could feel the steel girders quivering under the strain; -he could see the yellowish-greyish mass racing from under his feet into -the gloom of the coming night. It conveyed nothing to him. He was -thinking of Anne--praying for her with a dull, stupid persistence. - -The engineer, encased in waterproof, met him with a torrent of grim -abuse. - -"What we poor devils have to put up with! If this blessed thing doesn't -hold--I'm dished. Bah--India! What the dickens are we doing in this -_galere_? The very elements are against us." He shook himself like a -wet dog. "Well, you'd better hurry. You'll catch up that fat monkey of -a Rajah. He's in a towering rage about something--somebody been rude to -his Allmightiness. You'd better soothe him down. There's trouble enough -going----" - -Meredith rode on. He did not want to catch up with Rasaldu. He was -still thinking of Anne when the Rajah, wet through and mounted on a -limping English thoroughbred, loomed up like a ghost in the rain-soaked -twilight. He greeted Meredith much as the engineer had done. - -"This rotten climate! Look what a mess I'm in. I've just come from -Heerut--incog. you know. Wanted to do the poor beggars a good turn and -they threw stones at me--they--they insulted me. It's that damned -blackguard Barclay. He ought to have been shot. You English are -getting too devilish delicate. One's got to hit, and hit hard." He -rambled on furiously. Meredith understood that Rasaldu, without escort, -after the fashion of English royalties on their own domains, had sought -to act the part of benefactor in Heerut and had been repulsed. At -another time the incident might have caused Meredith a faint amusement, -but now he could feel nothing. The desolation of rain and grey, -lightless sky pressed down upon him like a stupefying burden. He went -on thinking of Anne, wondering dully how it was he knew so well that he -would never see her again. He thought of Tristram and pitied him. In -that hour he forgot creed and principle. He saw, perhaps for the first -time, humanity as one in suffering. - -Two beggars slunk through the mud towards him. They were almost naked. -The water ran in streams off their glistening brown skins and matted -their beards into black masks. They came up, one to Meredith, one to -the Rajah, whining for alms. Meredith threw his man a coin. He did it -mechanically. The Rajah burst into a fresh stream of curses. He was -very wet--very angry. He had been called "swineherd" by his own people -and the name rankled like a poisoned dart in his quivering flesh. He -spurred his horse at the whimpering mendicant. - -"Get out of my way, you vermin----" - -Something happened. Meredith, still weighed down by his own thoughts, -was only conscious of a coming change. He half turned to his companion, -and as he did so one of the natives sprang past him. It was the leap of -a tiger, straight at Rasaldu's throat. A gleam of white light streaked -through the greyness--a muffled scream ended suddenly by a choking, -sickening groan. - -Rasaldu pitched headlong from the saddle. His foot caught in the -stirrup. The startled animal swung round and bolted, dragging its rider -face-downwards through the mud--a mere inanimate, shapeless bundle. - -So much Meredith saw. He tried to think--to act. But he was like a -sleeper waking slowly--too slowly--from a narcotic. Instinctively he -turned to meet his own danger. He never saw it. It came noiselessly -and quite painlessly. It was like a stupendous stroke of lightning -severing the earth under his feet. It sent him spinning through aeons -of memory and feeling into nothing. - - - - - *CHAPTER XI* - - *FREEDOM* - - -A covered bullock-wagon which for the last two hours had been struggling -with the morass leading up from the valley came to a standstill outside -the gates of the Barclays' compound. The driver lifted a flap of the -canvas covering, and a woman crawled out and clambered stiffly to the -ground. She stood for a moment in the steam of the panting and sweating -bullocks counting money into the brown calloused palm extended to her in -greedy persistence. - -"No, I shan't want you going back," she said, in answer to his half -diffident, half insolent question. "I've come to stop." She gave a -little, high-pitched laugh, and, gathering up her untidy skirts, went -through the open gates. - -A syce, holding a lady's saddle-horse, waited at the bottom of the -verandah steps. He stared stolidly at the intruder. He did not know -her, and he knew everyone in Gaya. He had also the unerring instinct of -his race and class which discounted the superficial Europeanism of her -dress and its common gaudiness. He knew her for what she was, and made -a gesture of detention as she passed. - -"What you want, missy?" he asked in English, and with a mocking flash of -his white teeth. "Missy not go in there." - -She turned her head. The expression on her dark, mobile features was -composite of dignity and nervousness. - -"I want Barclay Sahib," she said. "Is he here?" - -"Meester Barclay gone away," the man retorted, using the English prefix -deliberately. "Meester Barclay gone away many weeks." - -"Where has he gone?" - -"Not know, missy." - -She stood irresolute, looking at the saddled horse. At first it seemed -to convey no significance to her. Then suddenly she flushed up. - -"I must see some one who does know," she explained. "Who lives here?" - -"The Mem-Sahib, missy." - -"Who is the Mem-Sahib?" - -The syce made no answer. He stroked the velvet nose of his charge and -the stranger became aware from his attitude that they were no longer -alone. She turned sharply, and the woman standing at the head of the -steps immediately behind her returned her stare with a faint smile. - -"Do you want Mr. Barclay?" she asked quietly. - -"Yes, I do." The Eurasian hesitated. The fair-haired fragile-looking -woman in the dark riding-habit seemed to frighten her. - -"I've come all the way from Calcutta," she stammered. - -"That's a long way. I'm sorry--Mr. Barclay is away--has been away for -many weeks. I don't even know where he is. If you would tell me your -name----" - -The woman caught her breath audibly. Her dark, uneasy eyes had a -smouldering look in them--a look that was somehow primitive in its -sombre, gathering suspicion. - -"My name's Barclay--Marie Barclay," she flashed out. - -"Ah, Mr. Barclay's sister?" - -"No, his wife." She flung the words down with the defiance of an animal -that is afraid of its own temerity. Her head, with its over-adorned hat, -was thrown back truculently, but her lips quivered. "I'm his wife," she -repeated. - -Sigrid had been pale when she came out. Now a faint delicate colour -tinged her cheeks, bringing life and energy to her listless -transparency. She put her ungloved hand to her face with a little -familiar gesture of surprise and thought--but to Marie Barclay it -expressed mockery. - -"It's true," she burst out. "I can prove it----" - -"I'm sure you can--only not here. It's so wet. Purga, you can walk -Astora for a little. Won't you come in--Mrs. Barclay?" - -She gave her visitor no opportunity to answer, but led the way to the -library where Mrs. Smithers, with ruffled grey hair and a face of care -and perpetual perplexity, sat beneath the marble Venus knitting a pair -of mittens which no human being was ever likely to wear. - -"Smithy, this lady has come all the way from Calcutta. She's Mrs. -Barclay--Jim's wife." - -Mrs. Smithers let the mittens drop into her lap, but she gave no other -sign of consternation. She was in the state of a person who has been -subjected to a vigorous course of electric treatment and has become -impervious to shocks. - -"Lawks a-mercy!" she exclaimed wearily. "Well, and I'm not surprised. -It's not the last thing I expected to hear. I warrant there's a good -few of 'em about the country if we only knew." - -"But this is true, Smithy--I'm sure it is, isn't it?" She turned, with -a quick gracious movement, to the woman at her side, but for a moment -the latter did not answer. Her full, rather pretty, mouth was -desperately closed to hide its trembling. Her hands were interlocked in -front of her. A strand of straight black hair straggled untidily across -her face, and she tried to toss it back with an upward jerk of her head. -It was as though she dared not unclasp her hands. - -"Yes, it's true," she said at last. "I can prove it. We were -married--years ago--in Calcutta. He's kept it quiet--I know--he was -ashamed. He thought I'd pull him back. He wanted to get on so -badly--and I put up with it. I'd--I'd have put up with anything. He -said he'd send for me--afterwards--but he never did. I hadn't heard -from him for weeks. He didn't send any money--there was hardly any -left--just enough to bring me here----" she looked from one woman to -another, and there was a tortured, hunted look in her eyes that made her -violent defiance pitiable. "I didn't mean to tell--he made me -promise--but I've been so unhappy--so desperate--when I found he'd -gone--and--and you here, I lost my head--I couldn't bear it any -longer--I couldn't----" - -She dropped down into the chair nearest her, her face buried in her -hands, crying wildly. - -"Scoundrel!" Mrs. Smithers ejaculated on the same note of confirmed -conviction. - -Sigrid stood looking down at the bowed, shaking shoulders. Her eyes were -pitying, but her mouth was a little wry, almost whimsical. - -"You were quite right to tell us," she said. "It's made a great many -things clear. You needn't be frightened. I have an idea your husband -meant you to come and that he will be glad. I daresay that was why he -didn't write----" - -Mrs. Barclay lifted her head, brushing the tears from her wet cheeks. -Her hat had slipped a little to one side, giving her a look of grotesque -and distraught violence. - -"What are you doing here?" she asked insolently. "Who are you?" - -"Nobody in particular--an interloper--it seems." - -"Oh, I know better than that!" The dark face quivered into a sneer. "I -know who you are. You're the white woman he was after. I guessed right -enough. He wanted an Englishwoman." She sprang suddenly to her feet -with an almost threatening gesture. "But it was me he loved--me he -married. He didn't care for you--don't you flatter yourself--he wanted -you--just to get even--just to hurt as he'd been hurt. You're nothing -but a----" - -She broke off. Sigrid had not moved or spoken, but there was that in -the still white face which checked the torrent of savage insult. Mrs. -Smithers got up. She rolled the mittens into a neat ball. - -"I'm an old woman," she said, "and I hate violence. But just you mind -what you're saying, Mrs. Barclay----" - -Sigrid checked her with a gesture. - -"Mrs. Barclay is quite right," she said calmly. "I think she -understands her husband very well. She is only mistaken in supposing I -did not understand too. I did not know that he was married, but that is -neither here nor there. I did know that I was merely a means to an -end--as he was to me. Now that's all finished and done with." She -laughed a little. "Do you know, Mrs. Barclay, you are the second woman -in twenty-four hours who has accused me of trying to steal her husband, -and, heaven knows, in this instance, it isn't true." - -Marie Barclay stared at her in sullen silence. Her passion had gone -down under fatigue and a natural racial apathy. She had struck with all -the strength she possessed, and now came the reaction of helpless tears. - -"I don't know what to do," she said brokenly. "I've nowhere to go--no -one to help me." - -"We're going to help you," Sigrid answered. She came and laid a gentle, -controlling hand on the other's arm. "You mustn't break down. There's -nothing to be afraid of. You don't know it, but you've done me a great -service. And now it's my turn. You'll stay here. It's your -home--everything in it is yours. There's money enough to keep you going -till he comes back. And he will come back. He'll be glad to find you -here--we were nothing to one another. Doesn't that make you happy?" - -Her tone was so gay, so assured that the brimming eyes lifted to hers -lost their suspicion and hatred. - -"I don't know--I don't understand--and you----" - -"I shall clear out. I've no right here. We'll be your guests for -tonight and we can talk things over. Meantime, Mrs. Smithers will give -you tea, and I'll go for a last ride on your horse. I want fresh air -and a little quiet. You don't mind?" - -The full lips quivered resentfully. - -"You're making fun of me----" - -"No--I'm in dead earnest. I've been an intruder and an unwilling thief, -and now I return my ill-gotten gains. Smithy, take care of her till I -come back. And no violence!" - -Mrs. Smithers paid no heed to the injunction. She was trembling in -every limb as she followed the quickly moving figure to the verandah -steps. She clutched Sigrid's hands. Her dim old eyes were full of a -great dread. - -"Sigrid--my dearest--what are you going to do?" - -"Do? Nothing rash, Smithy. Did you think I might----? Don't you see -how good it is? I'm free. I'm Sigrid Fersen--I haven't got to fight -daily, hourly, for my integrity--I'm free." She drew in a deep joyous -breath of the fresh, rain-soaked air. Her eyes shone under the fine, -untroubled brows. "I'm going home with you to England, Smithy. I'm -going to live in the little suburban house and give dancing lessons to -the large suburban feet. And in my free moments I shall play Beethoven -and Wagner and Chopin on an extravagantly fine Bechstein. For I've -learnt that one can play noble music anywhere. That's a great lesson, -Smithy." She smiled tenderly. "And I shall live on your savings, -Smithy. That'll make you happy, won't it?" - -"Oh, my dear----" - -"I know. Such queer things make women happy." She grew grave for an -instant. "And perhaps I shall live to be very old, as Tristram said I -might. I may grow so much stronger--I shall outlive you, Smithy, and -every one who ever cared for me. But I'm not going to funk it now. I -shall play my music to the very end." - -Mrs. Smithers made no answer. She could not have answered, for the -dimness had crept into her throat and choked her. She lifted the little -hand clasped in hers and kissed it. - -Thus Sigrid Fersen rode down the steep, mud-choked road towards the -valley. She told herself that it was for the last time. And because -each "last time" in life is a bridge-crossing into a new and trackless -country she looked back along the old road, and her thoughts lingered by -the high landmarks by which she would never pass again. High up against -the horizon a mountain-peak glowed in the warm splendour of this -farewell. On its topmost crag she had dwelt a little and alone. She -saw the rough and ruthless descent into the world of men the winding -road over strange countries, the always-seeking of those two years, and -there on the verge of an abyss the revelation of something as lofty, as -splendid as all that she had left behind her. At first she had drawn -back. She had even smiled a little at the thought that her feet should -tread so desperate a path. But in the end she had gone on--down into -the depths and through a suffocating evil darkness and up again at last -to the farther summit. And had it been worth it--worth the effort, the -sheer, physical effort, the pitiless drain upon soul and body, the -inevitable loneliness? She knew her answer. She saw before her the -country to which her stern enterprise had led her. She saw it flat and -barren and wind-swept, its sparse trees bowed before the solitary -storms. She saw that it had its own grandeur. There was a sweet taste -in the wind; and the rough earth carried many flowers on its bosom, and -they had a fragrance more delicate than all the rich exotic blossoms -which had once been dear to her. She welcomed the sweet winds and the -great limitless horizons. She stretched out her arms to the blustering -storm. She was free. Her freedom was not of the mountain crags, but of -the great undulating plains where men pass their daily life. And she had -ceased to be alone. Somewhere on that vast expanse a fellow-traveller -pressed on his way, often erring, often misled, but still with head -erect, eyes fixed on the down-going sun which was their common goal. -She saw him big and careless and unkempt with strays and vagabonds -crowded at his heels. She saw the light on his face, and knew that he -too was conscious of their comradeship. It did not matter that in that -country over which they travelled they would not meet again. They had -met once. God Himself, if He existed apart from His creation, could not -blot out that knowledge or His own decree by which the separate paths of -men meet at the end. - -Thus Sigrid Fersen rode out of Gaya. Her horse slipped and fretted over -the treacherous descent, but her hand was as strong and steady as her -thought. She had the quality common to all vitally living things--the -love of physical, friendly warfare with the elements. She lifted her -glowing face to the warm rain. She felt at peace and happy. She could -look with clear eyes into the future. Tristram had said that with care -she might live to be very old. The thought had no terrors for her now. - -Between dreams and realities she left Gaya floating in the grey mists -behind her. The solitude and wide stretch of the plain soothed her and -gave her a sense of release from a cramping prison. She began to deal -practically with the coming years--even, with a faint smile at the -corners of her mouth, to furnish the little suburban house, to arrange -her days. - -And then, in the midst of her planning, her horse jerked to a quivering -standstill. She leant forward in her saddle, frowning through the veil -of rain, and saw that something lay across her road--something black and -huddled and shapeless. She tried to urge the frightened animal forward; -then something definite checked her--held her in sick, motionless -horror. It was a white patch--the shape of a man's hand, the fingers -clawed into the mud. - -A minute later she had managed to dismount. She knelt down by the -crumpled body, and, exerting all her strength, lifted it. It was so -caked and stiffened with mire and blood that it remained upright, -kneeling grotesquely, leaning against her. The disfigured features, -made more hideous by their mud-smeared agony, were close to her own. -She believed him dead. The horror of him, kneeling there, leering at -her, overcame her. She let him sink back--and then only saw that he -still lived. His eyes were open. They were already glazed and could not -have seen her, but an instinct, kindling for the last time, recognized -her presence. - -"Tristram--Heerut--warn Tristram--warn----" - -His mouth fell open. His gaze became fixed under the half-sunk lids. -It was finished. - -Sigrid Fersen rose to her feet. She was not conscious now of fear or -hesitation; she walked forward a few paces, tracing the smeared track of -Meredith's body back to a confusion of hoof-prints in the thick mud. -There had been a struggle, and Meredith had had strength enough to crawl -a few feet--she did not know that each foot had represented hours and -the triumph of the man's will over agony and unconsciousness, but she -knew what he had tried to do. - -"Warn Tristram!" - -It was a call to her old, unbroken fearlessness, to the eager, -adventuring blood and the new faith. Gaya and prudence and safety lay -behind her; but what was Gaya to her, what had prudence or safety ever -mattered to her? Before her lay the swollen river and sinister, -uncomprehended danger. - -She was going forward. - -She caught her horse by the bridle. It was no easy task to mount from -that slippery road, but she had in that hour an unconquerable energy and -resolve. It was done at last. She settled herself firmly in the -saddle, her hands on the reins were flexible and strong as steel. -Through the splashing mire and rain she rode towards Heerut. - -She reached the river-bank. The door of the engineer's shanty stood -open and one glance showed her that the place was deserted. She rode -over the bridge. The water slid across the roadway with an ugly, -slopping gurgle; its deeper voice thundered beneath among the shaken -arches. - -On the farther bank she drew rein for an instant. Amidst the rush of -the river it seemed to her that another sound had reached her. It was -vague and indefinite, and yet unmistakably separate from all else. It -was as though close to her, and yet hidden beneath the water, something -monstrous and living groaned in the agony of dismemberment. - -"Warn Tristram!" - -She rode on towards Heerut. - - - - - *CHAPTER XII* - - *THE MEETING OF THE WAYS* - - -They had come from all the ends of the Province, secretly and one by one -from the towns, and in whole companies from the villages. It was for -them only another pilgrimage. They brought with them the same childlike -faith, the same dim, passionless hopes, the same fatalism. And behind -those simple things there was the same incalculable force awaiting the -spark which should fire them to a ferocious heroism or headlong panic. - -They came together in the broad curve of plain where the Ganges twisted -in a horseshoe towards the foot of Gaya's hills. To the west, within -half a mile of the encampment, the black impregnable barrier of the -jungle followed the river's course past the bridge-head and the temple, -forming lower down a crescent around the little plateau on which Heerut -lay huddled. - -There were close on two thousand of them, men of all ages, all castes. -They carried weapons, but of a strange and varied nature--old army -rifles, an ancient sword, the deadly kukri, sometimes no more than a -rusty bayonet, stolen or bought from some drunken defaulter. They -themselves were as heterogeneous. They herded together without order or -discipline. The rain poured down upon them ceaselessly, saturating -their scanty clothing so that it clung to their lean bodies like creased -and dirty skins. Here and there the saffron robe proclaimed the Saddhu, -and there were priests, haughty, arrogant-featured men, who stood aloof, -as though the matter scarcely concerned them. Yet it was they who had -worked secretly and cunningly in the towns and villages. It was their -infallibility which had welded these strange, inco-ordinate atoms into a -weapon. For, undisciplined, ill-armed, and dejected though they seemed, -though they came straight from their fields and the enervating -atmosphere of the bazaars, these two thousand men were still fighters. -In the old days their fathers had scorned the plough and had lived and -died by the sword. They had fought for the old Rajah and gone with him -into exile and ended their adversity in the wildernesses. Some of that -fighting blood was in the veins of these, their descendants, and some of -that stern tradition lay smouldering beneath the veneer of peace which -the British Raj had forced upon them. - -But of all this, Barclay, riding at Ayeshi's side down the irregular -front of this strange army, saw nothing. To him they were a sorry, -pitiable crew, foredoomed to disaster. He knew now, if he had not -always known, the futile madness of the enterprise on which they were -launched, he with them. The brief illusion which he had nourished that -night in the temple had gone. Though he had flung himself into this -cause with all his wealth, all his power, he saw it to be lost. The -shadow of the future was on these upturned stoic faces, on Ayeshi, and -on himself. Yet he would not have turned back nor changed the course of -events. A sombre triumph and satisfaction glowed through his -foreknowledge. - -He had found his people. He belonged to them. In the end that was -coming he would not be alone. His blood would mingle with theirs. And -with them those others would be swept away--those others who had -rejected him. - -He turned his haggard, moody eyes towards distant Gaya and laughed. -Even now he was a little theatrical. He wore the native dress, and it -was like a masquerade. All that was English in him stood out the more -prominently. The very priests who had admitted him to their caste shrank -from his shadow, and quick, dark glances of suspicion followed him as he -rode at Ayeshi's side. Vahana, the Saddhu, clung to his -stirrup-leather. He was like a mocking spirit of evil, noiseless and -remorseless. Once Barclay had tried to swing him off by a quick turn of -his horse, but the old withered figure had leapt with him with the -agility of a tiger. Afterwards Vahana had lifted his face to Barclay, -showing his teeth in a mirthless grin of understanding. - -Thereafter Barclay made no effort to free himself. But he had become -afraid--afraid of something other than the end. - -Ayeshi rode to the farther end of the roughly formed square. Beyond the -jewelled turban and the ancient sword at his waist, he wore no insignia -of his rank, and even his knightly seat on the thoroughbred Arab could -not wholly atone to his followers for this lack of outward splendour. -They had expected something other--something resplendent, a gorgeous -representative of the millennium that was coming,--a god, an avatar. -And he was only a boy, with wasted features and restless, unhappy eyes. -Yet they greeted him as their lord. Perhaps even in their minds was the -knowledge that their lives were bound up with his, that there was no -turning back either for him or them. A Brahmin and a native -under-officer, still in uniform though without his badges, came out of -the ranks to meet him, and for a few minutes they spoke together in an -undertone. Barclay scarcely listened. He was watching with cynical -intentness the play of the priest's astute features, the deferential, -courtly movements, the keen flashes of the cruel eyes. In contrast, the -soldier seemed brutal and aggressive. His face was pockmarked and -sodden with vice, but he was a strong man--more vital in that moment -even than Ayeshi. - -Between Barclay and these two men Ayeshi was the shuttlecock--the toy -and instrument with which each sought to attain his own petty ends of -vengeance and power. For a moment Barclay could have pitied him as he -sat there, reining in his restive Arab with a master's hand, so -passionately in earnest, so deeply shaken by premonition. - -"They will fight, Pugra?" he asked repeatedly. "They will keep faith -with us?" - -The soldier grinned significantly. - -"They have sworn it, lord. There is no cause for them to break their -oath. It is a simple matter. In an hour it will be finished. Heera -Singh leads them. He is a good soldier. His brother was shot a year -ago. He will not fail." - -"And afterwards----?" - -"We shall join forces with them." - -"And after that----?" - -The soldier and the priest exchanged a quick glance of interrogation. -But the question had rung with an urgent appeal not to be denied. The -Brahmin drew a step nearer, taking the answer upon himself. - -"After that the great cities will follow. In Calcutta and Bombay they -do but await the signal. Is it not so?" - -"That is what they told me." Ayeshi passed his hand nervously over his -forehead. "They swore to me that they were ready. I was to be the -torch which should light India----" - -"Surely, then, it will be so, lord." - -Ayeshi made no answer. He seemed to sink into a fit of brooding, his -eyes fixed in the direction of Gaya. Barclay, who had not ceased to -watch him, urged his horse nearer. - -"Of what are you afraid, Rajah?" he asked softly in English, adding with -a flash of malice: "Isn't death the worst that can happen to us?" - -The echo of the grandiloquent phrase stung Ayeshi to a haughty gesture. - -"I do not fear death." - -"Whom then? Rasaldu? Rasaldu is dead. In a few hours there will be no -white men left in your kingdom----" - -"I know. It is not that. It is for these men--my people. They trust -me. They hope great things. If I should fail----" - -"You will not fail, Rajah. You have the right to call upon them. You -are their lord." - -Ayeshi glanced up swiftly. - -"And if I were not--if it proved a mistake--sometimes I am afraid----" - -Barclay shrugged his shoulders. He was growing impatient. The -merciless rain began to chill his blood. The roar of the river beat like -the incessant thud of a hammer on his ears. - -"What does it all matter?" he muttered. "If only this infernal rain -would stop! It's dangerous. If the water overflows on the high ground -up by Bjura we shall have to swim for it. That's what matters." - -But suddenly Ayeshi bent down from his saddle and laid his hand on -Vahana's shoulder. - -"You promised!" he said, in a tense undertone. "You promised that today -you would speak--that you would give me proofs to show my people. Now -keep your promise to me. Vahana--justify me." - -The fakir lifted his eyes to Ayeshi. His lips moved, but no sound came -from them. He shrank back against Barclay's knee, cowering as from a -blow. But his expression was triumphantly evil. - -And Barclay, looking into Ayeshi's stricken face, came to a bitter -understanding. Not only this boy, but all of them, were so many -instruments in a master-hand. Their hates and ambitions had been woven -skilfully into the greater pattern of a patient, insatiable vengeance. -They were pawns in Vahana's game. _They_ would be swept from the board. -Vahana would go on to his own end. - -Before this selfsame knowledge Ayeshi had faltered. Now he drew himself -up in the saddle. - -"Rasaldu is dead," he said quietly, yet with despair, "and Sahib -Meredith and others--others. Justify me!" - -And to that final, irrepressible cry of anguish Vahana answered. His -unaccustomed tongue wrestled with the words, and formed them slowly and -thickly. They fell like blows. - -"The--Rajah--had--no--son," he said. - -Then suddenly he laughed. In that final moment the brain, corroded with -hatred, broke down beneath its accumulated burden. The maniacal -merriment rang out above the thunder of racing water, it pealed on till -it dominated every other sound. As Ayeshi turned with lifted hand to -strike, it subsided hideously into a broken cackle. Still clinging to -Barclay's stirrup, Vahana dropped to his knees. What possessed Barclay -in that moment he could not have told. He stretched out his arm over -the cowering figure, shielding the thing he feared. - -"No, no, Ayeshi--it's too late. It doesn't matter who or what you are. -You've got to go on with it. You can't leave us in the lurch. There's -been bloodshed enough----" - -Ayeshi's hand sank limply to his side. His lips were quivering. - -"Rasaldu is dead," he repeated. "Rasaldu the swine-herd--had more right -than I--and the Sahibs who have done me no wrong----" - -Barclay interrupted him with a curse. Was this last catastrophe of his -life to end as the others had done, in a travesty--in a Gilbertian -fiasco? Was he to be held up to ridicule before those cool, insolent -men and women--ludicrous and ineffectual even in his death? - -"For God's sake--pull yourself together, Ayeshi!" he said imperatively. -"What does it matter whether you are wronged or not? You are the -leader. Chance has made you--the deliverer of your people. Act like a -man. Save your country--set us free----" He laid his hand on his breast -with a dramatic gesture. "I ask it of you--I, who have suffered at -their hands. Be strong, Ayeshi. Give us our freedom." - -But Ayeshi seemed not to listen. His frowning eyes were fixed in front -of him, and suddenly he pointed. Barclay turned in his saddle. At first -the spectacle that met him seemed no more than curious. The belt of -high grass which separated them from the river had parted, and a young -tigress stood in the opening. She seemed wholly unconscious of the -massed enemy before her. She stood there lashing her tail, her velvet -flanks heaving with recent hard effort, her fine head lifted in an -attitude of listening. For an instant she remained thus. No hand was -raised against her. Ayeshi and his followers watched her in motionless, -superstitious silence. Even Barclay felt himself incapable of action. -It was as though the apparition had for them a deeper, as yet unread -significance. - -With a low growl, not of anger but of fear, the beautiful animal trotted -with long, loping strides between Ayeshi and the herded crowd of tensely -watching natives. No sound was uttered until the lean, striped body had -vanished. Then a cry went up--at first isolated--then swelling to a -shout: - -"An omen--an omen!" - -"Vishnu has spoken!" - -"The gods are against us!" - -"The flood--the flood----!" - -The last came in a scream. It bore the other cries down into an -instant's stupefied silence. The massed square of humanity which had -tossed and surged in a gathering storm of panic grew still. - -Barclay lifted himself in his stirrups. He could see nothing. The rain -blinded him. Yet his ears, alert now, caught a distant ominous boom. - -"I believe it's true--the animal was bolting for her life--the water -must have burst its banks at Bjura--if it has, it's coming twenty miles -an hour--we've got to run for high ground, Ayeshi." - -The Hindu shrugged his shoulders. - -"There is no high ground----" - -Vahana roused himself from the mud where he had remained in an attitude -of apparent stupor. A demoniac energy blazed in the mad eyes. - -"There is a way--past Heerut--I will show you--only let me ride with -you, Sahib Barclay----" - -The Eurasian nodded. He no longer appealed to Ayeshi, who was sunk in -an apathy of despair. He raised himself again in the saddle. - -"There is a way to safety!" he shouted. "Vahana, the Holy Man, will -lead us--the gods have sent a warning--the gods are with us--follow!" - -He lifted Vahana into the saddle behind him and swung his horse round -towards Heerut. Ayeshi lingered; Barclay passed him with a gesture of -contempt. The control was in his hands now. It was for him to act--to -retrieve disaster. He had become the leader--the leader of his people. -He heard the rush of feet behind him--the sound thrilled through his -blood in a storm of exultation. - -"Follow me!" he shouted. "I will lead you." - -They followed. They swept Ayeshi into their maelstrom and carried him -with them, but they too had ceased to heed him. Nor did he try to -regain his hold. The right to command--even to resist--had gone. He -was no longer Rajah--exiled and disinherited, yet still lord of his -destiny. He was Ayeshi, the village story-teller, the servant of -Tristram Sahib, the dreamer bereft of his dreams. He would have been -glad to meet the end. - -But the people he had betrayed bore him in their midst, as they fled -before the oncoming waters. - - * * * * * - -Tristram heard only the deepening voice of the river, the rain splashing -on the roof, and the rush and swirl of the water as it tore through the -village gutters. Even these things, though they reached his hearing, -scarcely touched his consciousness. They walled him in. They formed a -sombre background for his wife's voice. - -He sat beside her, her hot little hand in his, and it seemed to him that -they talked together for the first time in their lives. Her voice was -weak and husky with pain, but the pain itself relaxed its grip on her, -allowing her to sink slowly and mercifully. - -"I'm dying, am I not, Tristram?" she had asked, and then, reading his -face, added gently: "I want to know--really. I'm not afraid to die. -Why should I be? There is nothing to fear--only so much to hope. Tell -me." - -"Anne--little wife--I honestly don't know. So much depends on your will -to live----" - -Her smile was touched with something of its old wisdom. - -"It depends on God, Tris." - -He nodded. It was too late to show her where their roads met. He could -only acquiesce. And presently she spoke again. "It's all been such a -big, sad mistake, hasn't it?" - -"What, dear?" - -"Our marriage." - -He looked into her pinched face, in which only a child-like wistfulness -remained. He looked then at her hand, hiding his own smarting eyes. - -"I suppose it has. It's my failure----" - -"You didn't love me, Tris." - -"I cared--genuinely. I cared so much that I wanted to make you happy." -He hesitated. "But I couldn't make myself to be the man you loved." - -"No, it was just a mistake," she agreed. - -"You're very generous, dear." - -She shook her head. - -"Oh, no--it was my fault most of all. I didn't understand. There are -things I don't understand even now." - -"What things?" - -"Wickie--and--and--that. It seems so wrong--just a dog. You love life -so--Tris." - -"I love living things--I can't help it--helpless living things most of -all. Even now I can't judge what I did--it's the old problem--how far -one has the right to punish--to resist evil. But I haven't any real -theories. I can't bear pain--that's all." - -Her eyes softened. - -"I know. You have been so good--so tender to me. Last night I -understood better all you are--but it's too late----" - -"No, Anne--it isn't. Live--give me the chance to make up to you. Dear, -you can. Ask God to give you the will. We've muddled it so far, but -we've seen our mistakes. We can start again. Who knows but if all this -trouble and pain wasn't meant to bring us together--to give us a real -love and knowledge of each other, Anne; couldn't it be----?" - -He was using instinctively the language which she could understand best. -Yet there was a sincerity behind the artificial sentences, a passionate -eagerness which moved her. She turned her head wearily on the pillow, -looking steadily into his face. - -"Would you be glad--if I lived?" - -"Unutterably glad." - -"Perhaps we might learn to love each other--in the end----" - -"I would try to earn your love." - -She smiled wanly. - -"I would try to--to make you love me too. I don't know. I would be -glad to live--perhaps if I could only sleep a little. Is there a -chance----" - -"Only try." - -"Will you stop by me whilst I sleep?" - -"I won't leave you." - -"I think--if you're there--if you wish it--yes--I will try. I will ask -God to let me live." He bent and kissed her hand. "You won't leave me, -Tris?" - -"I promise you." - -Her eyes closed peacefully. Her hand rested in his. He remained -motionless, hushing his own breathing. He did not want to disturb her -by the faintest sound, and he himself was tired almost past feeling. He -tried to hush even his thoughts--to create an hiatus between present and -future in which they could both rest. For an instinct in him knew well -that the great battle lay still before them. The time would come when -the warmth of reconciliation would grow cold, and they would face each -other again in the full strength of their conflicting temperaments. But -so long as this silence lasted there was peace, and in that peace they -were very close to each other--closer than they had ever been. - -They were both so unutterably tired. - -Of what use to force the issue now, even in his mind? Who knew--perhaps -they had indeed learnt their lesson--perhaps they would have patience -and help each other. All things were possible. He had sworn to himself -to make them possible. - -He sat there, bent forward, and listened to the rain and the monotonous -boom of the river. His hearing was that of a man coming out of an -anaesthetic--it distorted and magnified sounds, and yet held them a long -way off as though they came from another world. He could not bring his -thoughts to bear upon them. - -Then, amidst the dull persistency of it all, there broke the sharp, -staccato beat of hoofs--the splash of a horse galloping through water. - -Tristram rose cautiously to his feet. He had to unclasp his wife's hand -and her eyes opened. - -"What is it, Tris?" - -"My messenger back from Gaya, I expect. I didn't believe he meant to -go, but it seems I misjudged him." - -"You won't leave me, Tris?" - -"I've promised you." - -The horse had been drawn up sharply. Tristram went to the door and -opened it, letting in a wave of dank air. Sigrid stood on the threshold. -She was drenched with rain and mud. She went past him, closing the door -behind her. - -"Tristram--I----" she began breathlessly. - -"For pity's sake!" he muttered, in utter consternation. Then she saw -Anne lying on the bed by the wall. There was an instant's silence. -Anne had lifted herself on her elbow. Her cheeks blazed with colour. -All the childish wistfulness had gone from her expression, which was old -and hard and cruel. - -"Is this an appointment?" she asked clearly. "Didn't Tristram warn you -in time?" - -"Anne--what are you saying?" He came to her side, trying to force her -gently back. "I know nothing of Mrs. Barclay's coming--she will tell -you herself----" He looked towards Sigrid, standing white and still in -the centre of the room, and his voice shook with anger. "Mrs. -Barclay--explain to my wife--and to me----" - -But Anne freed herself from his hands. - -"Please--don't ask her to perjure herself. I don't believe you, -Tristram--lies are nothing to you--and I shouldn't believe her. She -didn't hesitate to try and take you from me before--a woman who can do -that is bad----" - -"It's not true," he broke in sternly. - -"It is true. She told me so with her own lips. I wouldn't be here now -if she hadn't confessed to me. You wouldn't have her--that's what she -said. Now, I don't believe even that----" - -She stopped, gasping for breath. Sigrid took a step forwards, and -Tristram, as he saw her face, felt the anger go out of him. She also -had tried to atone--to safeguard the happiness of a woman they had both -wronged. It had been in vain, grotesquely, tragically in vain. But she -had not spared herself. - -She went past him, straight to Anne's side. - -"Mrs. Tristram----" she began, "your husband has told you the truth. He -knew nothing of my coming. I bring grave news----" - -Anne shrank back from her. - -"Tristram--tell her to go--I can't bear it--won't you do even that for -me? I'm dying--you'll have time enough afterwards. You'll be happy -with her then. Can't you give me this hour--tell her to go----" - -He stood big and determined before her. - -"You are unjust, Anne. And you are doing yourself harm----" - -"Does that trouble you?" - -"I tell you, you are unjust. At least, hear why Mrs. Barclay has come. -She may have a message for us--perhaps from your father." - -She laughed bitterly. - -"You are very clever, Tristram. But I shan't believe her. I won't hear -her----" - -"You've got to," Sigrid interposed resolutely. "Mr. Meredith is dead. -He has been murdered. I found him dying--and his last message was a -warning to Tristram." - -She had meant to cut short the ugly scene. There was no time to waste. -One sentence was to save Anne the agony of a suspicion which seemed -justified enough. But no relief came into the poor, passion-twisted -features--only a more terrible change. Without a sound, Anne dropped -back among her pillows. Her eyes were closed, the last atom of colour -drained from her open lips. - -Tristram bent over her, his hand on her pulse. The fear of that moment -sickened him. - -"Owen,--Owen----!" - -The whispered name, warm with tenderness and grief, silenced them both. -They could not look at each other. It was as though they had pried -unwillingly into a secret which filled them with shame and a sense of -tragic futility. She, too, had borne her burden--her share of their -common error. - -"Owen--Owen----!" - -Sigrid touched Tristram's bowed shoulders. There was an odd diffidence -in her touch, as though she had become afraid. - -"I didn't know--how could I have known? Have I hurt her?" - -"It seems our fate," he answered bitterly. - -"I couldn't help it. There was no time to think. Something is very -wrong. Rasaldu was missed yesterday. Then Meredith--and there was no -one at the bridge. I came as fast I could--to warn you----" - -He drew himself up painfully. - -"It's no good. We can't leave here. You'd better go back to Gaya." He -glanced quickly at her. Her ethereal pallor, the look of wan -spirituality, smote him to the heart, and yet he spoke roughly. "You -ought never to have come. Why didn't you return to Gaya at once?" - -"He sent me," she said simply, like a child that has been reproached. - -"He knew that Anne was here," he muttered. His eyes returned to the -white, still face of his wife, as though he saw her for the first time. -Sigrid's answer seemed to him no more than the whisper of his own -thoughts. - -"Perhaps I should have come anyhow." - -"You won't be strong enough to ride back." - -"Oh--yes--I am quite strong. It's as you said, Major Tristram--I think -I shall live to be quite old." - -He heard her turn to go. He remained motionless, his hands clenched at -his side. No other words could have expressed more poignantly his own -vision of the future, and yet he dared not answer, dared not look at -her. - -"Ask them to send help," he said thickly. His voice shook beneath the -harsh self-repression. "You see--how it is--I can't leave here--I -couldn't leave her here----" - -"Yes--I understand--I'll send help." The door opened. Yet he knew that -she still lingered. "Major Tristram--I'm afraid, somehow, it's too -late." - -He turned. He heard what she had heard. - -"Close the door," he said quietly. - -She obeyed. There was something inexpressibly gentle and docile about -her. He remembered--not in thought, but in a vivid picture--how once -before they had confronted each other in that selfsame place--he saw her -resolute, defiant of life, splendidly self-assured. All that was gone. -It was as though her physical being, her bodily vitality had been worn -away, and that there was nothing left but the spirit, unbroken, yet -intensely weary. - -The sound of voices grew nearer. The cries, at first blurred into one, -became separate, sharp, shrill notes played on the dull bass of the -booming waters. Inarticulate though they were, they carried an -unmistakable significance; they were cries of fear, more terrible, more -pitiless than anger. - -Tristram made a gesture of quiet understanding. - -"Yes, it is too late," he said. "It's been working up to this. We -shall have to face it together." - -She assented silently. - -"I can't do much. I haven't a weapon--not so much as a rusty revolver." -He smiled grimly, remembering their first day together. "I shouldn't do -much damage, anyway." - -"I'm glad," she answered. - -Their eyes met. They dared look at each other now. In that steady, -passionless encounter there was acknowledgment and confession. They saw -their visions of the future as realities and knew that they had been the -creations of their despair. It was all impossible. They could not have -gone on. They were exhausted. They had worn themselves out in the -effort to bear their burden honourably, to break the rare mysterious -decree which binds one being to another in defiance of all human law and -circumstance. It was over. Soon they would be able to rest. - -"If only Anne were safe!" he said. - -"We must try and help her----" - -He felt a hand on his sleeve. He looked down and saw that his wife's -eyes were open. She clung to him. - -"You won't leave me, Tris?" - -"No, no, I promise you." - -"I'm so frightened----" - -He could not answer. The vain assurance died on his lips. He could -only hold her hand in his, comforting her to the last. The door opened -and he turned, facing whatever was to come. - -Barclay entered; Vahana, at his heels, lingered sinisterly in the -shadow, but Barclay strode straight forward, his arrogant eyes flashing -from one face to the other. He held himself as he had always longed to -hold himself--as the master, as the more than equal. He looked straight -at Tristram, and in that steadfast regard there was satisfaction, an -almost voluptuous foreknowledge of satiated passions. - -"You are my prisoner," he said. - -"Whom do you represent, Mr. Barclay?" - -"The Rajah Ayeshi." He saw, or thought he saw, amusement in Tristram's -eyes, and pointed to the open doorway--"and two thousand armed men." - -"Is this Ayeshi's order?" - -"It is my order--Rajah Ayeshi accepts my leadership." - -"Then it was you who murdered Rasaldu and Mr. Meredith?" - -He smiled. - -"And others. Believe me, there will be no living white man or woman in -Gaya by midnight--my wife excepted." He made Sigrid a little satirical -bow. "In spite of circumstances, I am glad of the chance to make that -exception. My wife will follow me." - -"Your wife is waiting for you in Gaya," she answered. She felt rather -than saw Anne lift herself on her elbow. She felt Tristram's movement -and added simply: "Mr. Barclay was married years ago. My marriage with -him was illegal, and I am free." - -She did not see the ugly little smile quiver about Anne's lips. She -held her ground, patient, content. She had broken the last link which -held her to a loathed life. It was as though she breathed a fresher, -purer air. - -"That frees me from all responsibility, doesn't it?" Barclay suggested. - -"Quite." - -He hesitated. His minutes in the place were numbered. His ears, attuned -to catch the first warning, reminded him of the remorseless, oncoming -danger, and yet he faltered. A bitter taste of failure was in his -mouth. - -"You had better follow me, Tristram. Resistance is useless." - -"As you will. I have only one request to make. Respect my wife. She -is very ill." - -Barclay shrugged his shoulders. - -"A dying woman----? I can grant you that much." - -But even in the midst of his brutal self-assertiveness, a merciless -flash of intuition showed him himself as they saw him. His power -slipped through his fingers. He looked from Sigrid to Tristram, and -knew their immeasurable indifference to all that he could threaten. -They were not afraid--almost--they were glad. He could not penetrate -their mood--he only felt it as an intolerable hurt--a frustration of -that madly aching desire in him. They stood aloof from him as they had -always done. He could not reach them--the woman had shaken herself free -from his very name as from something loathsome. To the -last--ineffectual, beyond the pale. He had meant to strike--he had set -them free. - -He made a gesture, and Vahana closed the door. He came and stood close -to Sigrid, staring into her face. - -"Will you come with me?" he asked. She made no answer. He felt his -lips trembling. "I could make you," he broke out. - -"I think not." - -"You mean that, sooner or later, you would escape me? I daresay. You -are brave enough. But I ask you to come with me of your own free -will--as my mistress--as anything on earth I choose--to share my -life--whatever future I have--faithfully----" - -"Aren't you wasting time, Mr. Barclay?" Tristram interposed. - -Barclay remained with his eyes on Sigrid's face. - -"If you will come with me, Sigrid, Major Tristram can go back to Gaya." - -She seemed scarcely to hear him. He heard Tristram laugh. - -"Isn't this all rather melodramatic, Barclay? Do you really imagine I -am anxious to save my life on such terms? Why don't you get on with -things?" - -Barclay swung round on his heel. - -"And does my offer really amuse you? Are you amused at the death of a -score or so of your countrymen up there in Gaya? That's what it amounts -to. Mrs. Boucicault is giving a dinner to the station tonight. In -three hours' time, the regiment mutinies, and your friends will be wiped -out without being able to lift a hand--unless you warn them. Is that -amusing?" - -He drew a deep breath of content. He had seen Tristram flinch. He had -reached him at last, had forced him down from his heights to meet him in -the equality of a life-and-death struggle. He could afford now to be -patient and composed. - -It was Sigrid who spoke. Her voice sounded curiously flat and lifeless. - -"Why have you told us this?" - -He turned to her. - -"Because I am asking a great deal of you. This is not our old bargain, -Sigrid. If you come with me, it must be on my own terms. I don't know -where I am going--but I shall be an exile--an Eurasian outcast with a -price on his head. And you have got to stick to me." - -"And your wife? She believes that you care for her." - -His hands were clenched. - -"I have done with caring," he said harshly. "You've taken care that I -shouldn't put love first in my life. Leave my wife out of this. -Nothing concerns you but your own decision." - -"And you are ready to sacrifice your plans----?" - -"I am prepared to give Gaya a fighting chance," he interrupted sternly. -"I do not pretend that it is more than that--perhaps not so much." - -"If--if I consent, will you keep faith? Have you the power----?" - -"I have the power. Ayeshi will consent to anything I suggest. -Remember--I have to trust you, too----" He hesitated, and then added -slowly: "I do trust you." - -She made a groping, uncertain gesture. - -"Tristram----" - -But he threw back his head in defiance. - -"It can't be. Gaya wouldn't be saved at such a cost." - -"It isn't what Gaya would want--it's what we've got to do--we ourselves -don't count." - -"Your honour----" he burst out. - -"What is honour?" she retorted finely. "By your own creed, -Tristram--what other honour is there but our duty towards others?" - -He fought against her, against the light which he saw gathering in her -eyes--against himself. - -"It's a hideous impossibility." - -"The hideousness isn't ours. It isn't impossible." - -"Decide--can't you?" Barclay flung at them. - -Tristram turned to him with a gesture of immeasurable contempt. - -"So you betray all your masters?" he said. - -"I am the son of a betrayal," Barclay retorted, smiling bitterly. "Has -that ever troubled you? Why trouble yourself now about me?" - -Sigrid's eyes avoided Tristram's face. The grey horror of it shook her. - -"It's as Mr. Barclay says--we've only got to consider our own actions." - -"Then you've decided?" - -"Is there any choice?" she asked sternly. - -For one moment he hated her as a man hates the cause of an intolerable -suffering. The next, he saw that she had outstripped him. She had -taken the fundamentals of his life and built her own edifice upon -them--a higher, finer edifice than his own. - -"I see that there is no choice for you," he said, with a chivalrous -resignation. "And you're right. We don't count." - -He felt the hand in his tighten. He looked down into his wife's ashen -face. Throughout she had not spoken--scarcely moved. Now the change in -her startled him out of the stupefying absorption of his pain. He saw -that she had ceased to be afraid, and that the malice and anger had gone -from her. He saw her as she had been in her girlhood, in her first -innocent, incredulous love of him. Her failing eyes were full of a deep, -unearthly pity. - -"Tris--you are both--very brave." - -A groan burst from his lips. - -"Anne--I can't leave you." - -"You must. That is my little share in the sacrifice. I shan't be afraid -now, Tris." - -He knelt down beside her. She put her weak arms round his neck and -kissed him. "Good-bye, husband." - -"Little Anne--God keep you." - -She smiled a little. - -"I'm--sure--He--will." - -Barclay moved impatiently. He saw that they had forgotten him. - -"Will you come, Sigrid?" - -She bent her head in assent. - -"Then you can go your way, Major," Barclay said. - -But it was as though the last weapon which his tortured pride had forged -for him had shivered against an impregnable armour. They were -great--these people--even in defeat--even Anne, little cowardly -Anne--could face death alone and unflinchingly. He recognized that -greatness with a last anguish. He had their blood in him. If they had -turned to him, recognized him, appealed to him in the name of their -common ancestry,--even then---- But they did not think of him. He was -a whirlwind driving them apart to their separate destinies--an -impersonal, soulless force--no more. - -"Come!" he demanded violently. - -Tristram gave Sigrid his hand. They took up their burden of life. It -had become heavier; but they took it up. And for a while they would -carry it. But in the end there would be rest. That was their message -and their farewell. - -Tristram went out into the rain-swept street--past Vahana, who looked up -into his face and laughed. - -Sigrid lingered. She drew shyly near the camp-bed with its little -burden. - -"Good-bye----" - -But Anne stretched out her hand and drew Sigrid down to her and kissed -her. - -"Yours is the hardest part. I--judged--harshly. Forgive." - -"There is no need--our ways have met in the end." - -The door closed presently. It grew very still in the little hut. The -voices and the clatter of hoofs faded in the distance. All other sounds -sank into the deepening, growing call of the flood. - -Anne lay still. Her eyes lingered on the shadowy furniture. Even now -there was Wickie's old basket in the corner. Poor Tristram! She sighed -faintly--wearily. Somehow now it was so much easier to understand--God -was all-merciful. - -It was growing dark. She tried to compose herself. The shadows were -rising up all around her. She was not afraid. Owen would be there--he -would be waiting for her--it would be just as it had always been--only -more perfect. - -She tried to fold her hands. - -"Our Father which art----" - -It was as though a great sea poured over her--engulfing her in its -peace. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIII* - - *TO GAYA!* - - -Tristram led Arabella out of her stable and spoke gently to her. He -showed no sign of haste or trouble. He did not believe Barclay. He was -convinced that there was no intention to allow him to leave Heerut -living. Even Barclay could not betray his followers so openly. Yet he -had no right to refuse the chance, and in the end it could make but -little difference. - -He mounted and walked Arabella down the centre of the flooded street. -Across the western exit of the village, where the land lay highest, the -two thousand had herded together like a pack of hunted wolves awaiting -the signal from their leader. Ayeshi sat his horse a little in advance, -with Barclay and the shadowy mendicant to his right. Tristram rode -towards them unmoved. He held himself with his usual casual ease, a -little loosely, with one fist stemmed against his thigh. There was no -conscious bravado in the attitude. An instinct inherited from -generations of men who had confronted the same enemy at the same odds -taught him an unchallenging serenity. As he drew nearer, he looked full -into Ayeshi's face and read in the sombre eyes the confirmation of his -death. He might have spoken, made some appeal to the old memories that -bound them, but something--perhaps the consciousness that for that -moment he represented more than himself--held him sternly silent. -Barclay smiled, but his eyes too, were overshadowed with a knowledge in -which there was neither happiness nor triumph. Thus the three men met -in a last encounter. For an instant they seemed to be alone--to be -standing on a lofty plateau above the watching crowd, confronting each -other with a tragic perception of something common to them all, and of a -destroying, merciless destiny. - -Then Vahana laughed, shrilly, exultantly, and it was over. - -Tristram rode past Ayeshi. He reached the border of the crowd. -Arabella hesitated and he touched her gently with his heels. She -understood, and, understanding, became insolently irresistible. The -first man whom she nosed aside hesitated, his hand on his knife. -Tristram did not look at him. His eyes passed carelessly over the sea -of upturned faces. He did not draw himself up. So he might have ridden -among them on a feast day, or as they returned from their work on the -plain. His expression was neither defiant, nor contemptuous. To the -last even as he awaited death at their hands, he remained one of them, -not judge or master or victim, but man among men. One step more. The -sea closed in behind him. Would it come now? He knew that it would be -in his back. Sooner or later the hypnotic spell which his presence threw -over them would snap. Some hand, bolder, more resolved than the rest, -would lift itself, and then the waves would close over him for ever. -Yet as he rode on, winning each step, the tension of waiting relaxed. -He forgot himself. Something rose up to him in that heated, foetid -atmosphere of a passion-ridden humanity. It enveloped him with a deeper -knowledge of their dim strivings, of their dimmer hopes, and great -fears. He saw in their revolt only a thwarted desire, a piteous -clinging to the only faith they knew, in their hating cruelty only the -curse under which all men, struggling blindly towards their vision of -the future, flood their path with the blood of their brothers. - -He did not pity them. The burden of their life was his. He forgot -himself as the individual. He was part of the universe, part of all -life. The instinct in him was to hold, out his hands to them in -recognition--in acceptance of their common destiny. - -He did not know that his face had changed as he rode slowly forward, nor -that the faith which burnt up in him shone in his eyes. He only knew -that suddenly it was over. The last wondering, questioning face flashed -past him. He was out in the open--free. - -Arabella broke into a canter. He pulled her back to a walk. The time -had not yet come. They would recover now. Some of them had rifles. -They would use them. There must be no sign of flight, of fear. - -Ten yards--twenty--fifty--still nothing. Another pace or two, and he -stood on a hillock, his body, as he knew, sharply outlined against the -light. He drew in deliberately. Still nothing. He went on. He was -hidden now. He called to Arabella, and then they were galloping towards -Gaya. - -Three hours and fifteen miles of bad road--perhaps partly flooded. So -far there was only mud, into which Arabella sank up to the fetlocks, but -down on the plain itself there would be morass--in places water. His -mind foresaw each mile, each obstacle. If it could be done, Arabella -would do it. No thoroughbred had her pluck and stamina. But it would be -a close finish. Night was coming on. It would be dark within an hour. -He would have to rely on his instinct to guide him. The lights of Gaya -would not carry half a mile through the rain which fell in a finely -woven curtain from the loaded sky. - -He had ceased to question Barclay's action or Ayeshi's curious -acquiescence. Possibly they had not meant him to escape--possibly they -had relied on his coming too late or on the futility of his warning. It -was useless to speculate. He could only act--do the best he could. - -He breasted the last hillock which separated him from the plain. The -roar of the river sounded ominous even then--like the roll of -continuous, unmodulated thunder. Then on her own initiative, Arabella -slithered to a standstill, her ears pricked, her lean body quivering -with apprehension. Tristram brushed the rain from his eyes. For an -instant he was only incredulous--distrustful of his own senses. -Twenty-four hours ago--a wide flat stretch of saturated fertile -soil--the bold, sweeping line of the Ganges--and now this--this level, -rising, onward-flowing surface, broken near the centre by a broad ribbon -of sinister, rippling movement--no landmark left, no grass, no trace of -land--one stupendous, terrible monotony of water. - -Then he knew what Barclay had known. The floods had come. The -catastrophe of which old villagers had spoken with bated breath had -broken over them. He could hear the water lapping against the base of -the rising ground. With every minute it grew louder, nearer. In a few -hours it might well be that the whole plain might be -covered--Heerut--the temple itself. - -He spoke to Arabella. He felt that figuratively she shrugged her -shoulders. They had done many mad things together in their day, and -this was the maddest and the last; but, if he wished it, she had no -objection. She went slithering and stumbling down into the water. It -rose to her knees, to his feet and there for the time stopped. They -waded steadily towards the bridge-head. If it grew no deeper than this -the passage might still be possible. He leant forward eagerly in the -saddle, waiting for his goal to outline itself against the eternal -greyness. There was no sound but the sish of the water as it broke from -Arabella's shoulders and her own heavy breathing. He had ceased to hear -the boom which had first warned him. He was in the midst of it and it -became a kind of silence. It was a part of his consciousness--it had -been there always. - -Striking diagonally across the plain, he left the black mass of the -temple on his right. He could not feel any current, and yet he was -aware that they were being drawn insidiously towards the centre. The -knowledge did not trouble him. So long as he could keep Arabella's head -up the river, he could afford to give ground. He did not contemplate -the possibility of being sucked into the torrent itself. As yet -Arabella's foothold was sure and her progress steady. - -No suspicion of the truth had reached him. - -But still he could not see the bridge. Once past the temple it was the -first important landmark, and he began to wonder, in spite of Arabella's -sturdy efforts, whether they were really moving forward. The horror of -the passing time coiled itself round him, stifling him. He knew -fear--already the drab daylight was failing rapidly. Yet there was no -bridge. - -He was drifting nearer to the river's banks. He could mark them -definitely by the break in the placid surface--the sudden rush, the -eddies and deep pits of the whirlpools. He could judge the pace of the -torrent by the passing of odd, as yet unrecognizable fragments. They -sped on their way, now disappearing for many minutes, now carried from -side to side in cross currents, but always in headlong movement. Some -of the fragments were like small islands--they stood upright out of the -water like pillars of a ruined church, black and straight. - -Still there was no bridge. - -"Mother Ganges demands toll of those who curb her." - -Suddenly he understood. He understood Barclay's smile and Ayeshi's -acquiescence. He recognized those pillars. They were motionless. They -held their place in the torrent like the defiant remnant of an -annihilated army, like tragic monuments to man's futility. - -The bridge had gone. - -For a moment he drew Arabella to a standstill. He had lost all sense of -anxiety, all thought of failure. Methodically but rapidly, he threw -overboard every unnecessary weight: his water-logged riding boots, -various small items in his pockets, a heavy belt with a metal clasp, his -coat. With an effort he managed to cut the girths and finally to remove -the saddle itself, flinging it to the rest. Then he turned Arabella's -head towards the river. - -They were moving quickly now--perilously quickly. In what seemed no -more than a minute they had reached the limit. The water rose above his -knees, he could feel it circling round him--a living monster, awaiting -its moment. He bent forward and patted Arabella's neck and whispered to -her, and kissed her warm sleekness. She whinnied challengingly, tossing -her head. Then plunged. - -The torrent passed over them. He went down under a crushing opaque mass -of delirious water. It seemed many minutes--perhaps it was only a -second or two--then they rose again. Arabella's head was turned -downstream. She made no effort. She was panic-stricken--helpless. He -called to her. He himself was stunned and could barely keep his seat. -Invisible forces had hold of him, dragging at him. At last he had her -head round, and she struck out with the energy of terror. They were -moving now. He could judge their progress by the two pillars mere -specks on the rushing greyness. A fierce exultation possessed him--the -glory of struggle--they were moving. Arabella had found her stride. -Though they drifted, too, they were not wholly at the mercy of the -current. Foot by foot, they were winning their way across. It did not -matter that they were being swept farther down the river. Once on dry -land they could make up for lost time. Then Arabella would not fail. - -But now he was afraid for her. He could feel in his own nerves and -sinews the cost of her heroic effort--the rising agony of her -exhaustion. He believed that already she was finished. He felt her go -down under him. Then, in answer to a supreme demand of her spirit, she -rose again--the blood streaming from her nostrils. He called to her, -and she turned her head a little. He could see her eyes, their whites -veined with red, and he remembered Wickie. It was the same look, the -same unfaltering confidence, the same patient acceptance of suffering. -For herself alone she would not have struggled farther; but for him, for -his life she accepted the crushing, heart-breaking burden of living. - -Strange things raced past them--fragments horrible in their -significance--an unhinged door, a table, a wooden image swept from some -village shrine, its battered face staring from out of the foaming water -in grotesque serenity; dead things--the carcase of a bullock, a woman's -rigid hand tossed up in horrible semblance of appeal, a baby's body; -living things--the hideous snout of a mugger battling against the -stream, its jaws snapping greedily at the passing provender, a cheetah, -caught perhaps in the midst of some marauding expedition, which -struggled to Tristram's side and kept close to him. He called to it and -it turned its eyes to him in frantic supplication and terror. In that -dread moment they were comrades, fighting shoulder to shoulder against -the common enemy. - -They reached midstream. In a minute they would be out of the worst--out -of danger. He turned his head; he wanted to measure by the pillars how -far they had still to go. He saw the end coming. It was -grotesque--absurd--a native hovel that had been caught up bodily. It -bore down upon him, staggering drunkenly on the full breast of the -current. It seemed to blot out the sky--a monstrous, towering -Juggernaut. - -A figure clung to the thatched roof. It was gesticulating wildly--in -fear or warning, he could not tell. But there was no escape. The -rocking structure was travelling with the speed of an express,--Arabella -had almost ceased to move. Tristram slipped quietly from her back, only -holding to her bridle, and she rose buoyantly. In that final moment, a -deep-rooted instinct in him had prevailed. She was to have her chance. -He struck out--turning his head for a last time towards the onrushing -catastrophe. It was not more than twenty yards away. He could see the -man's dark face--staring down into the water--aghast, silly-looking. -His grotesque vessel seemed suddenly to stop, to draw back, quivering -like a frightened, death-stricken animal--then plunged headlong--flashed -like a pebble over the edge of a precipice. - -Tristram closed his eyes. He tasted death. He knew the horror of -suffocation--the pitiless night which swirled over him, choking him, -stupefying him. - -Twenty yards lower down the hut reappeared. Its roof was battered in. -The clinging, piteous figure had vanished. - -Tristram twisted Arabella's bridle about his arm. It was his last -deliberate act. He was dimly conscious of movement, of being sucked -against warm, heaving flanks, of a hand that closed down blackly on his -will to live. He knew that he was letting go his hold--he was beaten. -He felt himself go down--then one last thrill of consciousness. His feet -jarred against something--he was being dragged--dragged over a soft -spongy substance. - -He tried to right himself--but instead stumbled--pitched headlong into -oblivion. - - - - - *CHAPTER XIV* - - *RESURRECTION* - - -"That reminds me of a story some one told me once," Mrs. Brabazone -declared. "I think it was George----" - -George, seated three places lower down on the opposite side of the -table, looked up anxiously and, meeting his wife's eyes, signalled a -denial. "Yes, I'm sure it was you, George. Anyhow, it's a very good -story. It was about a Lancashire coal-heaver--or was it a -cotton-spinner? What do they do in Lancashire? I never can remember. -But I know they make a frightful lot of money, and are horribly -extravagant." She considered a moment. "Yes--it is extravagant, not -mean. I get so confused. And one day when he was dying----" - -Some one laughed, and Mrs. Brabazone glanced up perplexedly. "My dear, -that isn't the point--at least, I don't think so. George, do tell it. -It's such a good story." - -The Judge, usually the soul of courtesy, turned a deaf ear and fixed his -attention with an expression of almost passionate interest on Colonel -Armstrong, who was seated on Mrs. Boucicault's left. The Colonel was -discussing the prospects of the rains, his manner beautifully -Anglo-Saxon in its optimistic serenity. - -"I'm sure we can congratulate ourselves that the worst is over," he -said. "As long as the banks at Bjura hold there is nothing to fear, and -Rutherford promised to let us know the moment there was any danger--on -account of the bridge, of course. Poor Matherson was rather rattled -about the bridge. It's his first single-handed job, and a swollen river -like that is a severe test. However, he's kept quiet, so we can presume -that it's holding out." - -Mrs. Boucicault smiled. She smiled very often--always when a reply was -expected of her. It covered over her silence. It was a curious smile. -It came suddenly and faded slowly, leaving behind it a kind of grimace. -Her eyes, abnormally large and intensely blue, were fixed blankly on the -length of the table. Its display of silver, the many flowers, the -subdued lights, the noiseless servants whose dark hands reached out -spectrally from the shadows, seemed to absorb her. Certainly it was a -feast unequalled in the annals of Gaya's sociabilities. Some of the -guests were even vaguely oppressed by it. A pace was being set which -none of them could hope to keep up. - -Dr. Martin, seated a few places lower down on his hostess's right, -scarcely turned his eyes from her face. She seemed to fascinate him. -His neighbour--the wife of a newly arrived Captain--decided that he was -a very stupid little man. He rarely spoke, and seemed to have no -appetite. Her inherited antipathy for civilians increased to dislike, -and she pitied herself intensely. In despite, she amused herself with -Captain Compton, who was her _vis-a-vis_, dilating rather maliciously on -the glories of Simla, from whence she hailed. - -The conversation never flagged. Its feverish persistency covered the -splash of the rain outside the open windows and the sound of smothered, -angry whisperings somewhere behind the curtained doorways. Mrs. -Compton, who was an old hand at Indian life, sensed "nerves" in that -perpetual chatter, in that resolute determination to shut out alike -thought and silence. The last weeks had been almost unbearable. She -herself had never experienced anything to equal the incessant downpour. -But it was more than the climate. There was unrest in the air. From -her husband she had heard mutterings to the effect that Armstrong, good -soldier though he was, did not know how to tackle the ugly temper of his -men--that a demand had been sent to headquarters for a battalion of -white troops. Then other things had gone wrong--Rasaldu, Sigrid, -Barclay--it was one long sequence of trouble. - -And now tonight, Mrs. Boucicault sat at the head of the table with her -staring, unseeing eyes and grey, powdered face, looking like a smiling -death's-head. - -Mary Compton thought of the man who lay paralysed and silent behind the -walls, and wondered if beneath their gaiety the others thought of him -and of the unknown hand which had struck him down. Things happened in -India. They came out of the darkness like lightning--struck, and -vanished. It was no wonder people had nerves. They were in the -minority--in reality quite powerless. It was just bluff--splendid -bluff. - -Mrs. Compton bit her lip. She had nearly screamed. In the midst of her -unpleasant reflections, the voices in the corridor had risen to an angry -clamour. Suddenly the curtains were pushed violently aside. The butler -entered backwards, expostulating, gesticulating, followed overwhelmingly -by Mrs. Smithers. Her entry, her rain-soaked clothes and dishevelled -grey hair might have been comic--might have caused amused -surprise--discomfort; but there was something else about her--a -resolution, a reality of tense anxiety which, reflected on the faces of -those who saw her first, brought the rest to an instantaneous silence. - -She looked round the table, and, seeing Mrs. Compton, who had half -risen, burst into breathless speech. - -"It's Sigrid--she's gone--she's been gone since this morning--I've -waited--I couldn't bear it any longer. She'll die. It's her heart. And -that man--that scoundrel--his real wife's down there now--crying her -eyes out. It made me sick. I had to come. Mrs. Compton, you cared for -her--you'll help me. Don't you know anything--don't you know where -she's gone?" - -The broken, incoherent flow came to a more resolute end. The servants -made a movement as though to approach her, but Mrs. Boucicault waved -them back. She had become suddenly alert and watchful, as though for -something which she had long foreseen. - -Mrs. Compton looked helplessly round the table. - -"Does any one know--I haven't seen Mrs. Barclay for days----" - -"You can call her Miss Fersen," Mrs. Smithers broke in doggedly. - -"Well, you know who I mean. Perhaps she's taken shelter----" - -"It was raining when she started out. That was this morning -early--after that woman came----" - -"What woman----?" - -"Mrs. Barclay--a nigger, like him." - -Mrs. Smithers was uncompromising--violent. She did not care that she -interrupted, that forty of Gaya's most important inhabitants stared at -her with varying feelings of consternation and annoyance. She was -frightened. Her fear had tightened its hold with every hour of futile -waiting, till what self-consciousness she had was stifled out of her. -Her fear was everything. These people were nothing. Her disparagement -of them expressed itself in every line of her grim, ashen features. - -"You mean"--Colonel Armstrong leant back judicially in his chair, -fingering the stem of his wine-glass "you mean actually that Mrs.--your -mistress discovered this morning--that--that, in fact, her marriage had -been illegal----?" - -"That's it. She wasn't _his_ wife--never had been, thank God." - -"Isn't it conceivable--I don't want to frighten you--that in her despair -she may have done something rash?" - -Mrs. Smithers jerked her head with a movement of utter contempt. - -"You men seem to think we're always in despair if we lose one of you -precious creatures--most times it's t'other way round. She was glad. -It's the first time I've seen her happy for months and months. He's -done away with her--and you sit there like a herd of stuck pigs----" - -"Really, my good woman----" - -"I'm not your good woman. A lot you care. She's one of your -blood--worth the whole crowd of you--and you treated her like dirt just -because she got into the clutches of one of -your--your--wickednesses----" - -"Smithy!" Mrs. Compton implored. - -"I don't care--it's true." - -Armstrong looked helplessly at Mrs. Boucicault; but Mrs. Boucicault was -staring in front of her with that same look of tense expectancy. The -new arrival from Simla shivered. She did not understand the scene, but -she thought it vulgar and horrid. These out-of-the-way stations were -very uncivilized. It was amazing how quickly the smartest people lost -their polish. - -Captain Compton came suddenly to the rescue. - -"It's a queer thing," he said, in his deliberate way. "Meredith and -Rasaldu and now Miss Fersen----" - -"Rubbish!" Armstrong knitted his brows at his junior. "Meredith has -probably taken the Rajah with him on his rounds. It's happened before. -As to Mrs.--Miss Fersen, there are any amount of possible explanations. -Her horse may have fallen lame. I've always set my face against this -silly craze for riding alone, and now----" - -He stopped. The stem of his wine-glass snapped under the sudden -pressure of his fingers. The Simla woman gave a little scream and rose -to her feet. He frowned at her. The men exchanged glances. The women -were curiously still--looking towards the window. Armstrong laughed, -mopping up his wine with his napkin. "'Pon my word, we're all suffering -from nerves. Absurd. Some sentry----" - -But no one listened to him. Compton got up and ran out of the -window--down into the garden. They heard scuffling--a muttered -exclamation--the sound of something soft and heavy being dragged up the -steps. They sat still--waiting. They saw Compton hesitating on the -threshold of the light. He was bending down---- - -"Give me a hand some one, for God's sake!" - -George Brabazone pushed back his chair and turned to his assistance. -Between them the huddled, shapeless something was pulled into the room. -It lay inert. The shadow covered it. One of the men snatched up a -light, holding it above his head. - -"What is it----?" - -"Tristram----" - -"What--not----?" - -"I don't know--tumbled off his horse. Pull the curtains--get the -servants out of the room." Armstrong took over Compton's command. The -natives fled noiselessly before his imperative gestures. The curtains -were dragged across, shutting out the black, menacing gulf. They were -all on their feet now--two brilliant lines of colour--with that blot -lying in a pool of mud and rain---- - -"Give me wine--anything." - -Tristram stirred. With Compton and Brabazone on either side of him, he -dragged himself to his knees. The water dripped from his face--from his -clothes. He was almost unrecognizable. - -"It's nothing--they--missed me. Only winded----" He pushed the -proffered glass aside. "Rasaldu--Meredith--both murdered -yesterday--regiment mutinies--organized for tonight--not a soul to -escape--any minute now. That was the first shot----" - -"Where have you come from?" - -"Heerut. Bridge gone. Had to swim for it----" - -"Matherson----?" - -"Gone--I don't know. Don't talk----" - -"Of course not--we must act. Who's on duty to-night?" - -"Farquhar--Haverton----" - -"They must be warned." - -"It's too late. It'd show them we were prepared. Our only chance is to -take them by surprise-- What's that----?" - -"Firing. Poor devils! We shall be the next. Who's at the bottom of -this, Tristram?" - -"Ayeshi--Barclay--what's it matter? Do something!" - -They looked at each other. Something like a smile passed over their -faces. They were very calm--very quiet. The men and women were equally -aware that there was not much they could do. They were cut off by -hundreds of miles from any real assistance. It would have taken an hour -at least to have gathered the rest of Gaya together and prepared a -defence that might suggest even a fighting chance. As it was, they had -perhaps a few minutes--if one or two of them had a weapon in his -possession it would be a great piece of luck. The thought of a -five-chambered revolver--three chambers empty--which he happened to have -slipped into the pocket of his military overcoat some days back--gave -Compton such an absurd thrill of satisfaction that he laughed. - -"We shall have to shy the spoons at 'em!" he said. - -Mrs. Boucicault brushed the fluffy grey hair from her forehead. - -"My husband has a few guns in his rack," she said quietly. "He used -them for hunting, but they might do. I think there are some cartridges, -too--I don't know--we might look." - -"Better than nothing." Armstrong began to direct, heavily but -systematically. "Compton, get the servants together. Shut them up and -see that they don't get a chance to communicate with any one outside. -Five of you had better keep a lookout. The rest stay here. It would be -better to go on as though nothing had happened. We shall defend this -side of the house--this room, in fact. We're too few for anything more. -Mrs. Boucicault, please lead the way----" - -He was obeyed. The women reseated themselves. Mary Compton began to -talk. Mrs. Brabazone took up the tangled thread of her story and -unravelled it laboriously. The dead white tablecloth and the brilliant -colours of the flowers made their faces look vivid. - -"It's like old times," Mrs. Compton declared. "I expect it's really a -blessing in disguise. If we didn't have these periodical shake-ups our -livers would never work at all. We do eat such dreadfully unhealthy -things. Somebody pass me the almonds. Let's have our desserts now as -well as in the hereafter!" - -It was an old and rather feeble jest, but it served its purpose. The -Simla woman laughed heartily. Mrs. Brabazone grumbled. - -"People always seem to find something in Mary's remarks. It's base -favouritism. I'm every bit as funny----" - -"A lot more, my dear." Mrs. Compton's manner was that of a rather -over-excited school-girl. She ate salted almonds vivaciously and threw -one at Tristram, who had stumbled to a chair and sat there with his face -between his hands. "You look like a drowned rat, Hermit--not a bit -lovable. Where's Anne?" - -He glanced up with bloodshot eyes. - -"I--think she's dead," he said, hoarsely. "She died alone in Heerut. -Sigrid has gone with Barclay. It was his offer--you understand? I -shouldn't be here now if it wasn't for her. She and Anne--they thought -of you--they neither of them funked." - -They were silent for a moment. A spasm passed over Mary Compton's face. -She reached desperately for the sweetmeats. - -"Mrs. Brabazone--for mercy's sake, tell that Lancashire story of -yours----" - -"It's about a miner," Mrs. Brabazone began jerkily. "You know how -horribly dirty they are. And one day he came home--he was very ill, you -know, and his wife said----" - -She laboured on with quivering lips. They listened attentively. A -sound of shouting came from the barracks not a quarter of a mile -distant. Tristram and Mrs. Compton exchanged glances. - -"They're working up to concert-pitch----" - - * * * * * - -In the quiet, whitewashed soldier's room, Armstrong and Brabazone were -collecting what weapons they could find. Mrs. Boucicault had -underestimated, but even so there was not much hope to be found in the -six double-barrelled guns and the few cases of ammunition. - -Mrs. Boucicault stood at the foot of her husband's bed looking at him. -They were both so still--the grey-haired, painted woman and the big man -lying stretched out beneath the thin sheet--that Armstrong almost forgot -them. But at the door he remembered and looked back. - -"You'd better explain to your husband--I'll send some one to carry -him--he must be where we are----" He hesitated, and then added gruffly: -"You don't need to worry, Boucicault. You shan't fall into their hands, -I give you my word of honour." - -They went out. Still Eleanor Boucicault remained at her place at the -foot of the bed. The man's eyes were fixed on her. They were -distended. The dim light could not reveal their expression, yet all the -life which had made its last stand in their depths seemed to gather -together--with a supreme effort--to spread over his face--to swell the -withered muscles. - -The distant shouting reached them. The sound released her from her -still absorption. She threw herself down on her knees beside him. - -"They're going to kill us, Richard--they're going to kill us. It's the -regiment--your regiment.--Colonel Armstrong says we can't do much. -They'll just--just do what they like! Do you hear that shouting? That -means they're coming. They know we're here--they know you're here. You -made them hate us--just as you made me hate you." She gripped him by -the shoulders, her words rushing down on him in a fevered, awful -torrent. "It doesn't matter to me--I'm dying, anyhow. You've killed me. -That's what I want to tell you. I didn't tell you before, because I -thought you'd be glad. But now we're going to die together I want you -to understand. Look at this----" She tore open the bosom of her dress. - -"You did that--that time you struck me. It never healed--it never will. -It's cancer. Oh, but I've had a good time all the same. I've spent -your money, Richard. I've made you suffer. I've had you to hurt when I -couldn't bear the pain any longer. And now--now you're just going to -die like a rabbit in a trap." She burst out laughing. There was a long -flat chest against the wall, and she went to it with quick, tottering -steps and opened it. The neatly folded uniforms, the sword in its -leather case--she flung the whole contents down before him with a shrill -cry of bitter triumph. "You'll never wear them again, Richard. You -won't go down fighting--_I_ shall, but not you--you'll just lie there -and trust to us to have mercy on you. You're just a wreck--a crumbling, -hideous ruin. That's why I hate you--why they hate you--those men who -are coming to kill us. We loved you so. You were our god--our Bagh -Sahib--and then you became--a devil." - -She knelt down by the heap of red and gold splendour. She was crying, -and the tears carved deep channels through the paint and powder. - -"Bagh Sahib!" - -She put her hand over her mouth. It was as though she had tried to -smother a scream, but no sound had come from her lips. She shrank back -from him, farther and farther back till she cowered on the floor, -watching him. - -Slowly--so slowly yet steadily that the movement seemed supernatural--he -was lifting himself up. He did not look at her. His gaunt face was -tense and absorbed as though the whole being of the man were turned -inwards on the contemplation of a miracle. His arms hung straight at -his sides. He lifted them--holding them out before him. - -"Bagh Sahib!" - -He pushed the sheet back and slipped his legs over the edge of the bed. -They were mere sticks--fleshless, piteous--yet he stood up swaying like -a tall reed in the wind. The woman, huddled on the floor, dragged -herself to her feet and stumbled towards him. He put his arm round her -shoulders, leaning on her. - -"Nelly--poor Nelly--something in my head--it's better--help me----" - -It was a child talking--a mumbling, broken appeal. Yet there was a -purpose in him stronger than his weakness. He lurched across the room. -"Nell--sweetheart--my uniform--my parade--things--my sword----" - -"They're here--dear--you can't----" - -A shot was fired--this time close at hand. He made an odd little sound -like a laugh. - -"They've not done with me yet--by the Lord--they shall meet Bagh Sahib -again--we'll see who's strongest--even now----" He held out his palsied -hands; he was gasping, but it was in the flood-tide of returning life. -His eyes shone like a young man's. "Nell--you used to know the -way--there wasn't a buckle you couldn't manage--quicker to spot things -than a sergeant on parade. No mistakes now--Bagh Sahib never made -mistakes--the smartest man in the Indian Army. By Gad--there's the -sword--not rusty? No--that's like you--so--now--kiss me----" - -Between each sentence there had been a gap of time. She had obeyed him -like a woman possessed. Now he stood before her--a ghostly figure in -the loose-fitting uniform--the shadow of the man whom she had once -loved--but at least the shadow. - -She clung to him--half supporting him, herself shaking from head to -foot. - -"My Richard----" - -"Nell--sweetheart--help me--to go to them--just to the door--and then -alone----?" - -"Yes--yes----" - -"Kiss me!" - -Her poor, wizened little face glowed like a girl's as she lifted it to -his. The years, with their bitterness, dropped from her memory. She -did not need to understand more than one thing, that he had been given -back to her as he had once been. Nothing mattered now--not even death -itself. - -"Lean on me, Richard--I am quite strong----" - -They went together down the gloomy passage, his arm still about her -shoulders. She had need of her boasted strength. At first his weight -almost bore her to the ground. But with every step he held himself -straighter, freeing himself from her support. At the door of the -dining-room he stood upright, only his hands touching her. - -He kissed her. Then he went in alone. - -A handful of women still sat at the table and talked loudly and -incessantly. The rest were helping the men barricade the verandah -window. Mrs. Smithers worked with the grim energy of despair, keeping -to Tristram's side as though his nearness brought her some comfort. It -was she who saw Boucicault first, and in her consternation clutched at -her companion's arm. - -"Lawks a-mercy!" she whispered. "Look----!" - -Tristram turned. It seemed to him that he had known even before she had -touched him. Incredible though this thing was, it was also inevitable. -The gaze of the two men crossed. Tristram waited for the hating, -satiric smile, bracing himself to meet its triumph. But there was no -change in Boucicault's face--scarcely recognition. - -A bugle-call rang above the approaching storm. - -Boucicault came forward. - -"Gentlemen--gentlemen--this is child's-play! Do you suppose my -fire-eaters care for a few arm-chairs and a crazy gun? Why, we've -swallowed whole fortresses armed with cannon in my time. Who's in -command here?" - -He frowned round on them. Not even Armstrong himself moved. This man -had risen from the dead. If their own nearness to death blurred the -miracle of it, they were no less under the ban of a miraculous -authority. Boucicault shrugged his shoulders. He crossed over to the -window and pulled the curtains aside. To the right, towards the -barracks, torchlights ran backwards and forwards like distracted -fireflies, gradually converging together in a solid block of flame. A -black rage settled on the old man's sunken features. - -"Who the devil has been meddling with my men?" he cursed. "The 65th -never revolted in its history. Whose fault is this? Can't somebody -speak?" But they could only look at each other in pitying helplessness. -He had forgotten. He was back in the old days when he had led his men -triumphantly into a fire under which every other regiment had withered. -He was Bagh Sahib, the hero, the demi-god. He had forgotten--and even -if they could, they would not have penetrated that merciful oblivion. - -He settled his helmet. His thin hand rested tremblingly on the hilt of -his sword. - -"The civilians stay here with the women," he said. "The rest follow -me." - -He went waveringly down the steps. And then only they recovered their -power of action. Tristram was at his side as he reached the garden. - -"Colonel Boucicault--you're not in a fit state----" - -The light from behind him flashed into the cold eyes. - -"Not fit? I'm more fit than those arm-chair soldiers." A wintry smile -quivered under the grey moustache. "You were always confoundedly -interfering, Major Tristram." - -"What do you mean to do?" - -"Take command of my regiment." He turned his back on them. Arabella, -still panting and covered from head to foot in mud, had drawn his -attention. "Your horse, Major, I am sure? Your mounts were always a -disgrace to your service. Saddleless, too? However--better than -nothing. Help me up----" - -He was obeyed. They might have thrown themselves on him--held him back -by sheer force, but they could not. He had taken command. Dr. Martin -wrung his hands as though his own death were not howling at him within a -couple of hundred yards. - -"It's impossible--the man was paralysed half an hour ago--he ought not -to be able to stand. If you allow him to go, I won't take the -responsibility----" - -Mrs. Compton shook him by the arm. Her eyes were shining like two -points of fire. - -"Shut up--don't you see--he's the Bagh Sahib--he can do things we -can't--it's our only chance." - -Bagh Sahib rode down the avenue at a walk. He did not hurry, though the -sinister light swept down on him amidst a pandemonium of rattling drums -and trumpet calls. His face was resolute--no longer brutal--and the -smile lingered at his lips. It was as though the coming encounter -amused him. He did not look to see whether he was followed. - -The men he had commanded looked at one another. Compton fingered the -revolver which he had retrieved. He glanced at his wife, and she nodded. - -"Well, I'm going, anyhow," he said. - -The twelve remaining officers of the 65th assented. Armstrong himself -had already hurried on in front of Compton. He was a staid, humdrum -type of man, but in that moment the fire was in his blood. None of them -remembered that this same Boucicault was the source of the very evil -which he had set out to master. - -He was the Bagh Sahib. - -That was all they knew of him. - -They reached the compound gates as Boucicault, with Tristram at his -heels, came in sight of the mutiny leaders. It was still pitch dark, but -the rain had stopped and the torches burnt up luridly in the still air. -Separate from the rest, a gaunt, spectral figure on the ungainly horse, -Boucicault waited tranquilly. He was so motionless, so unexpected that -the seething mass of soldiers came to a sudden halt. A shot rang out -from somewhere in the rear, but those in the first ranks wavered. The -superstition which was a very part of their blood chilled them to -silence. The roll of drums died away to a faint beat, like the throb of -a dying pulse. The trumpet no longer sounded. Boucicault's eyes passed -from one dark, uncertainly lit face to another. Then he laughed. - -"Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?" - -He spoke clearly now. His voice had a metallic ring in it which awoke -old memories. But it broke the spell. There were, perhaps, ten yards -between him and the leaders, and they rushed, five of them, with a howl -of triumph--then again halted--as though they had flung themselves -against an invisible barrier. A shot whizzed past Boucicault's head. -He grinned mockingly. He touched Arabella's sides and rode forward, -till the last five yards were covered, and he stared down straight into -their faces. "You don't shoot as well as you did, men. That sort of -thing won't do. You want drilling, and, by God, you shall get it! That -fellow who missed me shall have my special attention. The 65th wants -polishing." He removed his helmet, so that the light flickered on his -features. "And I shall polish it," he said. - -They recognized him. It was the thought of him which had goaded them to -their revolt. Yet now he sat there on his horse--the man whom they -believed helpless and stricken--and gibed at them. For them, too, he -was as one risen from the dead. A sergeant in the foremost line drew -back, cowering from him. - -"Bagh Sahib!" he muttered. - -Boucicault leant forward and seized the man roughly by his ear. - -"Yes--Bagh Sahib. You shall see that I can spring still. Ah, you, -Heera, so you remember me? In the old days you fought at my heel like -the tiger's cub you were. That was at Affra and Burda. Yes--you could -fight then--now you can only mutiny like angry children. Then the 65th -had a glorious name in India, and I was proud of you--but now--" He -thrust the man from him so that he went reeling in the mud. "You -cowardly pack--lay down your arms!" he thundered. His command fell like -the lash of a whip. The man he had struck leapt at him. He had a -revolver in his hand and he pointed it straight at Boucicault's breast. - -"Bagh Sahib--you killed my brother----" - -"And I shall live to court-martial you, my friend." - -"Not now----" - -"Shoot then, you cur!" - -A splash of fire was flung up in Boucicault's face. Tristram, hiding in -the shadow, sprang forward with a smothered cry of horror--then stood -still--incredulous. Boucicault had not moved. He looked down into his -assassin's stricken, gaping face and laughed. - -"You can't touch me, Heera. Your very weapon refuses. We have fought -together too often----" - -There was a new note in his voice--stern yet curiously caressing. The -man reeled, broke down, sobbing thickly. - -"Bagh Sahib----!" he moaned. "Bagh Sahib----" - -"It is well, Heera. I forgive." He looked over the sea of faces. "You -see that you cannot touch me. For the sake of the old days-when you -fought gallantly, this night's work is forgotten. Lay down your arms." - -For an instant longer they stared at him. The red of his tunic hid the -dark, widening stain. They only saw that the bullet had passed through -him and left him unharmed. The older men among them remembered how in -the bygone days he had passed scatheless through a hail of bullets. -Then as now he had been a stupendous figure--half god. - -To the younger men he was a legend. The evil that he had done them was -forgotten. He was their own past--their own greatness--the greatness of -their fathers. They could not touch him. - -"Gentlemen--form your men into their companies. Lead them back to the -barracks. Remember--what I tell you--this night is to be forgotten." - -The little group of Englishmen behind him obeyed tranquilly. There was -the sound of rifles being stacked. The disorderly crowd formed -automatically into sections. The scene had lasted five minutes. Now it -was finished. - -But Boucicault turned Arabella's head and rode slowly back, and -Tristram, who had seen that black stain upon the tunic, followed him. - -Mrs. Boucicault stood separate from the rest upon the balcony and -waited. She was smiling. There was no fear--only a girlish pride, a -tragic happiness written on the grey face. As he came within the lights -of the verandah she waved to him, and he saluted her with a chivalrous -dignity. - -Then he toppled from his seat into Tristram's arms. - -They carried him into the bungalow and set him gently on one of the -sofas. His wife knelt down beside him and he put his arm about her and -held her close to him. - -"There is nothing to be done--the whole breast. I am too old a soldier -not to know. Please leave us these few minutes. We have so much to say -to one another." But to Tristram he gave his hand, drawing him down so -that his face almost touched the dying lips. "Major -I'm--sorry--about--your dog----" - -Tristram knew then that at the last it was not oblivion, but -resurrection. - -He lingered a moment. Even as he stood there hesitating, Boucicault's -body straightened out a little. His wife's head rested on his shoulder, -and there was blood mingled in the grey, untidy hair. Her eyes were -closed, and she seemed asleep. - -They had so much to say to one another. - -Tristram crept out on tiptoe. He went down again into the compound. It -was very still. The tumult of the last hour had died away. It had all -been like an adventure in a mad, terrible dream. Arabella nozzled -against his shoulder, and he stroked her gently. And, as he did so, the -faint light from the room behind him showed him the slender, colourless -band about his wrist. - -It was as though a charm had laid itself on his aching senses. A gate -of memory was opened. He passed through. In the tranquil solemnity of -an Indian night, he heard voices--Ayeshi's voice, hushed yet passionate. - -"Behold, according to the custom, Humayun accepts the bond, and from -henceforth the Rani Kurnavati is his dear and virtuous sister, and his -sword shall not rest in his scabbard till she is free from the threat of -her oppressor." - -The bo-tree whispered mysteriously: - -"Ah--those were the great days--the great days----" - -And Tristram Sahib swung himself on to Arabella's back and once more -rode out towards Heerut. - - - - - *CHAPTER XV* - - *THE SNAKE-GOD* - - -Vahana ran on ahead. Bent and twisted with age, his half-naked figure -far outstripped the riders whose horses ploughed heavily through the -morass of jungle-grass. Behind them, again, came the straggle, -panic-driven horde of Ayeshi's army, and after them the flood, rising -over Heerut. - -Vahana halted from time to time and looked back, nodding and beckoning. -He was too far in advance for them to see his face. But in that -feverish agility, in that patient waiting on them there was a malignant -joy, the expression of a soundless, senile laughter. - -They had strange companions--cheetahs, antelopes, wild pigs--all the -creatures of the plain--trotting at their sides, unheeded and unheeding, -conscious only of their common peril. They moved slowly, dragging -themselves painfully free from the clinging mud. It was the flight of -an evil dream--the enemy at their heels, their limbs weighted, each step -an anguished effort. They made no outcry, but the tortured breathing of -these flying thousands became an unbroken moan of terror. - -Vahana led them by a circuitous path back over a ridge of ground rising -to the rear of the temple. They followed unquestioningly. There was no -choice. Their retreat was already cut off: to the right the flooded -plain, to the left the trackless jungle hemmed them in. The ridge was -all that remained to them. - -Sigrid rode between Ayeshi and Barclay. They had not spoken. Ayeshi -held himself like a sleep-walker, his face blank, his eyes wide open and -expressionless. The hand that held the reins was slack and indifferent. -His horse, instinctively aware of the danger pursuing them, kept up of -its own account, but he did not seek to control it. Compared with him, -Barclay was the very spirit of sombre exultation. He turned -persistently to the woman beside him, his eyes ugly with significance. -But her small, white face betrayed no consciousness of him. Its -serenity was deathlike. Her body rode beside him, but her mind, the -living part of her, eluded him. He had not hoped that it would be -otherwise--his pitiless intuition had showed him the limit of his power, -the limit of all power; but there was Tristram, who by now knew the -value of the freedom which she had bought for him--Tristram, who -represented all that he, Barclay, had desired and hoped for and loved, -all that he now hated with the intensity of a mutilated passion, -Tristram who would suffer at the last. - -He laughed at his own thought and pointed a shaking hand at the mournful -immensity beneath them. - -"Your friend will have a wet ride. Look out there--the bridge has gone. -It was swept away an hour ago." - -He laughed again, and urged his horse past her. He had triumphed, but -he did not wish to see her face. - -She turned her head in the direction which he had indicated. The night, -mingling its sable with the dirty greys of sky and water, shrouded the -familiar landmarks, but that very narrowing of her vision widened the -boundaries of her hearing. The thunder of the torrent sounded -nearer--she heard again the mysterious mutterings which had arrested her -at the bridge-head only an hour or two before. She knew that Barclay had -not boasted. - -"Did you know that too, Ayeshi?" - -"Yes, Mem-Sahib." - -His voice was callous, toneless. She could not look at him. - -"And you let him go? You had forgotten so easily?" - -"Have you found it hard to forget, Mem-Sahib--you whom he loved----?" -He awoke suddenly from his apathy. He bent towards her, his fevered -hand on her arm. "Was not a little of _that_ man's gold, stained with -the sweat and blood of men, enough to buy your forgetfulness?" - -And now she looked at him. She saw the quivering features--the eyes -bloodshot and wretched with scorn of her. - -"I went out of his life as you did, Ayeshi," she said gently. "Was that -forgetfulness?" - -"Mem-Sahib----!" he muttered. - -"You tried to save him," she persisted--"as I tried. If we have both -failed need we reproach each other now?" - -"Mem-Sahib!" In that reiteration there was agony. His hand dropped from -her arm. "It was for his sake--? Barclay Sahib threatened you?" - -"Yes." - -"And now----" - -"Now it is for Gaya--for those lives your ambition has jeopardized. And -even that may be useless." - -The ridge they were traversing began to slope downwards. The water was -at their feet. They could hear it sucking at the long grasses. The men -immediately behind them were swept forward and lost their footing. A -man who stumbled at Sigrid's side clutched at her and then went rolling -ludicrously down the mud bank into the rising flood. She saw his head -for an instant--his face gazing stupidly up at them. Something square -and black and evil that had lain like a lump of wood on the surface of -the water moved swiftly forward. - -There was a scream. Ayeshi held up his hand before Sigrid's face, but -she had seen enough. The man had vanished, and where he had been the -greyness of the water had turned to red. - -"Oh, God!" she whispered. "Tristram!" - -"No, no, Mem-Sahib--not that--not that--they meant that he should die, -but I--I who served him and loved him, I know that death cannot touch -him when he fights for others. He fights for others now, Mem-Sahib--for -those I have betrayed--for my salvation." He laid his hand on his -breast with a gesture of unutterable despair. "No--not even he can do -that. It is too late. I am accursed--accursed----!" - -And, as though in answer, the crowd he led surged up closer to him. -Arms were held up to him--thin, supplicating arms. - -"Lord--the water--the water--save us!" - -"I am accursed!" he whispered. "Accursed!" - -She saw his face. The youth in it was dead--stamped out. Yet in that -instant she recognized in him the boy, the dreamer who, crouched upon -the step of her verandah, had told the story of the Rani Kurnavati. And -the pity that surged over her had in it the passion of that memory. - -"Ayeshi--why have you done this----?" - -His wild eyes met hers for an instant's desperate intentness. - -"Mem-Sahib--I loved my country--my gods--the history of them was in my -blood. And then in Calcutta--the misery--the thwarted ambition--my -people starving--the Englishman in the high place. They told me they -were ripe for revolt--only they needed a leader--a leader who would -carry the country-people with him. I came back. Vahana lied to me. I -believed that my father had been robbed and murdered--that my heritage -had been stolen from me--that Tristram Sahib himself had known who I was -and made me his servant----" His voice broke. "But it was a lie--I had -no heritage--no wrongs to avenge--I was their tool--and now--Mem-Sahib, -if ever you should meet him, tell him it was a false dream--but that -Ayeshi loved him----" - -She nodded. She could not answer him, and they rode on in silence till -suddenly, Vahana, whom they could still see dimly ahead of them, turned -to the left and pointed up towards the jungle. - -"There--there is escape, O Lord Ayeshi! The Sacred Path that leads to -the Shrine of the Snake-god. Who follows?" - -The shrill cry died into silence. There was no answer. Barclay came -splashing back through the water. His face glowed with a sombre -excitement. - -"It seems there's some secret passage up through the jungle. We may be -able to get right away. At any rate, it's our only chance." - -But Ayeshi sat rigid in his saddle, and that which Barclay saw in his -eyes silenced him. - -"There is a curse on all those who profane the Snake-god's sanctity----" - -Barclay burst out laughing. - -"Good God, man, that silly native yarn----" - -"I am a native." - -"Still, you can't be such a fool----" - -Ayeshi turned in his saddle and looked back at the black, silent mass -behind him. - -"Who follows Barclay Sahib through the jungle?" he called. - -But there was still no answer. They stood there silent and inert, the -water rising about their feet. There was no cry of terror from among -them now. It was finished. - -Those nearest Ayeshi lifted their faces to him in stubborn fatalism. - -"Ayeshi, pull yourself together--they'll follow you right enough." - -"I dare not," was the desperate answer. - -"Afraid--? A coward--? You don't really believe----" - -Ayeshi threw back his head. His features were terrible in their frozen -composure. - -"I believe." - -"You accept the responsibility for all these lives----?" - -"I cannot help myself--I am one of them." - -Barclay made a gesture of angry impatience. - -"Do you expect me to stay here and drown like a rat in a trap----?" he -demanded. - -"No--why should you? What are we to you--or you to us?" - -Barclay shrank back. With a sound like a smothered groan, he turned his -horse about and rode towards Vahana who still stood motionless and -waiting beneath the black shadows of the trees. He dismounted and -looked back. Sigrid had not moved. The water had risen swiftly to her -horse's knees. Ayeshi bent towards her and laid his hand on her bridle. - -"Go, Mem-Sahib-fear nothing--_they_ will not harm you. You are not of -our blood or faith. Go--do not let me have your death on my hands. -Mem-Sahib--trust him--he will not fail you----" - -She lifted her eyes to his face. Behind his passive despair there shone -the old confidence--the re-birth of a faith. She gave him her hand, and -he lifted it to his forehead. - -"Mem-Sahib--remember that I loved him." - -She saw Ayeshi for the last time as on the very verge of the jungle she -turned and looked back. His silhouette, cut sharply against the -fast-fading light, rose up from the midst of his unhappy followers like -a tragic, heroic statue out of a black, uneasy sea. Vahana laughed -shrilly, and the sound, breaking the spell of inarticulate terror, let -loose a wailing cry which swept in a gust over the rising water. - -"Lord--save us--save us----" - -She saw Ayeshi lift his hands above his head. She could not have heard -his voice, and yet the echo of his impotent agony reached her. - -"I am accursed--accursed----" - -She saw him no more. Vahana had hurried on into the darkness ahead of -them, and Barclay half lifted, half dragged her from the saddle. She -made no resistance. But her strength had begun to fail. She tried to -free herself from his hold--to stand alone. - -"Go on without me--I'm not strong enough--save yourself." - -He shook his head stubbornly. - -"No--I've nothing left but you. Keep your promise. The path is steep--I -can carry you. We're safe now. The ground's rising all the way. We've -nothing to fear--nothing. It's dark, of course--hideously dark. Give -me your hand." His was dry and cold. It filled her with a nameless -disgust--a strange pity. It was as though, helpless as she was, he -clung to her. - -"Why--you're shivering!" he muttered. "What is it? You're not afraid? -What is there to be afraid of? We're safe here----" - -"It's those others--Ayeshi----" - -He laughed brokenly. - -"What are they to me? What am I to them? Didn't you hear him? That -settled it, didn't it? I'm not one of them--I've got English blood in -my veins. I've nothing to fear--nothing." - -She could not see his face. They were stumbling blindly up the steep -and broken path, and the dense growth of jungle walled them in from -whatever daylight remained. Yet his voice, the touch of his hand, -painted him for her against the black canvas. She could see his face, -eyes wide-open and distended, the mouth agape, the sweat on his -forehead. She knew him to be possessed by an insidious terror. - -"What is there to fear?" she asked in her turn. - -He muttered incoherently. - -Vahana had vanished. They could hear his body brushing against the -tangled growths that hung across the narrow path like warning, invisible -hands. Barclay called him by name, but there was no answer--only a -sudden stillness. He faltered--the hand which still held Sigrid's -relaxed. She stood apart from him. But for the sound of his breathing -she could not have known that he was near her. The infinite relief of -that moment's freedom kept her motionless, and then she realized that he -was moving forward--that he had forgotten her, every ambition, every -desire in the one formless, all-mastering dread. - -"Vahana!" - -Stillness. He groped wildly about him. The sudden consciousness of his -isolation drove a scream from his dry lips. - -"Vahana!" - -The answer was almost in his ear--a soft, caressing whisper. - -"I am here, Sahib." - -"Don't leave me--I can't see--this darkness." - -"The path is a straight one, Sahib. Give me your hand." - -Barclay cowered back. A chill, foetid breath fanned his face. -Something familiar coiled itself about his fingers. He tried to free -himself. - -"The Mem-Sahib!" he gasped thickly. "Where is she?" - -"The Mem-Sahib is safe. The path leads to one end. Come, Sahib!" - -The whisper had grown shriller, authoritative. There was a subtle hint -of anger in its caress. Barclay heard its echo. Overhead a branch -cracked under a moving burden. A thing slid over his foot and went -hissing into silence. He threw up his free hand to beat off the -invisible attack and touched a slimy, gliding mass which dropped on his -shoulder, winding itself about his neck. He flung it from him. He was -gasping--choking with fear and nausea. He heard Vahana's whisper, -subdued, sibilant: - -"Sahib--there are no snakes." - -But the very hand that held him was a hideous memory. Something vague, -indeterminate, which had begun to hem him in since that night when he -had fled from the vision of himself, was closing in faster and faster. -This, that was coming, had been from all time, a hand groping up through -the black depths of the ages, a monstrous, inert mass rousing itself -from long sleep to predestined action. The darkness, the jungle, was a -huge prison alive with sound and movement. The sounds awoke under his -feet and went hissing and murmuring like a train of fire into the far -distance, setting alight other sounds till they surrounded him in an -awful, mocking circle. The walls of the prison were narrowing--the air, -thick and heavy with an evil sweetness, weighed down upon him till his -strength reeled. With an effort he freed himself from Vahana's clutch -and began to run. The steepness of the path, the uneven ground, jolted -the breath from his body in agonized gasps. The branches of the trees -were alive--sensate, twisting, winding bodies, which beat their cold, -slimy tentacles against his face--their roots clutched at his stumbling -feet, the hissing murmur had become the high, threatening note of a -rising wind. And behind him was that pursuing Thing--that formless, -familiar menace which he had foreseen, which had hung on the outskirts -of his life waiting for its moment. He fled before it because his -frantic body demanded flight, but _he_ knew its futility. The Thing was -there, silent and invisible, gibing at his pitiful effort. It was not -Death--it was Horror itself---- - -A pale light broke ahead. He neither knew whence it came nor its -significance. He made for it with a last call to every nerve and muscle -in him. He reached it. He was dimly conscious of a brightening -luminousness, of something black, serenely still, rising up out of the -grey transparency before him. Then the end. It came upon him with a -rush. It closed in in a clammy band about his throat. He turned. A -flat head with a wizened face and small dead eyes and pointed mouth -swayed before his vision in a sinister, rhythmic measure. It was -Vahana--yet not Vahana. It was not Vahana who was slowly dragging his -life from him. It was that cold tightening band--and yet Vahana was -there--close to him. - -He screamed. Again and again. The jungle--the whole world, _his_ -world, shrinking about him till it was no bigger than his own brain, -echoed with his screams. - - - - - *CHAPTER XVI* - - *TOWARDS MORNING* - - -The rain had ceased. A soft wind blowing from the north swept the -low-hanging clouds into the fantastic, tattered fragments, between which -a thin moonlight poured down on to the desolation of waters. All that -had been had been washed out as though a child's sponge had passed over -a slate covered with the laborious work of a life. Fields and villages, -rich pastures, homesteads, bridges, each of them some man's dream and -ambition, lay under that smooth, glittering surface awaiting their -resurrection at the hands of a patient humanity. - -It was by this first break of light that Tristram saw the way over which -they had still to travel. He sat motionless and upright, scanning the -seeming limitless expanse, and perhaps in that moment some dim, unformed -appeal went up from him to the Unknown which steels the hearts of men to -supreme effort. - -And, swift on the heels of that brief intercession, there followed an -aching pity for the faithful comrade whose share in the coming struggle -was so much greater than his own, whose purpose in it was no more than -to serve him with the last breath of her life. He stroked her ungainly -neck, striving to break down the barrier between living things which -made his remorse and pity powerless. She answered gallantly with the -grand courage of her kind, and the water rose about them. - -It was a nightmare redreamed, save that now the first violence of the -storm had spent itself. The wreckage had gone its way, and the flood's -polished bosom shone bare and empty under the wane and glow of light. -There was no landmark left by which they could guide their course. The -jungle-clad mountains were mingled with the clouds. The temple shrouded -itself in the shadow of the jungle. They could but drift with the -currents, fighting their way across, hoping--Tristram himself scarcely -knew for what. For who could have lived in that deluge, what escape was -possible? Yet he carried with him a belief born of despair, a serenity -such as men feel for whom there is no choice, no second possibility. - -Something black drifted past him. He could not recognize it, and in a -moment it was gone. They were now in midstream, where the rush of the -water swept over Arabella's desperately uplifted head. It was then, the -moon sailing out unveiled into the open sky, that he saw other black -shapes and knew them for what they were. They were the bodies of -men--not of isolated victims, of villagers and field labourers trapped -separately or even in small communities by the swift disaster. They -were many hundreds. They had died together, and death had not separated -them. Like driftwood, they had been swept into entangled, shapeless -piles of floating horror. - -"Sahib! Sahib!" - -The cry came faintly across the racing waters. Tristram, waking from -the lethargy of abandoned hope, turned Arabella's head sharply upstream. -She responded. It was as though in those years of comradeship she had -become a part of himself, obeying the same law, acknowledging the same -creed. It was as though she recognized a familiar message in that -appeal to her last strength, as though her blinded eyes had seen what -Tristram saw. It was little enough to accomplish--and yet so much. Ten -feet to go before that agonized, appealing figure, a hurrying blot on -the silver pathway, would be swept irrevocably past and beyond hope. It -could be done. Arabella lifted herself breast high out of the water. -She was young again. All the fire of her mixed ancestry blazed up for -the supreme effort. Five feet--three----. It was done. Tristram -stretched out his hand. It was gripped and held with the tenacity of -despair. Arabella went down under the double burden--rose again -superbly. - -"Ayeshi----!" - -"Sahib--I knew that you--would come--she--is--safe--the -jungle---path--behind--the Temple----" - -"Hold on, Ayeshi----" - -"No--Sahib----" - -For an instant their faces were almost on a level. The brightening -moonlight was in Ayeshi's eyes--full of a passionate worship. "Humuyan -came--too--late--not you, Sahib----" - -He tried to wrench his hand free. Tristram cursed bitterly at him. - -"You try to let go--you dare try it--damn you, boy, do you think I'm -going to let you go--now--don't play the Rajah with me here----" - -They were being swept faster and faster downstream. Arabella was dying -under him. He did not know it. He could not have unclasped his hand. -No reason could have mastered the love in him, or denied the love which -illuminated the face lifted to his out of the black waters. - -"Sahib--forgive----" - -"Fool's talk--I don't know the word--hold on, d'you hear? I'll get you -out of it. You shall go scot free--only hold on--Ayeshi----" - -They fought each other, hand clasped in hand, eye to eye. No two -enemies, spurred on by the bitterest hatred, could have fought more -grimly. - -Tristram laughed. - -"I'm stronger than you--always was----" Something flashed up in the -light. "Ayeshi----!" he gasped. - -A faint smile dawned on the native's face. - -"Greater love hath no man----" - -The knife fell with maniacal strength. Tristram closed his eyes. No -fear, but a sheer incredulous horror lamed all power of self-defence. -The second of suspense passed. Nothing--only now there was no weight on -the hand still clasped in his, only Arabella again breasted the torrent -with the energy of release from a killing burden. - -"Ayeshi----!" - -No answer--only that mute, blood-stained hand--grown powerless--and one -more figure floating to join its brothers on the great, silver-flooded -field. - -Two boatmen, guiding their flat-bottomed craft between the ruined hovels -of Heerut, saw him as he waded waist-deep through the receding flood. -The brightening dawn was on his face, but they did not recognize him -till he called them by name. Then silently they paddled towards him and -dragged him to safety. - -They were old men, palsied with the horrors of that night. There was no -thought of rebellion left in them. They could only whisper incoherently, -like frightened children, looking up into his face as at something at -once loved and terrible. - -"Dakktar Sahib--Dakktar Sahib!" - -He became slowly conscious of them and of their piteousness. - -"There's nothing to fear," he said compassionately. "I'm not a -spirit--my horse brought me across--just got me into my depth, poor -girl--I've been wading about--till morning." He composed himself with a -stern effort. - -"Row me to my place--will you?" - -But they shook their heads. - -"Gone, Dakktar Sahib, gone." - -His face was grey--stiff-looking. - -"Still, row me--to where it was." - -They obeyed him. Here and there a wall remained, or a half roof -balanced on a few battered, shapeless heaps of mud. A carcase of a -sacred bull floated backwards and forwards between two ruins, with a -grotesque semblance of life. At the cross-roads the council-tree -trailed its leaves sadly in the still water. - -But where the Dakktar Sahib's hut had been there was nothing. - -He bowed his face upon his hands. - -The men stared at him blankly, themselves too stupefied by loss for -either pity or understanding. The minutes flowed past in mournful, -stately silence. At last Tristram drew himself up. His eyes were -calm--warm with a hardly won knowledge--and the awfulness had gone from -him. - -"Row me to the path behind the Temple. - -"Dakktar Sahib----" they muttered. - -"I shall not ask you to follow me," he said, gently. - -They rowed out of Heerut towards the rising ground of the jungle -mountains. The fiery wheel of the sun rose behind Gaya and the temple -shone like a black opal in the morning glow. As they drew nearer -Tristram's eyes sought out the great window of the _sikhara_. His -thoughts were vague, unformed, still and serene as the water flowing -peacefully over the plain. Through that window Vishnu watched for his -beloved rising amidst her golden-haired dawn-maidens. - -"It is here, Sahib." - -They looked at him and now it was with awe--a kind of dumb protest, but -he smiled at them, shaking his head. - -"There is nothing to fear. Wait for me." - -"Sahib--the curse." - -"There is no curse," he said, with the same gentleness. - -He waded through the water to the place they indicated and pushed aside -the tangled bashes. The hidden path lay before him, leading steeply -upwards. He went on. He was climbing from gloom and shadow into light. -He knew now neither doubt nor fear. A great serenity possessed him. -There could be no curse. Strange flowers clustered at the roots of the -stark, straight-standing trees--but they were not evil. There was -sound--a rustling and crackling among the branches-a frightened -scurrying of some wild creature startled from its lair--familiar loved -sounds of living things. A warm, consoling radiance sank down between -the stems of the trees as light pours down through a cathedral window -upon the stately pillars. - -Up--steadily upwards, up into a higher, purer air, with a strange -heart-beating of foreknowledge. And then at last the end--a wide -clearing on the mountain-summit, and on a high altar, not Siva, but a -golden Lakshmi, her face, beatific in its serene sweetness, turned -towards the rising sun. - -Vahana squatted in her shadow, his half-naked body bowed over something -so still, so huddled that Tristram faltered for an instant. Then he -went forward and Vahana, seeing him unrecognizingly, pointed down with a -shaking finger of derision. - -It was Barclay. His piteous face, lifted to the peace of the clear sky, -was swollen and bloated almost out of recognition. But he bore no trace -of violence. - -Vahana shook with a senile laughter. A fangless adder unwound itself -from about his wrist, and he held it to the dead man's staring eyes, -gibing at him. - -"There are no snakes--there are no snakes." - -But Tristram had gone on. - -He had seen her. Like a pale lotus-flower cast up by the waters, she -lay stretched in the short grass which grew about the foot of the altar, -her fair, dishevelled head pillowed on her arm in an attitude of happy -weariness. He knelt down beside her. The moment's dread was gone. He -saw the faint colour in her cheeks. Her breath came gently, smoothly as -a child's. - -He dared not touch her. Her peace was holy to him. But as though his -nearness pierced like sunlight into the calm depths of her dreams, she -stirred, her lips moved, shaping the shadow of his name. - -He drew her into the warmth and comfort of his arms. So it had been once -before; but now there was no fear, no pain, or conflict. - -"Tristram--I waited for you. I was so tired. I fell asleep. But I was -not afraid. There was nothing to fear--nothing. I knew that you would -come." She smiled wistfully--tenderly. "Bracelet-brother!" - -He found no answer. He pointed out eastwards. Above the desolate plain -the sun climbed up in majesty towards a splendid promise of atonement. -One day the fields would bear their harvest, men would build their -houses upon the ruins--there would be a new bridge across the river, -wiser and stronger. The shadow of a curse was lifted. - -They knelt together, hand in hand, watching, awestruck, at peace. - -Vahana, too, was still. He, too, watched and waited, his mad, -hate-filled eyes growing dim in the clearer light of reconciliation. - - - - THE END - - - - - * * * * * * * * - - - - - _*A Selection from the - Catalogue of*_* - G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS* - - *Complete Catalogues sent - on application* - - - - *DRIFTING WATERS* - - *BY RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA* - - Author of - "The Fringe of the Desert," "The Torch of Life," etc. - - _12vo. 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The scene is in part England, in part Egypt--the -haunting, glowing, throbbing Egypt that the author has again made so -real. - - - - * * * * * - - - - *The Iron Stair* - - *A Romance of Dartmoor* - - *By "Rita"* - - _12vo. $1.35_ - - -In this novel is told how, for the sake of a girl, in pity for her -grief, in blind obedience to her entreaties, Aubrey Derrington, a -possible peer of the realm, the fastidious, bored, dilettante man about -town, whom his friends had known only as such, finds himself not only in -love, but in as tight a corner as ever a man was placed, with the risk -of criminal prosecution as an accessory after the fact. A love story, -full of charm, complexity, and daring, is unfolded in the fresh gorse -and heather-strewn setting of the Devonshire moors and against the dark -background of frowning prison walls. A girl, an innocent convict, a -wolf in sheep's clothing, and the hero of the story are the central -figures. - - - - * * * * * - - - - *The Keeper of the Door* - - *By Ethel M. Dell* - - Author of "The Way of an Eagle," "The Rocks of Valpre," - "The Knave of Diamonds," etc. - - _12vo. $1.40 net_ - - -The Keeper of the Door, a physician whose duty it is to guard the portal -through which the world-sick soul seeks escape. He must fight the enemy -Death, even when the latter comes in friendly guise. On an impulse more -generous than wise the heroine puts into practice the other view, that -in an extreme case of hopeless suffering the extra drop in the spoon -that converts a harmless sedative into a death-dealing potion, is the -only fair way. The story revolves around this act, its effect on the -heroine, the physician whom she loves, and one who seeks revenge. It -shows the author's remarkable story-telling genius at its best. - - - - * * * * * - - - - _*By Cynthia Stockley*_ - - *POPPY* - - *The Story of a South African Girl* - - _With Frontispiece. $1.35 net. By mail, $1.50_ - - -_The Bookman, in a long review, concludes by saying:_ - -"It shows the bravery of self-conquest, the courage of mother love that -fights the world single-handed, stubbornly living down the world's -neglect and scorn, and winning victory through the love and the loss of -a little child. And back of the tenderness and the pathos, never -intruding, yet never forgotten, is the wonderful, luminous atmosphere of -Africa, with its mysterious colors and shadows and scents, and the -ever-present suggestion of flowering bushes, 'redolent with a fragrance, -like the fragrance of a beautiful woman's hair.'" - - - * * * * * - - - *THE CLAW* - - *A Story of South Africa* - - _With Frontispiece. $1.35 net. By mail, $1.50_ - - -"The writer of these lines cannot recall a novel heroine more sweet and -straight and lovable and big of heart, and true and just of thought, and -merciful, than is fair Deirdre Saurin (bless her!) of _The Claw_. - -"_The Claw_ has claims to a cordial appreciation on the part of very -many readers who are fond of stirring, living stories fitly -told."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. - -"A book whose many merits make it quite distinctly a conspicuous volume -in current fiction."--_The Bookman_. - - - *New York -- G. P. 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