.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 49555
   :PG.Title: The Hermit Doctor of Gaya
   :PG.Released: 2015-07-30
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \I. \A. \R. Wylie
   :DC.Title: The Hermit Doctor of Gaya
              A Love Story of Modern India
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1916
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

=========================
THE HERMIT DOCTOR OF GAYA
=========================

.. clearpage::

.. pgheader::

.. container:: frontispiece

   .. vspace:: 4

   .. _`A mad whirl of sound and colour. "Do you mind?" he said. "Can you face it?" Drawn by William J. Shettsline.  (See page 266.)`:

   .. figure:: images/img-front.jpg
      :figclass: white-space-pre-line
      :align: center
      :alt: A mad whirl of sound and colour. "Do you mind?" he said. "Can you face it?" Drawn by William J. Shettsline.  (See page 266.)

      A mad whirl of sound and colour. "Do you mind?" he said. 
      "Can you face it?" 
      Drawn by William J. Shettsline.  (See page `266`_.)

   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: titlepage center white-space-pre-line

   .. class:: xx-large bold

      The Hermit Doctor of Gaya

   .. class:: x-large

      A Love Story of Modern India

   .. vspace:: 2

   .. class:: medium

      By

   .. class:: large

      \I. \A. \R. Wylie

   .. class:: small

      Author of "The Native Born," etc.

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. class:: medium white-space-pre-line

      "This kiss to the whole world"
      *Beethoven's Ninth Symphony*

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. class:: medium

      \G. \P. Putnam's Sons
      New York and London
      The Knickerbocker Press
      1916


   .. vspace:: 4

.. container:: verso center white-space-pre-line

   .. class:: small

      COPYRIGHT, 1916
      BY
      \I. \A. \R. WYLIE

   .. vspace:: 3

   .. class:: small

      The Knickerbocker Press, New York

   .. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   CONTENTS

.. class:: center

   *BOOK I*

.. class:: noindent small

CHAPTER

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

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`_

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center

*BOOK II*

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

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`_





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE STORY OF KURNAVATI`:

.. class:: center x-large bold

   The Hermit Doctor of Gaya

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center medium bold

   *BOOK I*

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER I

.. class:: center medium bold

   THE STORY OF KURNAVATI

.. vspace:: 2

"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 primæval 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 *mésalliances*.  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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRISTRAM THE HERMIT`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II


.. class:: center medium bold

   TRISTRAM THE HERMIT

.. vspace:: 2

"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 dâk-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 *protégé* 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRISTRAM BECOMES FATHER-CONFESSOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   TRISTRAM BECOMES FATHER-CONFESSOR

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE INTERLOPERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE INTERLOPERS

.. vspace:: 2

Rajah Rasaldû 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
dâk-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," Rasaldû 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 naïve 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 Sèvres—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 Sèvres 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 Sèvres 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 Sèvres 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 dâk-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
Rasaldû 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 dâk-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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A VISION OF THE BACKWATER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   A VISION OF THE BACKWATER

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BROKEN SANCTUARY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   BROKEN SANCTUARY

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ANNE BOUCICAULT EXPLAINS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   ANNE BOUCICAULT EXPLAINS

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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——"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE TWO LISTENERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE TWO LISTENERS

.. vspace:: 2

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.  Rasaldû 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 dâk-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."  Rasaldû'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.

Rasaldû 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."

Rasaldû's smile faded.  He looked oddly crestfallen.

"A protégé 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.

Rasaldû 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 dâk-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
dâk-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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`LALLOO, THE MONEY-LENDER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   LALLOO, THE MONEY-LENDER

.. vspace:: 2

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
dâk-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—fêted, 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 dâk-bungalow.  Some one playing.
It's a long way off.  The wind must be in the east——"

"The dâk-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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN ENCOUNTER`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN ENCOUNTER

.. vspace:: 2

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 Rasaldû, 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 machinâ*," 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 *débâcle*, 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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`INFERNO`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   INFERNO

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`IN WHICH FORTUNE PLEASES TO JEST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   IN WHICH FORTUNE PLEASES TO JEST

.. vspace:: 2

The Rajah Rasaldû 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, Rasaldû 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.

Rasaldû 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, Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû's self-complacency.  It was for that very
reason, and also because Gaya had mysteriously collapsed
before her, that Rasaldû 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.  Rasaldû
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.  Rasaldû,
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 Rasaldû 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 fêting 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,
naïvely, "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, Rasaldû
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.

Rasaldû 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 dâk-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 Rasaldû, 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CROSSED SWORDS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   CROSSED SWORDS

.. vspace:: 2

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
dâk-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 Carreño'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 Rasaldû, 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 Rasaldû,
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 Rasaldû, 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 Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû
doing in that *galère*, I should like to know?  And what
the devil is that tearing down the road——?"

Rasaldû 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
Rasaldû, 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.  Rasaldû 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 æsthetic 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRISTRAM CHOOSES HIS ROAD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   TRISTRAM CHOOSES HIS ROAD

.. vspace:: 2

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 dâk-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 protégé 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."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE WEAVERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE WEAVERS

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A MEREDITH TO THE RESCUE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   A MEREDITH TO THE RESCUE

.. vspace:: 2

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.
Rasaldû 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
protégés.  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 Cæsar, Tristram."

"And who is Cæsar?"

"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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MRS. SMITHERS DOES ACCOUNTS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   MRS. SMITHERS DOES ACCOUNTS

.. vspace:: 2

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 dâk-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
dâk-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——"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE FEAST OF SIVA`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE FEAST OF SIVA

.. vspace:: 2

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 Brünnhilde
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.

.. _`266`:

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 mediæval 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 naïve *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."

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM`:

.. class:: center medium bold

   *BOOK II*

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER I

.. class:: center medium bold

   MRS. COMPTON STANDS FIRM

.. vspace:: 2

"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 Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû.  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
dâk-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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A HOME-COMING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER II


.. class:: center medium bold

   A HOME-COMING

.. vspace:: 2

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 Rasaldû 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——"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`MRS. BOUCICAULT CALLS THE TUNE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium bold

   MRS. BOUCICAULT CALLS THE TUNE

.. vspace:: 2

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 Rasaldû'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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ANNE MAKES A DISCOVERY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium bold

   ANNE MAKES A DISCOVERY

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CRISIS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium bold

   CRISIS

.. vspace:: 2

The Comptons had rushed into debt with their eyes
open and their teeth clenched.  More than one piece
of valuable Sèvres 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 Rasaldû 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, Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû 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.  Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû, 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 Rasaldû.

"What's the matter with you?" he said.

Rasaldû'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 machinâ* 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."

"*À l'outrance*, then?"

She smiled faintly.

"*À 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"OF YOUR BLOOD"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   "OF YOUR BLOOD"

.. vspace:: 2

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, Rasaldû, 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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE PRICE PAID`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE PRICE PAID

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RETURN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   RETURN

.. vspace:: 2

"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
Brünnhilde'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 naïvely 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FOR THE LAST TIME`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   FOR THE LAST TIME

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ANNE CHOOSES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   ANNE CHOOSES

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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 *galère*?  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
Rasaldû.  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 Rasaldû, 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 Rasaldû's throat.  A gleam of white light
streaked through the greyness—a muffled scream ended
suddenly by a choking, sickening groan.

Rasaldû 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 æons of memory and feeling into nothing.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FREEDOM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium bold

   FREEDOM

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE MEETING OF THE WAYS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE MEETING OF THE WAYS

.. vspace:: 2

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?  Rasaldû?  Rasaldû 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.

"Rasaldû 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.

"Rasaldû is dead," he repeated.  "Rasaldû 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.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1



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 anæsthetic—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.  Rasaldû 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 Rasaldû 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TO GAYA!`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   TO GAYA!

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`RESURRECTION`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV


.. class:: center medium bold

   RESURRECTION

.. vspace:: 2

"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-à-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—Rasaldû, 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 Rasaldû 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.  "Rasaldû—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——"

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 1

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SNAKE-GOD`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XV


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE SNAKE-GOD

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TOWARDS MORNING`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   TOWARDS MORNING

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center

   THE END

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold white-space-pre-line

   *A Selection from the
   Catalogue of*
   \G. \P. PUTNAM'S SONS

.. class:: center medium bold white-space-pre-line

   Complete Catalogues sent
   on application

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center x-large bold

   DRIFTING WATERS

.. class:: center large bold

   BY RACHEL SWETE MACNAMARA

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

   Author of
   "The Fringe of the Desert," "The Torch of Life," etc.

.. class:: center medium

   *12vo.  Illustrated.  $1.35*

.. vspace:: 2

The rebellion of a young girl, budding into
womanhood, against the jealous proprietorship
of a mother's love.  There has been much
in the married life of this mother to account
for her bitterness of soul and to explain her
tyrannous affection that demands, from the
daughter whom she loves, a singleness of
devotion to the exclusion of everyone else.  The
daughter's fancy is in time caught in the
meshes of love, and the clandestine expression
of her attachment, which the circumstances
demand, involves developments of far-reaching
interest to the unfolding of the story.  The
scene is in part England, in part Egypt—the
haunting, glowing, throbbing Egypt that the
author has again made so real.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3



.. class:: center x-large bold

   The Iron Stair

.. class:: center large bold

   A Romance of Dartmoor

.. class:: center medium bold

   By "Rita"

.. class:: center medium

   *12vo.  $1.35*

.. vspace:: 2

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.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3



.. class:: center x-large bold

   The Keeper of the Door

.. class:: center large bold

   By Ethel \M. Dell

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

   Author of "The Way of an Eagle," "The Rocks of Valpré,"
   "The Knave of Diamonds," etc.

.. class:: center medium white-space-pre-line

   *12vo.  $1.40 net*

.. vspace:: 2

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.



.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 3


.. class:: center large bold

   *By Cynthia Stockley*

.. class:: center x-large bold

   POPPY

.. class:: center large bold

   The Story of a South African Girl

.. class:: center medium

   *With Frontispiece.  $1.35 net.  By mail, $1.50*

.. vspace:: 2

*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.'"



.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

.. vspace:: 2



.. class:: center x-large bold

   THE CLAW

.. class:: center large bold

   A Story of South Africa

.. class:: center medium

   *With Frontispiece.  $1.35 net.  By mail, $1.50*

.. vspace:: 2

"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*.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: center large bold

   New York — \G. \P. Putnam's Sons — London

.. vspace:: 6

.. pgfooter::